THE NEWBERRY-WHITTLESEY CONTROVERSY: A DECADES-LONG BITTER FEUD WITH CHARGES OF ABSENTEEISM, PLAGIARISM, AND NOT BEING A PALEONTOLOGIST, AND A DISPUTE OVER THE AGE AND CORRELATION OF THE CLEVELAND SHALE

In 1869 a bitter decades-long feud broke out between two former friends, geologist and medical doctor John Strong Newberry (1822–1892), and geologist, engineer, and former army officer Colonel Charles Whittlesey (1806–1886), beginning with the naming of Newberry as State Geologist for Ohio, a position that both had lobbied for. The two protagonists had much in common, including their views of glaciation (both have glacial features named for them), but also had different geological backgrounds, interests, and talents. A breezy 1869 newspaper account of Newberry’s appointment in a Cleveland newspaper must have particularly annoyed Whittlesey. Whittlesey criticized Newberry for working at Columbia in New York City while remaining the state geologist in Ohio, but Newberry “resolved” that issue by maintaining a Cleveland address and long-distance marriage while he “worked 6 hours a week” for Columbia. Newberry was also criticized for plagiarizing a geological map of Ohio, a claim with some merit. Newberry criticized Whittlesey for not being a paleontologist (true) and not being a good geologist (false).

Another major argument revolved around the age and correlation of the Cleveland Shale. Whittlesey correlated it with New York units such as the Hamilton and Marcellus, and noted the Cleveland’s equivalence to the black shale in mid-and southern Ohio, whereas Newberry insisted that it was Carboniferous and that it did not correlate with the Ohio Shale in southern Ohio. Neither was correct about the exact assignment of the Cleveland, but Whittlesey was correct about its equivalence to the black shales of southern Ohio. Newberry maintained a Carboniferous age for the Cleveland to the end, including in his 1889 monograph on fossil fish. Ironically Newberry utilized fossils in this incorrect assignment.

This extended controversy did not reflect well upon its participants, and this, particularly writings of Whittlesey such as the pamphlet “Paleontology and the moral sense,” caused great damage to the survey. Animosity between Whittlesey and Newberry, however, did little to diminish the amount of work produced by these two important, astute, and highly energetic figures. Both are buried in Cleveland’s Lake View Cemetery, on opposite sides of the stream that bisects the cemetery, but near geological features that they studied.