Henry Augustus Ward

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Henry Ward, founder of Ward's Natural Science

Henry Augustus Ward (1834-1906) was an American naturalist, born in Rochester, New York.

After attending Williams College and the Lawrence Scientific School, Harvard, where he was an assistant of Louis Agassiz, he traveled in Egypt, Arabia, and Palestine, and studied at the Jardin des Plantes, the Sorbonne, and the School of Mines in Paris, and at the universities of Munich and Freiberg. Subsequently, he traveled in West Africa and the West Indies, making natural history collections.

In 1860, he returned to Rochester where he was professor at the University of Rochester until 1865. In Rochester, he founded Ward's Natural Science, a pioneer enterprise of its kind, which collected specimens from all parts of the world, and then mounted and sold them to colleges and museums.

He published:

Notices of the Megatherium Cuvieri (1863)
Descriptions of the Most Celebrated Fossil Animals in the Royal Museums of Europe (1866)

In 1897, he married a widow, Lydia Avery (Coonley), (1845- ), president of the Chicago Woman's Club in 1895-96, who wrote Under the Pines, and other Verses (1895); Singing Verses for Children (1897); Love Songs (1898); etc.

He died on July 4, 1906, after being struck by an automobile in Buffalo, New York.