The start of our Earth and Environmental Sciences department is often tied to Newton Horace Winchell’s arrival at the University of Minnesota. However, that origin tale is a bit misleading as the first natural history courses, including geology, mineralogy, and botany, began with the institution itself. Or at least with its second rebirth when the University of Minnesota reopened in 1867, six years after shuttering its doors at the outbreak of the Civil War, yet five years before Winchell moved to Minnesota.
When state senator John Sargant Pillsbury reopened the University of Minnesota’s preparatory department on October 7th, 1867, the institution only consisted of four professors, one assistant, and fifty students. William Wallace Washburn served as the principal and taught Greek and English Literature, Rev. Gabriel Campbell taught Latin and German, Ira Moore taught Mathematics and History and Edward Henry Twining was the instructor in Natural Science, the only non-classical assignment of the roster. Twining was also the last faculty member hired. In the 1868 University of Minnesota’s Catalogue of the Officers and Students of the Preparatory Department the name of the Instructor in Natural Sciences was left blank with a note that they would be elected before the fall term began.
Twining’s appointment was not intended as a theoretical science counterbalance to the university’s predominately classical studies but was an attempt to begin an agricultural science program at the University of Minnesota. Much of the nascent institution’s funding was tied to federal land grants for agricultural colleges. To justify receiving those funds, agriculture became one of the university’s two departments with Twining its sole instructor.
In the Regent’s 1868 annual report, Pillsbury’s wrote:
To give prominence to the department of agriculture and to take charge of classes in applied chemistry and such natural sciences as are more closely connected with the agricultural course, the Board have appointed Mr. Edward H. Twining, a Professor in 'Washington College, Penn. Professor Twining has been a teacher in the scientific school at Yale, and comes with the warm recommendation of the faculty of that institution.
Faculty Page from the UMN 1867-68 Preparatory Department Catalogue.
As it turned out, agriculture had a very troubled start at the new university, so Twining’s appointment quickly changed.
Within a year, the university doubled its faculty - despite losing two professors. Washburn was promoted from principal of the preparatory department to the chair of Greek. However, he soon resigned his position to devote himself to the ministry and was replaced. In a more significant move, William Watts Folwell replaced Ira Moore, who left to take charge of the St. Cloud State Normal School. Although hired to teach mathematics, Folwell soon became the university’s president and would shepherd the institution’s growth over the next fifteen years.
The teaching roster for the university’s 1869 academic year consisted of eight faculty. President William Watts Folwell taught mathematics, Rev. Gabriel Campbell taught moral and intellectual philosophy as well as German, Versal Jesse Walker taught Latin, Rev. Jabez Brooks taught Greek, Aris Berkeley Donaldson taught rhetoric and English literature. Maj. Gen. Richard Woodhouse Johnson taught military science and tactics, Daniel Alexander Robertson taught agriculture (although no students enrolled in that program), and Edward Henry Twining now taught chemistry, natural sciences, and French.
Class schedule for the 1869-70 academic year from 'Forty Years of the University of Minnesota' by E. Bird Johnson (1910).
By the end of 1869, Arthur Beardsley, a graduate of the Polytechnic School, of Troy, New York, had been hired as a tutor. In June of 1970, Beardsley became the ninth faculty member, professor of Civil Engineering and Industrial Mechanics.
However, the acknowledged increase in Twining’s responsibilities still understated his contributions. In his few years at the university, Twining was called upon to teach Latin, German, military science, and elocution as needed. Even within the natural sciences, Twining’s range was remarkable. In his last three terms during the 1871-1872 academic year, Twining taught eleven classes which included two terms of Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, Physical Geography, Zoology, Physiology, Botany, Chemical Physics, Chemistry and Physiology, Physical Geography and Botany, and Elementary Astronomy. For this last year only, Twining was released from teaching French, Latin, or German.
Throughout the university’s early years, Twining was the only faculty member who taught in both of the institution’s colleges, the College of Science, Literature, and the Arts and the College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts. Hence, during his four years at the University of Minnesota, every enrolled student took lessons with Twining in Main Building’s room 27.
