In 1893 he was seriously injured in a train wreck in Ohio, but he recovered. In 1897 he was elected vice president of the International Geological Congress, and attended the meeting of the Congress in St Petersburg, Russia. He followed this with an excursion through Siberia. In 1899 he accompanied the Harriman Alaska Expedition, where Mount Emerson bears his name.
Benjamin Kendall Emerson was the son of Benjamin Frothingham Emerson and Eliza Kendall Emerson of Nashua, New Hampshire. He married twice; his first wife was Mary Annette Hopkins, daughter of Rev Erastus Hopkins of Northampton, Massachusetts. They were married on April 2, 1873, and had six children: Charlotte Freylinghuysen (b. 1874), Benjamin Kendall (b. 1875), Edward Hopkins (b. 1877), Annette Hopkins (b. 1879), Malleville Wheelock (b. 1887), and Caroline Dwight (1891-1973), who became a prolific author of over 20 children's books, including The Hat-Tub Tale, about the Bay of Fundy.
Mary Annette Hopkins Emerson died on July 3, 1897; Benjamin Emerson then married Anna James Seelye, daughter of Julius Seelye of Amherst on April 4, 1901. They had two children: Elizabeth James (b. 1903) and Henry Seelye (b. 1907).
Professional memberships
Emerson was a member of the following organizations:
Among his works are Geology of Old Hampshire County, Massachusetts (1898), Geology of Massachusetts and Rhode Island (1917), and a report (1904) on the Harriman Expedition to Alaska. The Archives and Special Collections at Amherst College holds a collection of his papers.
References
^Eckel, Edwin, 1982, GSA Memoir 155, The Geological Society of America — Life History of a Learned Society, ISBN0-8137-1155-X
^"Benjamin Kendall Emerson". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. February 9, 2023. Retrieved February 27, 2024.