1. Biographical Sketch

John Kimball DeLaski, M.D. was born June 9, 1814 in St. John, New Brunswick. He emigrated to Bangor, Maine on June 9, 1833 and was naturalized in Portland, Maine on January 4, 1868. He married Anne Vaughn Wise in Eastport, Maine on July 27, 1839, and together they had eight children. In the early 1850’s the family moved to Iron Point on the island of Vinalhaven, Maine and later, to Carver’s Harbor, the village on the island. Dr. DeLaski practiced medicine for nearly thirty years, but where and when he received his medical training is unknown. It has been suggested that he may have apprenticed to a medical doctor. In addition to practicing medicine he also carefully observed the Maine landscape as a geological naturalist. He meticulously described, often in minute detail, the evidence on the ground that he attributed to former extensive glaciations of the Penobscot Bay region. Through the decade of the 1860’s he complied his observations into a handwritten book manuscript entitled “Foot Steps of the Ancient Great Glacier of North America” dated 1869, that was not published until now. However, parts of the manuscript were previously published as articles in the local Rockland Gazette and as scientific papers in the American Journal of Science and other places. He was also a published poet. It is apparent from these early observations and descriptions that DeLaski had a real appreciation for the immensity of the ice sheet that he determined had covered this region of Maine and New Brunswick and much of North America in the past. Note that in the preface of his book DeLaski wrote “In presenting the following pages to the public, I am actuated by the conviction that the views hitherto had of the ancient great glacier of North America, by scientific men as well as by geological readers generally, have not come to the magnitude of the mass, nor to the gigantic work which it has preformed upon the floor of our continent.” Among these scientific men were Louis Agassiz and James Dwight Dana, both of whom we know he interacted and corresponded with over the years.