Major Chapman Grant

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapman_Grant

Chapman Grant (March 27, 1887, Salem Center, New York - January 5, 1983, Escondido, California) was an American herpetologist, historian, and publisher. He was the last living grandson of United States President Ulysses S. Grant. He was married and had two children, one of whom survived him.

Biography

Chapman Grant was the son of Jesse Root Grant, the youngest son of the 18th President of the United States Ulysses S. Grant. In 1892 he moved to San Diego with his parents. As a child, he spent time at the California Academy of Sciences, where he developed his interest in science. He graduated from Williams College in 1910. He became the assistant curator of entomology at the Children's Museum of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences in September 1913. In November 1913, he left the museum for a military career beginning on the Mexican border. He was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant in the 14th U.S. Cavalry. He married Mabel Lillian Pennebacker in December 1913. He continued his scientific studies while in the Army. When he was assigned as commandant of the Reserve Officers' Training Corps at the University of Wichita in the 1930s, he wrote scientific papers on herpetology and was curator at the Arkansas Valley Museum and Historical Society. He retired with a rank of major.

In the 1930s and 1950s several expeditions for the San Diego Museum of Natural History and the University of Illinois Museum of Natural History led him to the study of the Caribbean herpetofauna where he discovered and described fifteen new species, including Blue Iguana, Cotton Ginner Gecko, Gaige's Dwarf Gecko, Klauber's Dwarf Gecko, Nichols' Dwarf Gecko, Roosevelt's Dwarf Gecko, Townsend's Dwarf Gecko, Cook's Anole, Culebra Island Giant Anole, Cochran's Croaking Gecko, Web-footed Coqui, Cook's Robber Frog and the Whistling Coqui.

In 1932 he established the magazine Herpetologica, the quarterly journal of the Herpetologists' League, an association of several notable herpetologists in the USA, which he co-founded in 1936. He was also the publisher of a second magazine - Scientists Forum.

In 1982 the Major Chapman Grant Hall of Ecology in the Museum of Natural History in San Diego was named in honour of him. In 1983 he died at the age of 95 in a nursing home. He left one son - Ulysses S. Grant V (b. 20 September 1920).

Works

Secondary sexual differences and notes on the mud turtle Kinosternon subrubrum in northern Indiana. American Midland Naturalist (1935) 16(5) pp. 798–800.

Natrix sipedon sipedon in central Indiana, its individual and sexual variation. American Midland Naturalist (1935) 16(6) pp. 921–931.

Herpetological notes from central Kansas. American Midland Naturalist (1937) 18(3) pp. 370–372.

The Herpetology of Jamaica (with W. Gardner Lynn), (1940) Bull. Inst. Jamaica Sci. Ser. 1: 1-148.

Differentiation of the two southwestern tortoises (genus Gopherus), with notes on their habits. Trans. San Diego Nat. Hist. Soc. (1960) 12(27) pp. 441–448.

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Obituaries

Chapman Grant Dead at 95; Grandson of Ulysses S. Grant

Published: January 15, 1983

Chapman Grant, historian, zoologist, publisher and grandson of Ulysses S. Grant, has died at the age of 95 in a nursing home.

Mr. Grant, a native of Salem Center, N.Y., was the son of Jesse Grant, the President's youngest son.

He died Jan. 5, and is survived by his son, Ulysses S. Grant 5th.

Mr. Grant moved to San Diego with his parents in 1892. His studies of reptiles in the Caribbean led to the discovery of 15 previously unclassified species. From 1932 to 1960 he published the magazine, Herpetologica. He also published another magazine, Scientists Forum. ----

While living in New York in 1913, Mr. Grant, a graduate of Williams College, served as assistant curator of the Children's Museum at the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences. He left the museum to join the Army.