Eben Norton Horsford

Eben Norton Horsford (27 July 1818 â€" 1 January 1893) was an American scientist who is best known for his reformulation of baking powder, his interest in Viking settlements in America, and the monuments he built to Leif Erikson.

Life and work

Eben Horsford was born in Livingston County, New York in 1818. He studied at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, graduating as a civil engineer at age 19. He then worked for two years in the Geological Survey of New York, and shortly after he had reached his majority he became an instructor in mathematics and the sciences at the Albany Female Academy, where he taught for four years, after which he resumed his studies in Germany with Justus von Liebig. On returning to the United States, Horsford was appointed the Rumford Professor and Lecturer on the Application of Science to the Useful Arts at Harvard in 1847. He taught chemistry and conducted research at the Lawrence Scientific School at Harvard for 16 years, and published articles in major scientific publications on such topics as phosphates, condensed milk, fermentation, and emergency rations.

Eben Horsford probably is best remembered today for reformulating baking powder. Previously, baking powder had contained baking soda and cream of tartar. Horsford replaced the cream of tartar with the more reliable calcium biphosphate (also known as calcium acid phosphate and many other names). He did this a little earlier than August Oetker. In 1854, Horsford, with partner George Wilson, formed the Rumford Chemical Works. They named it after the title of Horsford's position at Harvard. It was in that enterprise that Horsford created his commercially successful baking powder. Horsford's development of baking powder was designated a National Historic Chemical Landmark in 2006.

A generous supporter of higher education for women, Horsford became president of the board of visitors of Wellesley College, and donated money for books, scientific apparatus, and a pension fund to the college. He enjoyed remarkable success through his development of processes for manufacturing baking powder and condensed milk. In seeking patents for his inventions, Horsford was assisted by Charles Grafton Page, a patent solicitor who had previously worked at the US Patent Office.

Vikings

Horsford became interested in visits to North America by Vikings, such as Leif Ericson, and was determined to prove that North America had been discovered not by a Mediterranean Catholic, but by an Aryan. He connected the Charles River Basin to places described in the Norse sagas, invented Old Norse etymologies for Algonquian place-names like Naumkeag, Namskaket, and Amoskeag, and 'discovered' Viking archaeological remains. Horsford had a plaque documenting all this placed on Memorial Drive near Mount Auburn Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts. A few miles upstream, at the mouth of Stony Brook, he had a tower built marking the supposed location of Norumbega, a Viking fort and city, complete with its Althing and America's first Christian bishop. He also commissioned the statue of Leif Ericson that still stands on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston. The professor wrote a seemingly endless series of books, articles, and pamphlets about the Vikings' visits to Massachusetts. After his death, his daughter Cornelia took up the cause. Their work received little support from mainstream historians and archeologists at the time, and even less today.

In honor of Horsford's generous donations to Wellesley College, a building named Norumbega Hall was dedicated in 1886 and celebrated by a poem by John Greenleaf Whittier.

Selected works

• A Discussion of the Explosion of Burning Fluid which Took Place at Salem (1852)
• The Army Ration (1864)
• The Theory and Art of Bread-making: A New Process Without the Use of Ferment (1869)
• Report on Vienna Bread (1875)
• The Problem of the Northmen (1889)
• The Discovery of the Ancient City of Norumbega, Houghton, Mifflin, 1890.
• The Problem of the Northmen, Houghton, Mifflin 1890.
• The Defenses of Norumbega, Houghton, Mifflin, 1891.
• The Landfall of Leif Erikson, A.D. 1000, and the Site of his Houses in Vineland, Damrell and Upham, 1892.

References and notes

Further reading

• Munday, Pat (1999). "Eben Horsford". In Garraty, John A.; Carnes, Mark C. American National Biography 11. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 227â€"228. 
• Rezneck, Samuel Rezneck (1970). "The European Education of an American Chemist, and Its Influence in 19th-Century America: Eben Norton Horsford". Technology and Culture 11 (3): 366â€"388. doi:10.2307/3102198. JSTOR 3102198. PMID 11615557. 
• Stock, John T. (1988). "Eben Horsford (1818â€"1893) and the measurement of electrolytic resistance". Journal of Chemical Education 65 (8): 700â€"701. doi:10.1021/ed065p700. 
• Van Klooster, H. S. (1956). "Liebig and his American pupils". Journal of Chemical Education 33 (10): 493â€"497. doi:10.1021/ed033p493. 

External links

• Obituary â€" American Druggist, 1892, volume 22, no. 6, December issue, page 139
• Development of Baking Powder from American Chemical Society National Historic Chemical Landmarks
• Rumford Baking Powder history
• Horsford's picture at the Dibner Library
• Papers of the Horsford Family â€" at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
• Picture of Horsford