Item 0006 - Letter, 23 March 1870

Philip Thomas Tyson was born on June 23, 1799, in Baltimore, Maryland.

He was an American chemist and geologist. He came from a well-known Tyson family of Quaker industrialists. In 1837, he became one of two vice presidents of the Maryland Academy of Science and Literature, an organization that has evolved into the Maryland Science Center. Tyson contributed numerous articles on the minerals of the state of Maryland to various scientific journals while living in Baltimore, where he also ran a pharmacy business. In 1830, he entered a partnership with William R. Fisher as Tyson & Fisher, a Drug and Apothecary business. In 1836, this partnership dissolved, and Tyson devoted himself to the practical application of mineralogy and chemistry. Around 1839 he served as the Superintendent of the George's Creek Coal and Iron Furnace. He surveyed California in 1849 and produced the first regional map with geologic notations and several rough topographic/geologic cross-sections. In 1851, he published the book "Geology and Industrial Resources of California." Tyson served as a Maryland State Agricultural Chemist from 1858 to 1862. In 1858, he discovered the fossilized teeth of a dinosaur in Muirkirk, Maryland. This was the first discovery of dinosaur fossils in Maryland, and the species, Astrodonjohnstoni, became the Maryland State Dinosaur in 1998.

In 1824, he married Rebecca Webster (c.1800–c.1886). He died on December 16, 1877, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.