MENU

Whose Discovery Was It?

Chapter 3: The Conflict Begins

chapter illustration

Dr. James Deane (courtesy of the Historical Society of Greenfield) and Prof. Edward Hitchcock (courtesy of Amherst College Archives and Special Collections). While several images of Hitchcock still exist, this is the only known one of Deane.

Hitchcock continued to study fossil footprints at Amherst College. Dr. Deane’s attention was taken up by his medical practice, but he occasionally sent Hitchcock specimens. The laborer Dexter Marsh collected tracks in his free time. Other residents of Massachusetts and Connecticut learned about the tracks and also sent Hitchcock rocks with footprints in them from their towns. Peace and goodwill reigned. 

But then a series of events in the early 1840s provoked Hitchcock to defend himself, as he felt that his claim to the discovery was being challenged. The more he fought, the more real the challenge became, until it culminated in an argument between Deane and himself in the pages of the American Journal of Science.

In his 1841 Final Report on the Geology of Massachusetts, Hitchcock barely mentioned Deane in an overview of the events of the discovery. Buried in the middle of a new 60-page section on the tracks, he made passing notice of “the first specimen of fossil footmarks that ever fell under my notice; having been pointed out to me by Dr. James Deane of Greenfield.” Deane wrote later that he "felt the coldness of these ambiguous compliments, for in his conclusions from the facts, and elsewhere in this learned work, its author was compelled by controlling necessity, to adopt facts, opinions and arguments which were emphatically expressed to him ere his skepticism had been dispelled; yet I did not complain." Perhaps Deane did not complain at the time, but he was not quiet forever.

Trouble began when Silliman, in his speech at the April 1842 annual meeting of the Association of American Geologists, held in Boston that year, gave an overview of the progress of American geology. The transcript, running over 30 pages, was published in the American Journal of Science. A third of the way through a long list of advances made in geology over the previous year, Silliman briefly acknowledged the fossil footprints, mentioning James Deane a few words ahead of Hitchcock. Hitchcock took it amiss. Shouldn't his name come first? Perhaps it rankled because the famous British geologist Charles Lyell, on his first tour of America, was participating in that meeting. Lyell had just visited Amherst and Hitchcock had taken him to a track site. Hitchcock may have found it humiliating to seem to be put publicly on the same level as the amateur Deane. In any case, Hitchcock said nothing to Silliman at the time, but he felt slighted.

Not long afterward, James Deane saw a letter in a local newspaper describing that meeting and noting the topic of Hitchcock and fossil footprints. "The obvious import of the allusion to this subject, was to weaken the validity of my claim, by conferring the honor of discovery on a Mr. Moody and some others . . ., " fumed Dr. Deane. As he saw it, "after all that had passed between Mr. H. and myself, the manner and matter of this publication, filled me with vexation and astonishment. I supplied Mr. H. for that paper alone no less than three or four new varieties of these impressions . . . "

Now both men were feeling wronged.

Next chapter: Hitchcock Feels Betrayed

Dig Deeper