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Rock County, Wisconsin

Biographies

"Ludwig Kumlien"

LUDWIG KUMLIEN, M.S., Professor of Physics and Biology at Milton College, Milton, Rock
County, inherited his taste for science. He was born in Jefferson County, Wis., March 15, 1854, one of the five children of Thure Theodore Ludwig and Marguerita (WALLBERG) KUMLIEN, natives of Sweden near Upsala. Of this family, three sons and two daughters, only two now survive, Prof. KUMLEN and his brother Theodore, the latter occupying the old homestead in Jefferson County. The father, Thure Theodore Ludwig KUMLIEN, was a naturalist and teacher in Sweden, his native land, and in 1842 emigrated to America, settling on a farm in Jefferson County, Wis., near Sumner, where he reared his family. He was for a number of years conservator in the public museum in Milwaukee, making his home all the time in Jefferson County, where he died in 1888, aged sixty-nine years. His wife died in 1874. Both were Lutherans in religious faith.
Ludwig KUMLIEN, the grandfather of our subject, was army quartermaster in Sweden and died
there at an advanced age. He was the owner of several large estates, and was widely known. His family comprised sixteen children. The maternal grandfather of our subject, Mr. WALLBERG, was a trainer of government cavalry horses in Sweden, in that capacity controlling a number of men. His family consisted of eleven children. He lived to exceed the age of eighty years.
The boyhood of our subject was spent on the farm in Jefferson County. Entering Albion academy
as a student, he graduated at the age of nineteen, in 1873. He was then for three years a special student in the scientific course at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, completing his studies in 1877. Immediately after he left school, Mr. KUMLIEN joined the polar expedition under Capt. Howgate, as naturalist, and in the Northern seas rendered valuable service to the cause of science. His career since then has been one of active devotion to scientific pursuits. He was assistant to the United States Fish Commission and Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., making for the former investigations on artificial propagation of food fishes, and for the latter extensive scientific collections in the various Western and Northwestern localities of North America, and also in the Northern seas, 1877-78. He has been a member of the American Ornithological Union since 1875. He was instructor at Albion Academy from 1889 to 1891, and in the latter year became professor of physics, natural history and physiology at Milton College, with the Faculty of which institute he has since been prominently identified. He has made various contributions to science. He was a contributor to "North American Birds," by Baird, Brewer and Ridgeway, in 1874, and to "Water Birds," by the same, in 1877-78; has been a contributor to ornithological and zoological publications since 1876; is the author of "Contributions to the Natural History of Arctic America.," Bulletin No. 15, United States National Museum, 1879; was special agent, Tenth census, United States, on Fisheries of the Great Lakes, and of Narragansett and Buzzard's Bays, 1879-81. He contributed "Life History of North Atlantic Seals," to Prof. A. J. Allen's "Monograph of North American Pinnipedia," in 1880; and was associate author "North American Food Fishes," National Museum, 1881-83. He contributed many scientific papers in reports of the United States Fish Commission and Smithsonian Institution Bulletins of National Museum, 1876-83; also in the publications entitled "The Auk," "The Nidologist," "The Osprey," and "Forest and Stream," since 1876. He is the author of Special Census Reports of Fisheries of the Great Lakes, 1883, and was Determining Collector for the Milwaukee Public Museum in 1886. He was a contributor to "Birds of Michigan" in 1893, and has prepared scientific collections for State Normal schools of Wisconsin and other institutions since 1895.
Prof. KUMLIEN married a Miss CARR, and they have three children, Ludwig Baird Carr,
Lawrence Lorraine and Alice Lenore.
 
Taken from "Commemorative Biographical Record of the Counties of Rock, Green, Grant, Iowa and Lafayette Wisconsin" (c) 1901, pp. 89-90.
 
Courtesy of Carol

This page last updated July 12, 2002
 
©2002 WIBiographies-Rock County
 
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