24. Benjamin Dann Walsh Grave
24. Across the drive from the Davenport lot is the grave of Benjamin Dann Walsh, a native of England and a graduate of Cambridge University. Together with his wife, he came to this country becoming, successively, a farmer, an editor of entomological journals, a Rock Island alderman, a lumber dealer and Illinois’ first state entomologist.
A familiar figure in Rock Island, “the bug man” was often seen with staff, net and dunce cap on which he pinned his specimens. While pursuing his science, he was run over by a locomotive and lost a foot. Mr. Walsh died of infection shortly thereafter, and his collection of 30,000 insects was sold to the State of Illinois and moved to Springfield. Later, it was moved to the Chicago Academy of Sciences for safekeeping.
In 1871, the collection was destroyed in the Chicago Fire. Some 50 years after his death, the United States Entomologist declared that Walsh’s work was still authoritative and standard.
