EATON, AMOS

born May 17, 1776, Chatham, N.Y. died May 10, 1842, Troy, N.Y., U.S. American botanist, geologist, and lawyer who aroused widespread interest in science through his public lectures and inspired many students as a teacher and writer of textbooks. Educated at Williams College (Williamstown, Mass.), he worked in Catskill, N.Y., as a lawyer and land agent and pursued the study of natural science. After giving a well-received series of public lectures on botany, mineralogy, and geology and publishing a book on botany (1810), he abandoned his law practice and studied at Yale. He moved to Williamstown, and his lectures there on science were so successful that he lectured in various other towns in New England. The course of lectures he gave in 1818, at the request of Governor DeWitt Clinton, before the New York State Legislature led to the establishment of a State Geological Survey (1836). He was appointed professor of natural history at the Medical School at Castleton, Vt. (1820), made geological and agricultural surveys, and in 1824 became a senior professor at the Rensselaer School (now Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) at Troy.