The 1910 U.S. Census lists John Herschel Lemon was born in September 1844 and his obituary lists at a farm near Harrodsburg, Indiana. His family moved to
Bloomington, Indiana in 1856 when he was 12, where at age 13 he and his brothers became students at
Indiana University (IU). The American Civil War interrupted his studies
and in May 1862 he became a private in the 54th Indiana Infantry,
Company A and later 82nd Indiana Infantry, Company F. They guarded 4000+ Confederate prisoners of war (POWs) at Camp Morton (Indianapolis) and later
deployed to western Kentucky.
The Owen Connection
His interest in paleontology may have been inspired by geologist Richard D. Owen (1810-1890) who was boarder at his mother's house in Bloomington, Indiana. Owen
was professor on Natural Science at IU for 15 years and served as
colonel in the Union Army in the 15th and later 60th Indiana Infantry
Regiment and was in charge of the POWs at Camp Morton. His permanent residence
was in New Harmony, Indiana and where he is buried when he died.
After the war, John Lemon
continued his studies at IU and later studied at University of Michigan.
Once he became a doctor, he moved to New Albany in 1867 and practiced
medicine till the 1930s. He died on July 10, 1935 which at that time he
was considered Indiana's longest serving physician.
The Smithsonian Connection
In 1887, Dr. Lemon sent the Smithsonian some charophyte fossils found at
the Falls of the Ohio. F. H. Knowlton (1860-1926) named the fossil after him in
1889 calling it Calcisphaera lemoni in a paper called Description of a problematic organism from the Devonian at the Falls of the Ohio. The holotype specimens are in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History USNM P 3664.
The George Greene Connection
New Albany fossil collector and author George K. Greene named a number of fossils after Dr. Lemon in publications from 1904. Greene named the fossil horn coral Heliophyllum lemoni in which wrote "The specific name is in honor of Dr. John Lemon, of New Albany, Ind., an ardent collector and a good palaeontologist. Found in the lower Devonian (Corniferous group), at the Falls of the Ohio. Now in the collection of the author." Later in his publication, he named another fossil after Lemon, the Crania? lemoni. "The specific name in in honor of the discoverer, Dr. John Lemon, of New Albany, Ind."
The Colonel Lucien P. Beckner Connection
Beckner had two fossils of Dr. Lemon in his collection. The first was a Paraconularia newberryi (Winchell) fossil still partially embedded in a nodule.Another was labeled Pentremites pyriformis? blastoid both fossils listed as found in Indiana.
Sources
In preparing this entry about Dr. Lemon, an informative blog post entitled Dr. John Herschel Lemon Reminisces about Early Life in Bloomington by Randi Richardson on November 26, 2018 at the Monroe County History Center Research Library blog was found helpful.
George K. Greene's Contribution to Indiana Palaeontology Volume I Part I to XX published from February 1898 till September 1904.
Smithsonian National Musuem of Natural History Department of Paleobiology Collections database
Frank Hall Knowlton's 1889 paper Description of a problematic organism from the Devonian at the Falls of the Ohio
Photoshop enhanced and colored from copy of photograph in Miss Emma Carleton scrapbook no. 1, page 11. Date unknown but probably early 1900s. Original plate should be at the New Albany-Floyd County Public Library archives
Early Life
George Kennard Greene was born November 18, 1833 in Columbus, Indiana to Captain George Greene (1802-1877) and Eunice R. Parker Greene (1808-1893). His parents lived in Hancock County, Kentucky and George K. went to public schools there. He was also tutored in Latin and science privately. As a boy, his family was visited by the German paleontologist and showman/entrepreneur Albert C. Koch (1804-1867) who was collecting fossil specimens for a French college. Probably around 1847, he joined Mr. Koch on his geological journeys where he learned more about becoming a geologist and fossil dealer.
Koch was famous for finding the Missouri Leviathan (a mis-assembled mastodon) that he excavated in 1840 and later sold to the Museum of Natural History in London England for $2,000 plus a $1,000 a year for as long as he was alive. Read its interesting story at the museum web site. Later in 1845, he found a whale like creature now known as a Basilosaurus in Alabama. The specimen was sold to a museum in Prussia in 1848. Whether George Greene helped him with this last sale, it is not documented.
Greene moved to Hardinsburg, Kentucky and married Mary "Mollie" Jane Lewis in 1859. They had 8 children including Newton A. "Gus" Greene (1866-1938), who would later become mayor of New Albany. The other children were William Alexander Greene (1860-1942), Eunice M. Greene (1864-1933), George C. Greene (1868-1882), Daisy Boyd Greene (1871-1948), Sidney S. Greene (1873-1875), Alma Belle Greene (1876-1958), and Robert Greene (1881-1887).
