Page:Men of Mark in America vol 1.djvu/174



LVORD, HENRY ELIJAH, LL.D., chief of the dairy Division of the United States department of agriculture, was born in Greenfield, Massachusetts, March 11, 1844. His parents were Daniel Wells and Caroline Matilda (Clapp) Alvord. His father was a lawyer of fine legal attainments with a special taste for historical studies. He was a man of high character and strong political convictions, a member of the Free Soil party and an advocate of free trade. He was a member of the legislature of Massachusetts and of the state constitutional convention; was district attorney for several years, and was collector of United States internal revenue from 1862 until 1868. His earliest known ancestor in America was Alexander Alvord, who died in Northampton, 1683.

Henry Elijah Alvord studied in the public schools of Greenfield, Massachusetts, and took the scientific military course at the Norwich (Vermont) university, from which institution he was graduated in 1863. He began the active work of life as a volunteer soldier in the Civil war, June, 1862, in a company of students called "the College Cavaliers," and by regular promotions he reached the rank of major in the volunteer service and, later, that of captain in the regular army. From 1865 until 1866 he was superintendent of Freedmen's affairs and Freedmen's schools in Virginia and South Carolina. He served in Kansas and the Indian Territory during the Indian troubles, 1866-69. He was professor of military science and tactics in the Massachusetts agricultural college, 1869-71. Soon afterward he resigned from the army and engaged in stock and dairy farming in Fairfax county, Virginia. He was special United States Indian commissioner, 1872-73; teacher in the scientific department of Williston seminary, Easthampton, Massachusetts, 1873-81; general manager of the Houghton experimental farm, Mountainville, New York, 1881-85, and edited its publications; professor of agriculture at the Massachusetts agricultural college, 1885-87; president of the Maryland agricultural college and director of the Maryland agricultural experiment station, 1887-92; had