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The images in this collection are the remaining mineral and rock samples collected by Lardner Vanuxem (b.1792 d.1848). Vanuxem graduated from the Ecole des Mines in Paris in 1819 and returned to the United States to become the chair of Chemistry and Mineralogy in South Carolina College. After retiring from the college in 1826, he devoted his time to geology as a profession. In 1827 and 1828, under the auspices of the state of New York, he studied the geological features of the states of New York, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia and New York and made a report to the NY legislature.
The Vanuxem Collection was acquired by William M. Stewart (1803-1877), president of Stewart College, Clarkesville, Tennessee (now Rhodes College, Memphis, Tennessee) from 1853-1859. When he gave the collection to the College it was an extensive collection of minerals and fossils. The collection was nearly destroyed when the Union Army occupied the Clarksville campus during the Civil War. The samples that remain are in this digital collection.