Olof Olsson Nylander Collection

Collection

Identifier: SpC MS 0817-sc

Staff Only

Scope and Content Note

A collection of material by and about a geologist and mineralogist whose discovery of the first fossil specimens unearthed in Aroostook County altered many theories about the geological history of northern Maine. Included are newspaper clippings by and about Olof O. Nylander in Maine newspapers from the period 1932 to 1943. The newspapers represented are the Bangor Daily News, Presque Isle Star-Herald, Houlton Pioneer Times, Aroostook Republican, and the Lewiston Journal Magazine Section. Included also are 2 copies of an autobiography written in 1941. Included also are correspondence, most of it to Prof. F. H. Steinmetz; a picture postcard of the Nylander Museum; and typescripts of his papers on his fossil discoveries and on some rare ferns found in Aroostook County and on volcanic activity in Aroostook County.

Dates

Creation: 1895-1943
Creation: Majority of material found in 1932-1943

Language of Materials

English

Access Restrictions

No restrictions on access.

Use Restrictions

Information on literary rights available in the repository.

Biographical Note

Olof Olsson Nylander was born in Nystad, Sweden in 1864. He came to the U.S. at the age of 16 and became a geologist and mineralogist whose research provided the basis for numerous scientific books and whose own writings were widely published in scientific journals. Nylander surveyed much of northern Maine and in a limestone deposit at New Sweden, near Caribou, he found the only fossil starfish ever unearthed in Maine. It was named in his honor, Osteolupus Nylanderi. He was also interested in botany and found several rare orchid types in Aroostook County, Maine. He built up an enormous collection of rock, fossil, and shell specimens. In 1938 through the cooperation of the Maine Development Commission, the town of Caribou built a museum to house the specimens Nylander had collected personally or obtained by exchange with other scientists. He died in Caribou, Maine in 1943.