John Ruggles Cotting
John Ruggles Cotting [1]
an American Congregational minister and physicist, was born in Acton, Massachusetts, in 1784. He was educated at Harvard and the medical school of Dartmouth College; was ordained about 1810; became very noted for his manufacture of chemical compounds used in the war of 1812 by a company in Boston; was made professor of natural sciences in Amherst College at the close of the war, preaching meantime in the vicinity; subsequently became professor of chemistry in the Berkshire Medical Institute; in 1835 removed to Augusta, Georgia; entered upon a geological and agricultural survey, at first of Burke and Richland counties, then of the entire state; and finally retired to Milledgeville, where he spent his latter years, and died, October 13, 1867. Dr. Cotting prepared text- books of ability and popularity on both chemistry and geology. See Appleton's Annual Cyclop. 1867, page 580.
