Charles Hazelius Sternberg

Charles Hazelius Sternberg
Born	1850
Died	1943
Nationality	USA
Fields	Paleontology

Charles Hazelius Sternberg (June 15, 1850 - July 20, 1943), was an American fossil collector and amateur paleontologist. His older brother, Dr. George M. Sternberg (1838-1915) was a military surgeon assigned to Fort Harker near Ellsworth, Kansas and brought the rest of Sternberg family to Kansas to live on his ranch about 1868. Once there, Charles became interested in collecting fossil leaves from the Dakota Sandstone Formation. In the 1870s, he studied at Kansas State under the noted paleontologist Benjamin Franklin Mudge, but he soon left school in order to spend more time in the field.

During the early years of the Bone Wars, Charles Sternberg collected fossils in Kansas for Edward Drinker Cope. He wrote two books: The Life of a Fossil Hunter (1909) and Hunting Dinosaurs in the Badlands of the Red Deer River, Alberta, Canada (1917).

In 1880, Charles married Anna Reynolds. Their three sons, George F. Sternberg (1883-1969), Charles Mortram Sternberg (1885-1981) and Levi Sternberg (1894-1976), also had careers in vertebrate paleontology. They are famous for their collecting abilities and many discoveries, including the "Trachodon mummy", an exquisitely preserved specimen of Edmontosaurus annectens (see hadrosaurid). His son George Sternberg is also a noted fossil hunter famous for finding the "fish within a fish", a 13 ft Xiphactinus which had inside it a nicely preserved, 6 ft Gillicus arcuatus.

Sternberg was a deeply religious man. He wrote devotional poetry and published a collection of poems 'The Story of the Past: Or, the Romance of Science'. In his old age, he would visit the American Museum of Natural History to view his finds, and one visit to the 'Trachodon mummy' inspired the following quote:

“	My own body will crumble in dust, my soul return to the God who gave it, but the works of His hands, those animals of other days, will give joy and pleasure to generations yet unborn.	”
—Charles H. Sternberg[1]

Sternberg Museum

Fossils collected by Charles Sternberg, including dinosaurs from the western United States and Canada, are in museums around the world. Many of the fossils discovered by Charles Sternberg's son, George F. Sternberg, are on display in the Sternberg Museum of Natural History in Hays, Kansas.

References

1. ^ Dinosaurs in the Attic - An Excursion into the American Museum of Natural History, Douglas J. Preston, St Martin's Press, New York, 1986

External links

• Class materials on the Sternbergs from a History of Geology course at Emporia State University.
• Sternberg Museum of Natural History in Hays, Kansas
• Trip to Hays, Sternberg Museum
• Charles H. Sternberg - Oceans of Kansas Paleontology
• Dinosaurs in the Deep
• The Story of the Past - collection of poems written by Sternberg

Persondata
Name	Sternberg, Charles Hazelius
Alternative names
Short description	American paleontologist
Date of birth	1850
Place of birth
Date of death	July 20, 1943
Place of death