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Truman Heminway Aldrich (born October 17, 1848 in Palmyra, New York, died April 28, 1932 in Birmingham, Alabama) was a civil engineer, a mining company executive, and a paleontologist, and briefly served in the United States House of Representatives and as Postmaster of Birmingham. Events 539 BC - King Cyrus The Great of Persia marches into the city of Babylon, releasing the Jews from almost Year 1848 ( MDCCCXLVIII) was a Leap year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian Calendar (or a Leap Palmyra is a Town in Wayne County, New York, USA. The population was 7672 at the 2000 census Events 1192 - Assassination of Conrad of Montferrat (Conrad I King of Jerusalem, in Tyre, two days after his title Year 1932 ( MCMXXXII) was a Leap year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. Birmingham (ˈbɝmɪŋhæm is the largest City in the US state of Alabama and is the County seat of Jefferson County. The United States House of Representatives is one of the two chambers of the United States Congress; the other is the Senate. Postmaster (or Postmistress) refers to the head of an individual Post office.

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Early life and education

Aldrich was born in Palmyra and suffered from poor health as a young boy. He attended public schools and a military academy at Westchester, Pennsylvania before enrolling at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. The Borough of West Chester is the County seat of Chester County Pennsylvania, United States. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, or RPI, is a Nonsectarian private Research University located in Troy, New York Troy is a City in New York, US, and the County seat of Rensselaer County. He graduated in 1869 with a degree in mining and civil engineering and took a job with the railroads in New York and New Jersey. Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design construction and maintenance of the physical and naturally built In 1870 he married Anna Morrison of Newark.

Alabama coalfield development

Aldrich's career was characterized by innovation and long-term vision. His strength was in finding new resources, developing them and then moving on to the next discovery. He was an honorable man in science as well as in business.

In 1872, Aldrich became a partner in a banking enterprise in Selma, Alabama. Selma is a city in and the County seat of Dallas County, Alabama, United States, located on the banks of the Alabama River. While in the region, he investigated the existing coal-mining operations at Montevallo and around the Cahaba coalfield. Montevallo is a city in Shelby County, Alabama, United States. The next year he secured a lease on the Montevallo coal mines and set to work extracting coal that summer. He purchased the mines outright in 1875 and named the surrounding settlement Aldrich, leasing the operation to his younger brother William while he prospected for new seams. Userpolbot from http//bioguidecongressgov/scripts/biodisplaypl?index=A000087 He incorporated the Jefferson Coal Company in the town of Morris, from which he supplied fuel for the first successful coke-fired furnace in the Birmingham District, helping to establish the area as a center of iron and steel production. Morris is a town in Jefferson County, Alabama, United States. The Birmingham District refers to a geological area in the vicinity of Birmingham Alabama where the raw materials for making Steel, Limestone

In 1881 Aldrich founded the Cahaba Coal Company in Bibb County. Bibb County Alabama is a County of the US state of Alabama. Its name is in honor of William W After building a railroad connector, the company laid out a "model community" on the bank of Caffee Creek. After seeing a "ton block" of coal brought from the mine, Aldrich named the town Blocton. West Blocton is a town in Bibb County, Alabama, United States. Blocton coal earned a reputation as an efficient fuel for steam locomotives and the profitable company embarked on a period of great expansion. Aldrich advertised widely for miners who arrived from all over the United States, as well as Western and Central Europe. By the summer of 1890 over 3,600 people were residents of Blocton and products from the companies' mines and overs were being sold to customers throughout the Southeast and parts of Latin America.

