Samuel Wendell Williston (1851-1918)

The bulk of the Museum's exten­sive collection of Cretaceous speci­mens from the famous Niobrara "Chalk Beds" of Kansas was ob­tained in the period 1890-1902, when S. W. Williston was professor of geology.

Samuel Wendell Williston was born in Boston on July 10, 1851, and died in Chicago on August 30, 1918. He became known as America's foremost student of fossil reptiles and amphibians, as well as a distin­guished entomologist. He also held an M.D. degree, was the first dean of the University of Kansas School of Medicine, and established Kansas' State Board of Health, a model organization of the time.

The Williston family moved from Boston to Manhattan, Kansas in 1857. Williston attended Kansas State University, or Kansas State Agri­cultural College as it was then known, graduating with a B.S. de­gree in 1872. At Kansas State he was particularly influenced by Professor Benjamin F. Mudge and developed a strong interest in natural history. On the recommendation of Professor Mudge, Williston was hired by O. C. Marsh, the eminent vertebrate pale­ontologist of Yale University, to col­lect fossils and to work in Marsh's laboratory in New Haven. He was employed by Marsh from 1876 to 1885, during which time he received his M.D. in 1880, and his Ph.D. (entomology) in 1885, from Yale. From 1886 to 1890 he taught anatomy at Yale, and served for a time as public health officer of New Haven.

In 1890 Williston was offered the position of professor of geology and paleontology at the University of Kansas by Chancellor F. H. Snow. He accepted, and from 1890 to 1902 he was one of the best-known figures on the Lawrence campus. During that period the fossil collections were greatly expanded. The increase was mainly in Chalk Bed (Cretaceous) specimens, both fish and reptile, and dinosaurs of the Late Jurassic.

In 1902, Williston left Kansas to assume a professorship at the newly established University of Chicago.