Born 1854 (Stokes County, NC), Died 1932
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Edgar Everhart was born in North Carolina in 1854, and studied with renowned German chemist Karl Fresenius at the University of Freiburg, where he earned his PhD in 1878. He subsequently taught at the Stevens Institute in New Jersey. He appears to have had no prior connection to Texas or the University when he applied for the position vacated by Mallet.
Everhart was in a sense the true founder of UT's Chemistry Department. He guided the infant department during its first decade after Mallet's abrupt departure. Seeing an imminent need for more laboratory space, Everhart first proposed a separate chemical laboratory building in 1884, and in the interim oversaw the expansion of the chemistry labs in the basement of Old Main. When this location became untenable, he helped to secure the funding for the new Chemical Laboratory building, which was occupied in 1892. Everhart was a founding member and president of the Texas Academy of Science, and he spoke widely on the importance of higher education. He gave public lectures on food safety and toxicology that were well attended and reported in the newspapers in great detail. He was considered an excellent teacher by E.P. Schoch, one of his students: an "unusually inspiring teacher and a very genial personality." Long-time engineering dean T.U. Taylor remembered Everhart as the most popular professor on the young campus: "He was the most effective and useful professor on the campus, not only in his classroom but in the committee room or in Faculty meetings. He had a very level head and was a man of wonderful common sense." (1) His enthusiasm for outside endeavors, and his outspoken criticism of the state government's reluctance to fund the University adequately, proved to be his undoing. In 1885 he had become embroiled in a dispute with the Governor over the propriety of charging for mineral assay work he conducted for the State. In 1894 another angry dispute erupted over similar matters, this time with the Regents. Though the details are unclear, Everhart tendered his resignation and left the University under a cloud. He proceeded to Georgia, teaching for a time at Cox College, and was one of the founders of the Southern College of Pharmacy in Atlanta. In 1904 he took a position as chemist with the Georgia Geological Survey, where he enjoyed a long and fruitful career thereafter. A specialist in geological and mineral chemistry, Everhart also had a longstanding interest in what today is called forensic chemistry. He acquired a wide reputation early in his career for his work and testimony in criminal poisoning cases, and was frequently called upon as an expert witness. He retired due to ill health in 1930, and died in Atlanta two years later, at the age of 78. 1. Taylor, T.U. Fifty years on Forty Acres. (Austin: Alec Book Co., 1938), 84-85. Obituaries: Atlanta Constitution, Aug. 9, 1932; New York Times, Aug. 9, 1932. |