In addition to his many business interests, Aldrich pursued a lifelong fascination with shell collecting, eventually amassing one of the largest amateur collections of his time, partly by purchase and partly by collecting in person. In the 1890s he joined a "Shell Syndicate" to support naturalists Herbert H. Smith and Amelia W. (Daisy) Smith, who collected freshwater and terrestrial mollusks in Alabama and Georgia. State Geologist Eugene Allen Smith encouraged Aldrich to concentrate his efforts in the Tertiary paleontology of the Coastal Plain, often sending him material to identify, and Aldrich collected thousands of fossils from now-classic sites along the Alabama and Tombigbee Rivers, such as Claiborne. Palaeontology redirects here For the Scientific journal, see Palaeontology (journal. He contributed an article to Bulletin 1 of the Geological Survey of Alabama on the state's Eocene fossil record, including nine plates illustrating new species. His collection of modern shells is now in the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville, and his fossil shells are in the Geological Survey of Alabama Paleontological Collection and the Alabama Museum of Natural History. The Florida Museum of Natural History is the State of Florida's official state-sponsored and chartered natural history museum

Aldrich also supplied information on the coal fields he had surveyed to John Witherspoon Dubose and to Squire's Report on the Cahaba Coal Field published by the Geological Survey of Alabama in 1890.

Later career

In 1890 Aldrich faced a major labor strike initiated by the United Mine Workers of America. Strike action, often simply called a strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal by Employees to perform work. Template talkInfobox Union for usage -->The United Mine Workers of America ( UMW or UMWA) is a North He defeated this strike by hiring, for the first time, African Americans to operate the mine. In 1892 Aldrich sold the combined Cahaba and Excelsior Coal Company to the Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company. Aldrich became a second vice-president and general manager for TCI. As an executive of that company he secured investments that helped TCI survive the depression of 1893, including a contribution of grain and flour from B. B. Comer. Braxton Bragg Comer ( November 7, 1848 August 15, 1927) was an American Democratic Politician who was the He moved his residence from Blocton to Birmingham.

In 1896 Aldrich secured a nomination to the 54th United States Congress by contesting the election of Oscar W. Underwood. The Fifty-fourth United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government consisting of the United States Senate and Oscar Wilder Underwood ( May 6 1862 – January 25 1929) was an American politician As a Republican in a largely Democratic state, Aldrich served for less than a year before being defeated by Underwood in the 1896 election. He returned to the coal business as president of the Cahaba Southern Mining Company, which operated mines at Hargrove in Bibb County. In 1899 be became a vice-president of the Birmingham Machinery and Foundry Company and, two years later, was named the acting president of the Sloss-Sheffield Steel & Iron Company. He also opened the Virginia mines, which were the site of a tragic explosion in 1905 that killed over 100 miners.

In 1902 Aldrich joined his son in a prospecting venture in Tallapoosa County called the Hillabee Gold Company. Tallapoosa County is a County of the US state of Alabama.Its name is from an unknown American Indian source In 1905 he bought the Montevallo Mining Company back and served until 1910 as its president. In 1911 President William Howard Taft, who had been a neighbor in Cincinnati, Ohio, appointed him as Postmaster of Birmingham. William Howard Taft (September 15 1857 – March 8 1930 was an American politician, the twenty-seventh President of the United States, the tenth Chief Justice

Aldrich's paleontological hobby became his career in later life, when Eugene Allen Smith appointed him as Curator of Paleontology of the Alabama Museum of Natural History. He donated large collections of Southeastern fossils, many from sites that are no long exposed today. Under Herbert and Daisy Smith, who were hired in 1909, the Museum continued his species-based cataloging system for fossils and Aldrich continued to write short articles on Tertiary mollusks. His research into the area's paleontology earned him wide esteem and he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Alabama.

In 1930, the octogenarian Aldrich named new ichnogenera of fossil footprints that were discovered in a University of Alabama coalmine in Walker County, Alabama. Walker County is a County of the US state of Alabama.Its name is in honor of John W Although his descriptions were brief, the well-reproduced photographic plates brought this work to attention when similar trackways were discovered in 1999 at the nearby Union Chapel Mine (now the Stephen C. Minkin Paleozoic Footprint Site).

E. A. Smith was a close friend of T. H. Aldrich, and named one of his sons Truman Aldrich Smith in his honor.

Truman Aldrich died in 1932 at the age of 83, and is buried at Birmingham's Elmwood Cemetery. Elmwood Cemetery is a 412- Acre (167-hectare Cemetery established in the 1880s (as Elm Leaf Cemetery on the western side of Birmingham in Jefferson

Publications

References

External links

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