The University of Minnesota in 1869. This building would later be known as Old Main and was destroyed by a fire in 1904.
Pre-Minnesota Life
Twining was born on October 3, 1833, in Lowell, Massachusetts, the second of eight children born to Margaret Eliza Johnson Twining and Reverend William Twining, then minister of the Appleton Street Church and later professor of mathematics, natural philosophy and astronomy at Wabash College. A dedicated abolitionist, William Twining left Wabash College after the 1854 term and moved to St. Louis, Missouri to work with the Underground Railroad helping escaped slaves flee to Canada.
Both Twining’s father (William) and grandfather (Stephen) attended Yale College so after Twining graduated from Wabash College in 1852, he went to Yale’s Sheffield Scientific School for graduate study. William Watts Folwell later reported that Twining was the best chemistry student during his time at Yale and was selected to become Professor Samuel W. Johnson’s laboratory assistant. Twining’s responsibilities included chemical analyses of peats, mucks, and other natural fertilizers and Johnson praised the accuracy of his work.
William Stephen Twining (1805-1884)
Captain Edward Henty Twining of Company K of the 33rd Illinois Infantry.
After completing his master’s at Yale, Twining held a few teaching positions before marrying Harriet Leavenworth Sperry of Waterbury, Connecticut on August 6, 1860. Twining then taught at Illinois College in Jacksonville. With the outbreak of the Civil War, Twining enlisted with Company K of the 33rd Illinois Infantry for a three-year term on August 21, 1861. According to his enlistment records, Twining was 5’ 8” with grey eyes and a fair complexion. Harriet was not only without her husband for the duration of the war, but also suffered the loss of their firstborn child, a daughter, at the same time Twining left.
For a year, Twining served as a private. The in July of 1862, he was promoted to captain and company drill master. While still at Illinois’ Camp Butler, Twining was offered a teaching position at an Eastern college and his superior officer offered to secure Twining’s discharge from the company. Twining replied that he had ‘enlisted to help put down the rebellion and shall go south with the company.’ He followed through on his promise, serving with Company K until September 28, 1864, when President Lincoln promoted him to Captain ADC (aide-de-camp) on the staff of Major General Joseph Jones Reynolds in New Orleans.
Minnesota Life
After the war’s end, Twining was appointed to a chemistry professorship in Pennsylvania’s Washington and Jefferson College in 1866 but moved to the University of Minnesota in the fall of 1867. The move may have been particularly difficult for Harriet as she gave birth to the couple’s third surviving daughter, Almira Catlin, on November 13, shortly after their arrival. Twining’s starting salary was $1,500 for the year, $500 less than Washburn’s salary as principal, but $500 more than A. J. Richardson’s salary as an assistant instructor. The couple, with three daughters, found a home in Saint Anthony close to the university.
As might be expected in a new institution, the faculty had to help out in unexpected ways. Yet Twining seems to have taken on a lion’s share of the load. He was elected secretary for the faculty meetings and with Beardsley compiled, without remuneration, an alphabetical author catalog of the university’s growing library which included 4,000 titles. In addition, Twining offered to drill Company B of the University’s military program so Major Johnson could focus on Company A. He was then called into further duties when two additional companies became necessary. In his free time, which must have been scant, Twining also served as the secretary for the Minnesota Natural History Society, which formed in 1869 with the goal of creating a university museum. Their efforts led to the first collections of what would later become the General Museum.
Professor Edward Henry Twining at the University of Minnesota in 1869 (from 1893 Gopher).
In Twining’s summation of his duties in the 1870 Board of Regents’ Annual Report, he wrote about concerns familiar to many modern instructors, such as the difficulty of engaging students in chemistry and his dissatisfaction with the available textbooks. He also suggested an annual appropriation to purchase apparatus as needed might be more effective than requiring faculty to order everything ahead of time. Of more importance to our present department though, it was in this report that Twining made the first official mention of what would become the University of Minnesota’s General Museum.
