John Pitkin Norton

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John Pitkin Norton (July 19, 1822 - September 5, 1852) was a noted educator, agricultural chemist, and author. He was born in Albany, New York.

Norton studied chemistry, and was eventually appointed professor of agricultural chemistry at Yale University in 1846. He helped to found the department of scientific education which would later become the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale. He was the author of Elements of Scientific Agriculture (1850), and many scientific papers, dealing with the chemistry of crops. He died in Farmington, Connecticut and is buried in Grove Street Cemetery in New Haven, Connecticut.

Norton is one of the few scientists recognized in the United States Capitol in Washington DC. A small statue of him is on the Amateis bronze doors. (See pp. 350 – 351 of Art in the United States Capitol, 1978, US Government Printing Office.)

For further reading

• Cole, Samuel W. (1852). in Simon Brown: The New England Farmer. Boston: Raynolds & Nourse, 445. 

• Norton, John Pitkin (1860). Elements of Scientific Agriculture: Or The Connection Between Science and Art of Practical Farming. New York: C. M. Saxton, Barker & Company. - Originally published in 1850

• (1853) Memorials of John Pitkin Norton. Albany: Erastus H. Pease & Company.