Theodore Lyman (Massachusetts)
Encyclopedia
Theodore Lyman III was a natural scientist, military staff officer during the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

, and United States Representative from Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

.

Biography

He was born in Waltham
Waltham, Massachusetts
Waltham is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, was an early center for the labor movement, and major contributor to the American Industrial Revolution. The original home of the Boston Manufacturing Company, the city was a prototype for 19th century industrial city planning,...

, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

 on August 23, 1833, son of Boston mayor Theodore Lyman II
Theodore Lyman (militiaman)
Theodore Lyman II was an American philanthropist, politician, and author, born in Boston, the son of Theodore Lyman and Lydia Pickering Williams. He graduated at Harvard in 1810, visited Europe , studied law, and with Edward Everett, revisited Europe in 1817-19...

 and Mary Henderson of a prominent New York family. The first Theodore, Lyman's grandfather, founded a successful shipping firm in the 1790s in York, Maine
York, Maine
York is a town in York County, Maine, United States at the southwest corner of the state. The population in the 2000 census was 12,854. Situated beside the Atlantic Ocean on the Gulf of Maine, York is a well-known summer resort. It is home to three 18-hole golf clubs, three sandy beaches, and...

, that provided the basis for the family fortune. Captain Lyman, as he was known, relocated to the Boston suburb of Waltham and sought out noted Salem architect, Samuel McIntire
Samuel McIntire
Samuel McIntyre was an American architect and craftsman, Chestnut Street District, a legacy to one of the earliest architects in the United States, Samuel McIntyre is a primary example of Federal style architecture....

, to design and build the Lyman Estate
Lyman Estate
The Lyman Estate 37 acres , formerly known as The Vale, is a historic country house located at 185 Lyman Street, Waltham, Massachusetts. It is now owned by the nonprofit Historic New England organization...

 known as the Vale, which is today a park and house museum. Mayor Lyman served two terms and retired from public office in 1836 upon the sudden death of his wife Mary. His son Ted, as he was known by family and friends, was educated by private tutors and traveled extensively in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 with his father. Mayor Lyman died in 1849, possibly from a stroke. Young Theodore was sixteen years old. From his father he inherited a 60 acres (242,811.6 m²) working farm in Brookline
Brookline, Massachusetts
Brookline is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States, which borders on the cities of Boston and Newton. As of the 2010 census, the population of the town was 58,732.-Etymology:...

, called Singletree. His older sister Cora inherited the town house on Beacon Hill, and the two split stocks and investment income amounting to $430,000. Lyman's uncle, George Williams Lyman, took deed to the Vale. Cora's husband, Gardner Howland Shaw, guided Theodore into Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

 where he was graduated in 1855 near the top of his class. Theodore then entered the University's Lawrence Scientific School and studied under professor Louis Agassiz
Louis Agassiz
Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz was a Swiss paleontologist, glaciologist, geologist and a prominent innovator in the study of the Earth's natural history. He grew up in Switzerland and became a professor of natural history at University of Neuchâtel...

, one of the preeminent natural scientists of the 19th century. He graduated with honors in 1858. Lyman was a founding member and underwriter of Harvard's Museum of Comparative Anatomy. Lyman first met future major-general George Gordon Meade in 1856 while conducting research on starfish in Florida. Lieutenant Meade was there overseeing construction of lighthouses for the Army Corps of Engineers. They became friends and corresponded frequently before the Civil War.

Ted Lyman married Elizabeth "Mimi" Russell in 1858. Elizabeth was the daughter of George Robert Russell of Russell & Company, a successful merchant turned philanthropist. Mimi's mother was Sarah Parkman Shaw. Robert Gould Shaw
Robert Gould Shaw
Robert Gould Shaw was an American officer in the Union Army during the American Civil War. As colonel, he commanded the all-black 54th Regiment, which entered the war in 1863. He was killed in the Second Battle of Fort Wagner, near Charleston, South Carolina...

, wartime colonel of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry of the movie "Glory" fame, was Mimi's first cousin. On the eve of the Civil War, Ted and Mimi embarked on a Grand Tour of Europe's capitals and their first child, Cora, was born in 1862 in Florence, Italy.

Lyman returned to the United States in May 1863 to serve on the staff of Major General Meade as aide-de-camp with a commission as lieutenant-colonel from Governor Andrew of Massachusetts. Lyman followed Meade until the end of the war from September 2, 1863, to April 20, 1865. During this time, he served as headquarters archivist. He also put his life on the line carrying flags of truce through hostile lines at Cold Harbor and Petersburg
Siege of Petersburg
The Richmond–Petersburg Campaign was a series of battles around Petersburg, Virginia, fought from June 9, 1864, to March 25, 1865, during the American Civil War...

. His published letters and notebooks establish him as the preeminent recorder of events and personalities within the headquarters of Army of the Potomac. After the war, he was a state Fish Commissioner, after wards a federal commissioner, and one of the first scientists to advocate the widespread use of fish ladders, known then as "fishways." He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...

 and of the National Academy of Sciences
United States National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine." As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and...

, a trustee of the Peabody Education Fund, and an overseer of Harvard University. In his role as overseer he was influential in getting his cousin Charles W. Eliot elected as President of Harvard, a position Eliot held for near forty years. Lyman was also active in the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Society of the Army of the Potomac, and the Military Historical Society of Massachusetts.

Ted and Mimi's daughter Cora died in 1869 of a "brain fever." The couple subsequently raised two boys, Theodore IV and Henry. Theodore Lyman
Theodore Lyman
Theodore Lyman was a U.S. physicist and spectroscopist, born in Boston. He graduated from Harvard in 1897, from which he also received his Ph.D. in 1900. He became an assistant professor in physics at Harvard, where he remained, becoming full professor in 1917, and where he was also director of...

 IV attained renown as a physicist.

Lyman was elected as an Independent Republican representative to the Forty-eighth Congress (March 4, 1883-March 3, 1885) on a reform platform. The bipartisan coalition that put him into office collapsed by 1885, and he was passed over for nomination for a second term. He retired to Singletree in Brookline, where he devoted himself to the care of his sons. Through the last decade of his life, he suffered from a debilitating nervous disease. He gradually lost use of his limbs and was unable to continue work at the Museum of Comparative Zoology. Despite his paralysis, he was lucid and retained a sense of humor until the end of his life. He died in Nahant
Nahant, Massachusetts
Nahant is a town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 3,632 at the 2000 census. With just of land area, it is the smallest municipality by area in the state...

, Massachusetts on September 9, 1897 and was buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery
Mount Auburn Cemetery
Mount Auburn Cemetery was founded in 1831 as "America's first garden cemetery", or the first "rural cemetery", with classical monuments set in a rolling landscaped terrain...

 in Cambridge
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...

.

During his life, Theodore Lyman acquired hundreds of acres of land on Buttermilk Bay, Cape Cod, to preserve the spawning grounds of the ocean running red brook trout. His legacy and summer cottage are preserved today as the Theodore Lyman Reserve, located in Wareham, Plymouth and Bourne. The property is open to the public and managed by The Trustees of Reservations.

External links

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