‘The first steps toward a Mineralogical and Geological cabinet have been made within the past year. A number of valuable mineralogical specimens were obtained from Professor Hall of Illinois, and a small box of minerals and geological specimens, was kindly sent to me by [no name entered into space] of Illinois. The want, of any room suitably situated and furnished for such collections, tends to discourage any attempts to make them, and the demand for room for other purposes has been such that it has not seemed advisable to apply for space for this object.
In the following 1871 Regent’s Annual Report, Twining reported that besides botany, chemistry, physical geography, and natural philosophy, he had taught French, German, and Latin throughout the year. He also warned that the university would soon have students interested in advanced chemistry, which would require additional materials and apparatus.
Twining’s last summary was part of the 1872 Regents’ Annual Report, a report which noted that ‘The services of Professor E. H. Twining being no longer required, he has accepted a position in the University of Missouri’. Twining appears not to have felt any hard feelings for the loss of what William Watts Folwell would later refer to as ‘a position for which there was but a beggarly outfit.’ He closed his last report to the university regents with the lines:
‘I have been highly gratified by the interest taken by the students with whom I have had to deal in their studies, and by the marked progress generally made. I consider the Board of Regents justified by the event, in the high standard they have set for the Collegiate Department, and in taking leave of the University I desire to urge upon them that no considerations be allowed to operate to its degradation. The tone of the elementary work in the Collegiate Department will, when carried into the higher duties of the University, certainly secure for it usefulness and universal respect.
I have the honor to remain, respectfully, your obedient servant,
E. H. TWINING,
Professor of Chemistry.’
Post-Minnesota Life
After the 1871-72 academic year, Twining left Minnesota to teach at the University of Missouri as its Chair of Latin. He began in September of 1872 but resigned only five years later and moved to Saint Louis, Missouri to teach in that city’s high schools. The trigger for his resignation and move was undoubtedly Harriet’s untimely death at the age of 40 on December 14, 1876. Although the change from university professor to high school teacher was less prestigious, the move served another purpose. Twining’s parents and his three sisters lived in Saint Louis, providing an unparalleled support system for a widower with four children under the age of 13 with the youngest child, William Edward Twining, only two years old.
In 1882, Twining rejoined the military service, as secretary and engineer to the Mississippi River Commission. That commission had been established three years earlier to reform the Mississippi River into a more reliable commercial waterway while protecting riverfront farms and towns from floods through levee construction. Although Twining’s credentials and abilities qualified him for the position, his younger brother, William Johnson Twining, may have helped him secure the job. William had graduated the United States Military Academy in 1863 as a first lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers and became a major in March of 1865 shortly before the Civil War ended. William dedicated his life to the Army and became Major of Engineers in 1877 and Engineer Commander of the District of Columbia the following year. If William’s influence did help Edward earn or learn of the position, it turned out to be a parting gift. William died of pleurisy that May and was buried with military honors at West Point.
Twining stayed with the Mississippi River Commission for the remainder of his career, originally working in the Fullerton Building of Saint Louis and later in the commission’s headquarters in Brooklyn, New York. He retired from the commission in 1904 at age 70. During his later years, Twining and his children made their home in Waterbury, Connecticut, which was the home of Harriet’s family and where Harriet was buried.
Edward Henry Twining in 1900.
On March 20, 1920, Twining died in Montreal, Canada at the age of 86. His surviving children had his body brought back to Waterbury to lie next to Harriet and all three would later join Edward and Harriet in the same cemetery.
Epilogue
Although it had been a half-century since Twining’s time at the University of Minnesota, his death was still acknowledged there. In the 29 March 1920 Minnesota Alumni Weekly, William Watts Folwell wrote Twining’s eulogy, praising the remarkable range and depth of his abilities.
W. W. Folwell's eulogy of Edward Henry Twining
from 29 March 1920 Minnesota Alumni Weekly
Although Newton Horace Winchell worked at the University of Minnesota for twenty-eight years and built a national reputation for the Minnesota Geological and Natural History Survey, it is only fair to acknowledge our program did not start with him.
Before Winchell, there was Twining, an under-supported, overworked instructor of considerable talents, who, among his many contributions to our institution, first taught geology and mineralogy at the University of Minnesota.