The 1860 U.S. Census lists him in Hawesville, Kentucky with his wife and son William. His occupation is listed as deputy sheriff and worth at $600. He enlisted in the Confederate army Company H, 10th (Colonel A. R. Johnson) Regiment Kentucky Cavalry on November 15, 1862. He was captured in Louisville on September 1, 1863 and shipped to Camp Douglas, Illinois prisoner of war camp. On February, 24, 1865 he was exchanged at Point Lookout, Maryland and swore is oath of alligence to the United States on May 12, 1865.
In 1870, they moved to Jeffersonville, Indiana to be closer to the Falls of the Ohio and it's fossil beds where he collected his specimens to sell. He made another move in 1878 to New Albany where he setup his fossil shop. Indiana University employed him to arrange Dr. Dale Owen's (1807-1860) fossil collection. Afterwards, he worked for five years as Assistant State Geologist and made several state geological surveys. His wife died in 1882. In 1885, he became one of the founding members of the Indiana Academy of Sciences.
Scientific Work
In 1886, he financially sponsored and provided the Falls of the Ohio fossil specimens for E.O. Ulrich (1857-1944) to publish Contributions to American Palaeontology. In it Ulrich names a brachiopod Rhynchonella greeniana (Ulrich, 1886) after Greene. Ulrich makes a misstep in naming a new foraminifera genus Moellerina and species M. greenei as it later turns out the fossil is a plant charophyte. The name is still used though and the type specimen is at the Smithsonian catalog number P42079. Elizabeth McGowan married him on May 28, 1894.
Rhynchonella greeniana (Ulrich,1886) brachiopod fossil named in honor of George Greene
Moellerina greenei (Ulrich, 1886) charophyte algae fossil named for George K. Greene
Image courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution Specimen Catalog Number: USNM P 42079 Specimen GUID: http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/m37c47d760-07e4-435e-8f46-fd2194d87b1a Photographer Curt Breckenridge. Specimens housed in the collections of the Department of Paleobiology, National Museum of Natural History,
Smithsonian Institution. Holotype of Moellerina greenei (Ulrich, 1886) named for George K. Greene who found in Devonian Period layer of Jeffersonville Limestone at Falls of the Ohio Clark County, Indiana, USA
From February 1898 till September 1904 he published Contribution to Indiana Palaeontology Volume I Part I to XX. University of Michigan paleontologist and coral fossil expert Erwin C. Stumm noted in 1964 that Greene "described 164 species of rugose and tabulate corals"... from the Falls of the Ohio but many were already described previously. Non-coral fossils were described by R. R. Rowley (1854-1935) of Louisiana, Missouri. Having another researcher allowed him to publish new fossil names where the species was named after him. Specifically a horn coral Blothrophyllum greenei (Rowley, 1904), a crinoid Dolatocrinus greenei (Rowley, 1904), and a blastoid Nucleocrinus greenei (Rowley, 1904).
His second wife died in 1910. Below is his business card of the different types of historical items he dealt with.
On September 17, 1911, The Courier-Journal published an almost full page article about George Greene entitled "Fossils Found Revert to Age When Louisville Was At the Equator". He reveals that he has sold fossils to American Museum of Natural History, British Museum of Natural History, Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard, Boston Society of Natural History, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Borden Institute of Indiana. He considered some of his best finds a 150 pound coral found in the mud of Silver Creek which he sold to William Borden for $50 and an over 100 arm crinoid calyx he sold him for $100. "This specimen is considered the finest ever found, both for beauty and size. It was five and one-half inches high and three inches in diameter. It had 152 arms."
He told the journalist that he was content living as a recluse in his two room home next door to his son, the mayor. "Despite his 76 years, he is hale and hearty. He eats only the simplest foods, prepared by his own hands. He does not drink, chew or smoke, and never was seriously sick in his life."
Photoshop enhanced
and colored from copy of photograph in Miss Emma Carleton scrapbook no.
1, page 11. Date unknown but probably early 1900s. Original plate should
be at the New Albany-Floyd County Public Library archives
Death
In September of 1916, Greene was admitted into the Southeastern Hospital for the Insane (aka "Cragmont" now known as Madison State Hospital). George Greene died of a cerebral embolism at approximately 1 A.M. on August 19, 1917. The Indiana State Board of Health Certificate of Death 25540 listed his occupation as geologist. He was buried at Fairview Cemetery in New Albany, Indiana.
