Citation link:
https://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/heidhs3695ef70_10/0001
TUniversttp of Cbtcaoo
jgcr^es Obectvatotg
WtLHAMS BAY. WIS.
Dear Professor Wolf:
1923
It is with great regret that I make to you
the painful announcement that Professor Barnard died on
the evening of Feb. 6th, after an illness of six weeks.
The doctors gave us hopes of his recovery, but conditions
suddenly changed for the worse. Simple funeral services
were held in the Rotunda of the Observatory yesterday
afternoon, and the burial was to take place today at
Nashville, Tennessee.
As you will see from the enclosed copy of a
letter I wrote yesterday to Professor Kobold, it would
be agreeable to us if you would write the obituary sketch
of Professor Barnard for the Nachrichten. I assume that
this would not be too great a burden for you. You were
Mr. Barnard's friend of long standing, and he always
entertained the warmest regard for you.
Some of the principal items of his life, which
you might wish to have, are the following.
He was born December 16, 1857, at Nashville,
Tennessee. His father had died before his birth, and
he was brought up by his mother under difficult circumstances
and without the usual advantages of education in his early
youth. As a boy, he was employed in the photographic
establishment of Calvert Brothers, who had come to
Nashville, from England. One of his duties was to
reflect the light of the sun into the studio. He learned
all phases of the wet plate process of photography, and
this was of advantage to him later. He somewhere obtained
a small telescope and began to study the heavens,in his
youth. He later acquired a 5-inch refractor, and with
this made a great number of useful observations which
included the discovery of comets, as the result of
careful search begun in 1881. Meanwhile he was perfecting
his knowledge by studying, and received the Bachellor's
degree from Vanderbilt University in Nashville in the
year 1887. His remarkable eyesight and his great zeal had
brought his work to the favorable attention of astronomers,
and he was invited by R. S. Holden to come to the Lick
Observatory when that institution began its important
work in 1888. With the work which he did there, you
are familiar. He began to photograph the heavens in
the summer of 1889, with a portrait lens, and obtained
some very fine results from the start. In 1895, he
was called by the University of Chicago to become an
astronomer in the Yerkes Observatory, then in the process
of construction. There was some delay in completing the
Observatory, so that for more than a year he was less
actively occupied with observing than during the rest of
his life. He built his house at Williams Bay, adjacent
to the Observatory, at the end of 1896, and from the
opening of the Observatory was exceedingly active as an
jgcr^es Obectvatotg
WtLHAMS BAY. WIS.
Dear Professor Wolf:
1923
It is with great regret that I make to you
the painful announcement that Professor Barnard died on
the evening of Feb. 6th, after an illness of six weeks.
The doctors gave us hopes of his recovery, but conditions
suddenly changed for the worse. Simple funeral services
were held in the Rotunda of the Observatory yesterday
afternoon, and the burial was to take place today at
Nashville, Tennessee.
As you will see from the enclosed copy of a
letter I wrote yesterday to Professor Kobold, it would
be agreeable to us if you would write the obituary sketch
of Professor Barnard for the Nachrichten. I assume that
this would not be too great a burden for you. You were
Mr. Barnard's friend of long standing, and he always
entertained the warmest regard for you.
Some of the principal items of his life, which
you might wish to have, are the following.
He was born December 16, 1857, at Nashville,
Tennessee. His father had died before his birth, and
he was brought up by his mother under difficult circumstances
and without the usual advantages of education in his early
youth. As a boy, he was employed in the photographic
establishment of Calvert Brothers, who had come to
Nashville, from England. One of his duties was to
reflect the light of the sun into the studio. He learned
all phases of the wet plate process of photography, and
this was of advantage to him later. He somewhere obtained
a small telescope and began to study the heavens,in his
youth. He later acquired a 5-inch refractor, and with
this made a great number of useful observations which
included the discovery of comets, as the result of
careful search begun in 1881. Meanwhile he was perfecting
his knowledge by studying, and received the Bachellor's
degree from Vanderbilt University in Nashville in the
year 1887. His remarkable eyesight and his great zeal had
brought his work to the favorable attention of astronomers,
and he was invited by R. S. Holden to come to the Lick
Observatory when that institution began its important
work in 1888. With the work which he did there, you
are familiar. He began to photograph the heavens in
the summer of 1889, with a portrait lens, and obtained
some very fine results from the start. In 1895, he
was called by the University of Chicago to become an
astronomer in the Yerkes Observatory, then in the process
of construction. There was some delay in completing the
Observatory, so that for more than a year he was less
actively occupied with observing than during the rest of
his life. He built his house at Williams Bay, adjacent
to the Observatory, at the end of 1896, and from the
opening of the Observatory was exceedingly active as an