David Dale Owen
David Dale Owen (1807-1860), son of Robert Owen, became a distinguished geologist and served as the first U.S. State Geologist for Indiana, Kentucky, and Arkansas, conducting pioneering geological surveys of the Midwest. He transformed New Harmony into a respected center for geological research after the utopian community dissolved, establishing laboratories and training a generation of American geologists. His comprehensive geological surveys and reports on mineral resources helped shape the scientific understanding of American geology and contributed to the development of the region's mining and industrial potential. Learn about his life here.
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Who was David Dale Owen?
Born in 1807, Robert Owen's third son, David Dale Owen, did not come to New Harmony until 1828. David Dale and his younger brother, Richard, were still studying in Europe when their father and older brothers first came to America.
David Dale was a pupil of famed artist Benjamin West in London before West's death in 1820 but had earlier decided that he lacked the talent to become an artist. So, by 1826, he was studying chemistry in London. After he came to America at age twenty-one, he earned a degree in medicine at Miami Medical College in Ohio. The sight, however, of all of the physical suffering was too much for his sensitive artistic temperament. Having been inspired by William Maclure's geological collection, David Dale next turned to geology, which he learned by studying Maclure's vast collection.
David Dale was commissioned to make a geological survey of the new land to the West. In 1837 and 1838, he made Indiana's first geological survey. In 1839, he was appointed U.S. Geologist, thereby making New Harmony the focal point of geology in the United States and the headquarters for the United States Geological Survey. In addition to Maclure, David Dale, and his brother Richard, there were ten geologists among the twenty-four recognized scientists in New Harmony. David Dale ultimately became the state geologist for Kentucky, Arkansas, and Indiana, as well as for the United States.
In 1837, David Dale married Caroline Neef in a triple wedding ceremony with his brothers Richard and William. For a while, they all moved into the "Mansion" on Church Street with their older brother Robert Dale and sister Jane and their spouses. Later David Dale lived quietly with his wife and four children in the Rapp-Maclure house. He set up a laboratory with a conical tower facing Church Street. Still standing today, this building is said to have been influenced by architect James Renwick's first Gothic building of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
When, in 1846, the bill to create the Smithsonian Institution introduced in Congress by Robert Dale Owen was passed, David Dale went to Washington to help design the building. He died in New Harmony in 1860 at age fifty-three.
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