Henry Augustus Ward was born on March 9, 1834, in Rochester, New York.

He was a naturalist, geologist, and explorer. He attended Williams College and the Lawrence Scientific School, Harvard, where he was an assistant of Louis Agassiz. After college, Ward travelled to Egypt, Arabia, and Palestine and studied at the Jardin des Plantes, the Sorbonne, the School of Mines in Paris, and at the universities of Munich and Freiberg. He also travelled in West Africa and the West Indies, collecting geological specimens. From 1860 to 1865, he taught natural science at the University of Rochester. He founded Ward's Natural Science Establishment, the internationally known supplier of scientific educational materials to colleges and universities. Ward later became interested in meteorites and built up a large collection.

In 1860, he married Phoebe H. Ward (1832–1891), and in 1897, he remarried Lydia Arms Avery (1845–1924). He died after being struck by an automobile on July 4, 1906, in Buffalo, New York.

David Ward was born December 23, 1827 or 1828. He was a dry goods merchant in Lanark Village. In 1895 he was living in Arnprior, Ontario, and wrote to John William Dawson because he was studying geology. He died September 3, 1903 in Renfrew, Ontario.

Ward & Howell was a supplier of natural science materials. Henry Augustus Ward (1834-1906), a professor of geology at the University of Rochester, founded the Ward's Natural Science Establishment in 1862 (incorporated in 1878). It was a leading supplier of natural science materials, e.g., minerals, rocks, fossil casts and taxidermy services to museums and universities in North America and worldwide. It also published numerous catalogues of various collections. Edwin Eugene Howell (1845-1911), a geologist, cartographer, and Ward’s brother-in-law, joined the Ward's Natural Science Establishment in 1865. He became a partner in the business, staying with Ward & Howell till 1892. The Ward family donated the company to the University of Rochester in 1928, and it is still in operation today.