months, and the rest of the year he spent in Boston. In 1847 he resigned this professorship to accept the Hersey professorship of anatomy in Harvard College, a chair at this time transferred from the medical school to the college at Cambridge, while a new professorship, the Parkman, was established at the medical school in Boston and conferred upon Oliver Wendell Holmes. Wyman began his work at Harvard in Holden Chapel, a small building not well fitted to the purpose. The upper floor was made into a lecture room while the lower floor contained the dissecting room and museum of comparative anatomy, which was a mere rudiment when he took charge of it, but rapidly enlarged under his activity. He gave two annual courses of lectures and lessons, each for twenty weeks. One was on embryology, the other on anatomy and physiology. In addition to teaching undergraduates he directed numerous special pupils in advanced work and was loved as a simple, unaffected, attractive, stimulating teacher.
Wyman's museum was one of the first of its kind in the country to be arranged on a plan both physiological and morphological. "No pains and labors were spared, and long and arduous journeys and voyages were made to contribute to its riches."[1] (Gray.)
Among these expeditions, the following are the more important: In the summer of 1849 he accompanied Capt. Atwood, of Provincetown, upon a fishing voyage up the coast of Labrador. In the winter of 1852 while in Florida for his health, he began a fruitful study of this district. In 1854, accompanied by his wife, he travelled extensively in Europe, and visited many of the best museums. In the spring of 1856, with his pupils Green and Bancroft as companions, he sailed to Surinam, made canoe trips far into the interior, where they got many interesting collections, but also got the fever from which Wyman suffered severely. In 1858–59 he accompanied Capt. J. M. Forbes on a voyage to the La Plata, ascended the Uraguay and the Parana, and then with George Augustus Peabody, as a companion, crossed the pampas to Mendosa, and the Cordilleras to Santiago and Valparaiso, returning home by way of the Peruvian coast and the Isthmus.
Wyman's museum was made up of specimens gathered largely by himself and at his own expense, and in the main prepared by his own hands, but Agassiz by his personal enthusiasm got many to aid him. In Dr. Wyman "we have an example of what one man may do unaided, with feeble health and feebler means, by persistent and well-directed industry, without éclat, and almost without observation. While we duly honor those who of their abundance cast their gifts into the treasury of science, let us not, now that he cannot be pained by our praise, forget to honor one who in silence and penury cast in more than they all." (Gray).
Although Wyman's salary was small, he adapted his wants to his means, yet was not one to complain when, in 1856, Dr. William J. Walker, a friend of his father's, sent him ten thousand dollars to aid in his work. In the same year Thomas Lee, another friend, supplemented the endowment of the Hersey scholarship with an equal sum, stipulating that the income should be paid to Prof. Wyman during life whether he held the chair or not. The aid given Wyman by these two gifts did much to enable him to continue scientific work in comfort. In 1866 Wyman was made one of the trustees of the Museum and held the professorship of American Archeology and Ethnology, founded by George Peabody, of Harvard University. By the other trustees he was made curator of the museum. After taking charge of the museum he devoted himself mainly to ethnology.
"With what sagacity, consummate skill, untiring diligence and success, his seven annual Reports, the last published just before he died, his elaborate memoir on shell-heaps, and especially the Archeological Museum in Boylston Hall, abundantly testify. If this museum be a worthy memorial of the founder's liberality and foresight, it is no less a monument of Wyman's rare ability and devotion." (Gray).
In 1850 Wyman married Adeline Wheelwright, who died in June, 1855, leaving two daughters and in 1861, Anna Williams Whitney, who died in 1864 shortly after the birth of a son.
Wyman suffered throughout most of his life from consumption, which grew worse as time went on, so his winters were usually spent in Florida. During the earlier years he did much to build up the museum of which he had charge. "The record shows that he has made here one hundred and five scientific communications, several of them very important papers, every one of some positive value.
- ↑ Holmes in a biographical sketch of Wyman in the Atlantic Monthly for November, 1874, has given an interesting description of the museum.
