| George Getz Shumard | |
| Birth Date: | 10 January 1823 |
| Birth Place: | Burlington, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Death Place: | Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S. |
| Children: | 2 |
George Getz Shumard (January 10, 1823 – September 29, 1867) was an American geologist and surgeon.
George Getz Shumard was born on January 10, 1823, in Burlington, New Jersey.[1] His father was John Shumard and his mother, Ann Catherine (Getz) Shumard.[1] [2] His brother, Benjamin Franklin Shumard (1820–1869), went on to serve as the first state geologist of Texas.[1]
He graduated from medical school in Louisville, Kentucky.[1] [2]
He moved to Fort Smith, Arkansas, where he practiced as a surgeon.[1] [3] At the same time, he served as an assistant geologist to his brother and much of North and West Texas.[1] [4]
Together with Randolph B. Marcy (1812–1887) and George B. McClellan (1826–1885), he explored the Red River of the South in 1852.[1] [5] He kept a diary, which focused on the geology of the Northern plains from Fort Belknap in Young County, Texas to the Llano Estacado in the Texas Panhandle.[1] His diary, together with a report on paleontology in the region, was presented to President Franklin Pierce (1804–1869), who served as the 14th President of the United States from 1853 to 1857.[1] [3] [5] In 1858, it would appear in the Transactions of the Saint Louis Academy of Sciences.[1] Several decades later, in 1886, it was published in its entirety by Hamilton P. Bee (1822–1897), who served as Texas State Commissioner.[1]
He took part in several further explorations. In 1854, together with Marcy, he explored the Wichita River and the Brazos River.[1] A year later, in 1855, together with John Pope (1822 - 1892), he travelled from Indianola to San Antonio, on to Fort Clark, up the Devil's River, up the Pecos River to Delaware Creek, and west to the Mimbres Mountains in New Mexico.[1] [6] From 1858 to 1861, he served as Assistant State Geologist for the Texas state geological survey, working on the Red River of the South.[1]
He corresponded with pioneer explorer Gideon Lincecum (1793–1874), who gave a bottle of mustang wine as well as its recipe to thank Shumard for sending him a copy of his pamphlet entitled, Notice of Fossils from the Permian Strata of Texas to New Mexico.[7]
In 1861, he moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he served as Ohio State Surgeon until his death.[1]
He married Isabella Clark Atkinson in 1859.[1] They had two children.[1]
He died of general paralysis on September 29, 1867, in Cincinnati, Ohio.[1] [4] [8]