{{Short description|American geologist and physician (1820–1869)}} {{Use mdy dates|date=November 2024}} {{Use American English|date=November 2024}} {{Infobox person | image = {{CSS image crop |Image = PSM V52 D649 George Engelmann and B F Shumard.jpg |bSize = 400 |cWidth = 200 |cHeight = 250 |oTop = 0 |oLeft = 220 |Location = center }} | birth_date = {{Birth date|1820|11|24}} | birth_place = Lancaster, Pennsylvania, US | death_date = {{Death date and age|1869|4|14|1820|11|24}} | death_place = St. Louis, Missouri, US | occupation = Geologist, physician | spouse = Elizabeth Maria Allen | children = Two daughters | known_for = Shumard oak }}
'''Benjamin Franklin Shumard''' (November 24, 1820 – April 14, 1869) was an American physician and geologist. He served as a doctor in Kentucky, then worked for about 15 years as a geologist. He conducted geological surveys in several states (Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Oregon, Wisconsin) before being appointed in 1858 as the State Geologist of Texas. He organized the first major Texas Geological Survey.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=Shumard |first=Roberta |title=Shumard, Benjamin Franklin |url=https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/shumard-benjamin-franklin |access-date=September 12, 2024 |publisher=Texas State Historical Association |language=en}}</ref> In 1860, an assistant state geologist named the Shumard oak species in his honor. On the heels of a political struggle over his appointment, Shumard moved back to Missouri during the Civil War and resumed his medical career there.
==Life and career== Shumard was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and his parents, John and Ann Catherine (née Getz), moved to Cincinnati when he was young. His maternal grandfather was an inventor, which may have led to his interest in science. He studied at Miami University and medical school in Kentucky.<ref name=":3" /> His younger brother, George Getz Shumard, who was considered a better geologist, assisted Benjamin with the Texas surveys,<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last=Young |first=Keith |date=January 1, 1994 |title=The Shumards in Texas |url=https://meridian.allenpress.com/esh/article/13/2/143/204849/The-Shumards-in-Texas |journal=Earth Sciences History |language=en |volume=13 |issue=2 |pages=143–153 |doi=10.17704/eshi.13.2.3202402042v0qv31 |bibcode=1994ESHis..13..143Y |issn=0736-623X|url-access=subscription }}</ref> and later became Surgeon General of Ohio.<ref>{{cite web |first=Roberta |last=Shumard |title=Shumard, George Getz |url=https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/shumard-george-getz |publisher=Texas State Historical Association}}</ref> Benjamin married Elizabeth Maria Allen in 1852 and they had two daughters.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /> The Shumard oak was identified in an 1860 publication by Samuel Botsford Buckley, an assistant to Shumard in Texas who named the species in honor of Shumard.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Quercus shumardii Buckley {{!}} Plants of the World Online {{!}} Kew Science |url=https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:284115-2#publications |access-date=September 12, 2024 |website=Plants of the World Online |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":0" /><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Buckley |first=Samuel Botsford |date=1860 |publication-date=1861 |title=Description of Several New Species of Plants. |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/i386407 |journal=Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia |volume=12 |pages=443–445 |jstor=i386407}}</ref> Buckley later became chief geologist himself.<ref name=":6" />
[[File:Shumard Oak at Miami U IMG 1797.png|thumb|Shumard oak on the "tree walk" at Miami University, where Shumard studied]] On August 25, 1858, Shumard was appointed as the state geologist for Texas. He was charged mainly with surveying the state's mineral resources and the suitability of its soils for agriculture. After visiting Philadelphia and New York, he purchased instruments and chemicals, packed up his St. Louis specimens and library, and arrived in Austin at the end of October. For staff, he hired his brother George Getz Shumard, an experienced geologist, chemist W.P. Riddell, and A. R. Roessler as drafter; two others were assigned for meteorological observations.<ref name=":4">{{Cite book |last=Shumard |first=Benjamin Franklin |url=https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/b50a6b27-fd69-404d-aae9-256d0e2d3e28/content |title=First Report of Progress of the Geological and Agricultural Survey of Texas |date=December 1, 1859 |publisher=John Marshall & Co., State Printers |location=Austin, Texas}}</ref>
The survey team's field operations ended in November 1859. On December 1, Shumard submitted his "First Report of Progress of the Geological and Agricultural Survey of Texas." The report covered eastern and central Texas, with details on 11 counties. He also reported "an extensive coal formation" in northern Texas, in an area over 4,000 square miles, which he predicted "will exercise a most important influence on [the state's] welfare and prosperity." Most of the coal was lignite. Besides coal, the survey reported on "vast accumulations of iron ore", limestone, lead, copper, gypsum, silver, and shale. In a tangential comment, decades before the Texas oil boom, Shumard noted "the occurrence of Petroleum, which has been observed at several locations in the State".<ref name=":4" />