Legacy
His son, Newton sold his father's collection consisting of 1500 boxes, 100 cabinet drawers, 3 show cases, 5 bins, 65 cigar boxes, 1 trunk of Indian relics, 3 cabinets and 20 bushels of fine specimens for $5,500 to the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York City. When Dr. C.A. Reed, Assistant Curator at AMNH shipped it off to the New York, it weighed 23,000 lbs. and estimated to consist of 400,000+ specimens. They never curated it except for the type specimens. Dr. Reed also bought the William J. McConathy (1841-1918) collection for $2,300 consisting of 7,000+ coral specimens that were shipped with the Greene collection. In 1960, the Greene collection was donated to the U.S. National Museum. As of this writing in 2023, their database shows 23 specimens with the species name of greenei.
The Sources:
Greene Family file, Indiana Room, New Albany-Floyd County Public Library, 180 West Spring Street, New Albany, Indiana 47150
Dr. Lane consulted with librarian Ruth Ann Kramer (1920-2017) at the New Albany-Floyd County Public Libary and its Indiana Room collection. I recently visited there and reviewed their research file. It contains correspondence with Mrs. Kramer and Dr. Lane about George Greene from a period 1980-1982. She carbon copied all her letters about this research and Dr. Lane was good enough to send her copies of what he had found for the library file. The file contains more than what is covered in the 1987 article. Greene had correspondence with James Hall (New York State Museum of Natural History), Edward Orton (Ohio Geological Survey), Stephen E. Lee (Indiana Department of Geology and Natural History), S.S. Gorby (Indiana Department of Geology and Natural History), William W. Borden (Borden Institute), S.S. Newberry (School of Mines, Columbia College), William A. Oliver (U.S. National Museum), and letters to Canadian geological institutions.
After reading a lot of the letters Mrs. Kramer had sent trying obtain more information about George Greene for the library, I had respect for this research. Since this had occurred over 40 years ago I felt she had probably passed away and went looking for an obituary. I only found a notice in a Pennsylvanian newspaper she had died but no obituary and just that she was buried nearby in Floyd Knobs, Indiana next to her husband. Next did a little more research and found a memorial video created by her daughters on YouTube that I found to be a very touching remembrance of a life well lived.
This is a drawing of an oogonium of the algae Nitella leptosoma (Nordstedt, 1880). It was from plate 3 of the book Australasian characeae by Otto Nordstedt Part 1 1891. The habitat of this plant is in bogs at Omatangi, near Tampo, New Zealand (about 600-900 meters above sea level).
Otto Nordstedt (1838-1924) was a Swedish botanist who obtained a medical degree from Lund University and later became a botanist specializing in algology. He became a professor at Lund University and retired at the age of 84. The book I scanned the above images from belonged to Dr. James Conkin (1924-2017) who was professor at the University of Louisville and studied charophyte fossils. At a recent geology meeting after giving a presentation about the Louisville fossil collectors Henry Nettelroth and Dr. James Knapp, his daughter presented this book to me. Below is image of what appears to be a Harrisichara (Grambast, 1957) charophyte fossil found by Dr. Conkin at Isle of Wright off the coast of England. See full posting about at this link.
Every so often I visit a local retired geology professor to chat about fossils. He has a unique fireplace in his study that was mortared together with various fossils. Here are few pictures of some of the fossil embedded in the fireplace. All the images were taken with a Motorola Moto X smartphone.
I think the first image might be a model of a charophyte or some sort of Astylospongia fossil. Next is some sort of model of a foraminifera.
The next two images are of colonial coral fossils.
In my continuing adventure of trying to photograph charophyte (small green aquatic plant) fossils, here is the latest picture. This fossil is quite large compared to the others and is from Tibet, China. All the container is labeled is Tibet so I have no other information to provide.
Thanks to Dr. James Conkin of Louisville, Kentucky for letting me photograph it.
He and his wife have published a booklet about some of their charophyte research. It is entitled Orientation of North American Paleozoic Primitive Charophyte Gyrogonites - Updated (2010).
I believe it is $12 US with shipping included. Contact the publishers to purchase a copy.
These pictures represent my first attempt at photographing a charophyte fossil. The microscope is using a mixture of Celestron lens for a telescope to get different magnifications. The one used for these pictures is 46x. This specimen is from the Isle of Wight off the coast of England. It is probably from the Eocene or Oligocene.
Looking at a paper by Monique Feist-Castel entitled Evolution of the Charophyte Floras in the Upper Eocene and Lower Oligocene of the Isle of Wight (1976), this fossil might be some sort of Harrisichara sp.
