Beneski Museum of Natural History Northfield Farms Cemetery

Northfield Farms Cemetery is home to the grave of Roswell Field. A farmer, property broker and lumber merchant who lived on the banks of the Connecticut River, Field quarried fossilized trackways on his property and sold them to collectors and scientists. Upon Dexter Marsh’s death in 1853, he became the major source of tracks in the area. Field was no professional scientist, but, because he spent so much time with the tracks and witnessed their incredible diversity (it was rumored he had seen more tracks than Hitchcock himself), he became a valuable source of knowledge on the subject. In fact, he correctly hypothesized that the tracks were created by reptiles rather than birds, a radical claim especially from an amatuer. He was also part of the small cohort that worked to finish James Deane’s posthumously published book Ichnographs from the Sandstone of Connecticut River. If you visit the Ichnology collection at the Beneski Museum, you will notice Field’s name on the list of donors to Appleton Cabinet for his gift of specimens to College President Edward Hitchcock.