History of Plainfield, (LaPorte County) Indiana United States of America

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William Temple Hornaday, naturalist, was born near Plainfield, Ind., Dec. 1, 1854; son of William and Martha (Varner) Hornaday. He was educated at the Iowa Agricultural college, and in 1873 entered the natural science establishment of Prof. Henry A. Ward at Rochester, N.Y. In 1874-75 he was sent as a collecting naturalist to the Bahama Islands, Cuba and Florida; and in 1876 he visited the West Indies and South America. During the years 1876-79 he made a trip around the world, also for Professor Ward, in the course of which he visited India, Ceylon, the Malay peninsula and Borneo, and made extensive collections of mammals, large birds, reptiles, fishes and invertebrates. In 1880 he aided in founding the Society of American Taxidermists, which exerted an important and permanent influence toward elevating taxidermy to a rank with the five arts. He introduced many new and important methods in the mounting of mammals, and won numerous prizes in competitive exhibitions. He was chief taxidermist of the U.S. National Museum at Washington,1882-89, In 1886 he was sent by the Smithsonian Institution to Montana to collect a series of specimens of the American bison, and the large group now in the National Museum is composed of specimens shot and mounted by him. In 1887 Mr. Hornaday proposed to Prof. Spencer F. Baird that steps be taken to establish in Washington, under the direction of the Smithsonian Institution, a national zo?logical garden, and in 1888, under the direction of Dr. G. Brown Goode, the plan was inaugurated, on the lines proposed by Mr. Hornaday, by the creation of a department of living animals at the National Museum. Subsequently, in 1889, the National Zo?logical Park was established by congress, and Mr. Hornaday was appointed its superintendent. In 1890 congress appropriated $92,000 for the first year's improvements, and the park was placed unreservedly under the control of the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. Immediately following this, Professor Langley ordered changes from the original plan so radical that Mr. Hornaday resigned rather than carry them into effect. He went to Buffalo, N.Y., and engaged in real estate operations, 1890-96. In 1896 he accepted the position of director of the New York Zo?logical Park, then about to be founded by the New York Zo?logical society. He is the author of: Two Years in the Jungle (1885); Free Run on the Congo (1888); The Extermination of the American Bison (1889); Taxidermy and Zo?logical Collecting (1892); The Man Who Became a Savage (1896); Guide to the New York Zo?logical Park (1899), and contributions to periodicals.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

History of Plainfield, (LaPorte County) Indiana

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