In August 1860, Shumard submitted to the Texas legislature another progress report on the survey. By that stage, he reported surveying 15 counties and 4 partially. Besides the extensive report on mineral wealth, this report concludes by arguing for the benefit of subsoiling technique for crops "during the present unprecedented dry season".<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Shumard |first1=Benjamin Franklin |url=https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/items/5e49e558-9fda-4a7a-b39c-d9f4e5d01627/full |title=A partial report on the geology of western Texas |last2=Shumard |first2=George Getz |publisher=State Printing Office |year=1886 |location=Austin |pages=139–145 |chapter=Geological survey of Texas}}</ref> Later that year, Sam Houston became governor and replaced Shumard with Francis W. Moore, a former Houston mayor and an amateur geologist.<ref>{{Cite web |last= |first= |title=Moore, Francis, Jr. |url=https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/moore-francis-jr |access-date=September 15, 2024 |website=Texas State Historical Association |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":5">Merrill, George Perkins. ''Contributions to the history of American geology''. US Government Printing Office, 1906. pp. 487–488, 508–509</ref> Though the Texas legislature backed Shumard, Houston did not reinstate him, partly due to allegations by his then-assistant Buckley, as Buckley noted in a 1874 report.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2" /> Buckley accused Shumard of mismanagement<ref name=":1" /> and claimed that Shumard "was a poor mineralogist, and had little knowledge of the other departments of natural history".<ref name=":2">{{cite web |last=Roessler |first=A. R. |year=1875 |title=Reply to the charges made by SB Buckley, State Geologist of Texas, in his official report of 1874, against Dr. BF Shumard and AR Roessler. |url=https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/bc3d474b-4e53-4980-8240-9b48ba20b33d/content |quote=[Quoting Buckley's 1874 First Annual Report, Buckley stated:] 'Dr. Shumard was busily engaged in persuading the members of the Convention to reinstate him in office, and that too, with every prospect of success. To thwart this, I drew up charges against Dr. Shumard and placed them in the hands of Gov. Houston.'}}</ref> Shumard, in turn, later wrote that Buckley was "utterly incompetent", had taken his "precious little" knowledge of geology from him, "and that anything he may write would not command the respect of any man".<ref name=":2" /> Buckley was himself eventually named state geologist.<ref name=":5" /><ref name=":6">{{Cite web |last= |first= |title=Buckley, Samuel Botsford |url=https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/buckley-samuel-botsford |access-date=September 15, 2024 |website=Texas State Historical Association |language=en |quote=In 1860–61 Buckley was assistant geologist and naturalist in the Texas Geological Survey under Benjamin F. Shumard.... He received a Ph.D. degree from Waco University in 1872 and, when a second Texas Geological Survey was organized in 1874, became state geologist, a post he held until 1877.}}</ref>
Shumard moved back to Missouri after Texas joined the Confederate side of the Civil War.<ref name=":0" /> He became a professor of obstetrics at the University of Missouri, where his field notebooks are archived.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Hansen |first=Kelli |date=March 10, 2014 |title=Bejamin Franklin Shumard's field notebooks |url=https://library.missouri.edu/news/special-collections/bejamin-franklin-shumards-field-notebooks |access-date=September 12, 2024 |website=Library News |language=en-US}}</ref> He was a founder of the Academy of Natural Science of St. Louis, first as secretary and later as president.<ref name=":3">{{Cite journal |last=Starr |first=Frederick |date=1897–1898 |title=The Academy of Natural Science of St. Louis |url=https://dn790009.ca.archive.org/0/items/popularsciencemo52newy/popularsciencemo52newy.pdf |journal=Appleton's Popular Science Monthly |volume=52 |pages=629–634}}</ref> Shumard was involved in several controversies in geology, including the taxonomy of Cretaceous rocks. In 1858, he announced the discovery of a marine Permian layer in the Guadalupe mountains, but his claim was disputed for more than 40 years.<ref name=":1" /> Some of his geology findings themselves became the subject of further research.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Trumbull |first1=Ellen James |last2=Shumard |date=1958 |title=Shumard's Type Specimens of Tertiary Mollusks from Oregon and Other Types Formerly at Washington University, St. Louis |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1300707 |journal=Journal of Paleontology |volume=32 |issue=5 |pages=893–906 |jstor=1300707 |issn=0022-3360}}</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
== Further reading == * Shumard, Benjamin Franklin. ''Report of Progress of the Geological and Agricultural Survey of Texas''. Vol. 1. J. Marshall & Company, state printers, 1859. * Shumard, Benjamin Franklin. "The primordial zone of Texas with descriptions of new fossils." ''American Journal of Science'' 2, no. 95 (1861): 213–221. * Owen, David Dale, Joseph Leidy, Joseph Granville Norwood, Charles Christopher Parry, Henry Pratten, Benjamin Franklin Shumard, and Charles Whittlesey. ''Report of a Geological Survey of Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota: And Incidentally of a Portion of Nebraska Territory. Made Under Instructions from the United States Treasury Department''. Vol. 1. Lippincott, Grambo & Company, 1852.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shumard, Benjamin Franklin}} Category:1820 births Category:1869 deaths Category:19th-century American medical doctors Category:19th-century American geologists Category:Medical doctors from Kentucky Category:People from Lancaster, Pennsylvania Category:Miami University alumni Category:University of Missouri faculty Category:Medical doctors from Pennsylvania