Dr. Wm. S. Myers
Pupil of Co-Discoverer of Argon
by Edgar S. Van Olinda
Albany Times-Union, May 14, 1944
(LtoR): Sir William Ramsay and Dr. William Shields Myers
There has been no great advance in science during the past 150 years that does not include among its protagonists the name of an Albanian, as witness, Joseph Henry, who discovered the intensity magnet which made possible the telegraph, telephone, automobile engine, radio and television.
This [1944] is the 50th anniversary of the joint discovery in England of argon, by Sir William Ramsay and Lord Rayleigh, the latter, brother-in-law of Arthur Balfour. The news of the discovery of argon, which is the residue gas after its oxygen and nitrogen have been removed, leaving four other inert gasses, was originally made known in America to Sir William Ramsay's first American pupil, Dr. William Shields Myers, former Albanian, and pupil at the Albany academy, before he became a teacher in Rutgers college.
The photograph of Dr. Myers, reproduced this morning, with his teacher, the late Sir William Ramsay, was taken in Washington, D.C., in 1912, during a meeting of the International Congress of Chemists. Sir William died in 1916 and has the distinction of being the first chemist to be buried in Westminster Abbey. The present king of England, George VI, represented the royal family at the funeral. Today's sketchy word portrait of Dr. Myers is a sort of preview of his forthcoming biography, on which the former Albanian is now working at his home in Bainbridge, N.Y. [Chenango Co.] where he has served his community as chairman of the Excise board. He was one of the prime movers in 1932, with the assistance of Dr. Frank P. Graves, former Commissioner of Education in establishing the centralization of the local educational institutions into the Bainbridge High school.
Dr. Myers is what might be called a dyed-in-the wool Albany Area alumnus. He is a lineal descendent of Christian Myers, Saugerties, who came to America from France in 1710. The late John G. Myers, Albany dry goods merchant, stemmed from the same ancestor. The "Shields" in his name is derived form his maternal grandfather, Adam Shields, born in the north of Ireland (County Down) who came to Albany in 1816. He was one of the first five depositors in the Albany Savings bank and founder of the firm of Shields and Son, well known tobacconists at Church street and Madison avenue.
During his preparatory courses at the old Albany academy, Dr. Myers, with William Barnes, organized the Gates literary society of which he became secretary and the former publisher of the Albany Evening Journal, its first president. From the Albany academy, Dr. Shields went to Harvard and later to Rutgers, from which he graduated in chemistry. He then went to Munich university, in Germany, where von Baeyer, discoverer of synthetic indigo, and later aspirin, was the professor of chemistry. This was followed by a course of study under von Hoffman in Berlin, co-discoverer with W.H. Perkins of many coal tar dyes. Both scientists endeavored, unsuccessfully, to interest the British coal tar producers in London to build plants to utilize this by-product, which later was to become a great source of wealth to Germany--and later, America, and specifically, Rensselaer. When Dr. Myers asked von Hofmann how chemical discoveries were made, the German scientist summed up the whole scientific situation in the following succinct digest: "When one works, one discovers."
In 1902 Dr. Myers was elected mayor of new Brunswick, N.J. being the first Republican to hold that office in 20 years. The reforms which he instituted and which will obtain at the present writing is a chapter all by itself.
After teaching in Rutgers for eight years, he accepted a position as sales promoter for the fertilizing use of Chilean nitrate in North America. In recognition of his successful campaign of increasing the use of nitrates in America, he was appointed special honorary consul of Chile in the United States in 1917. It is interesting to record that Claudette Colbert's first commercial motion picture was produced for the Chilean nitrate interests, and did more to increase American consumption than any other single propaganda effort in America up to that time. Dr. Myers' wife was the technical director of the production.
While a resident of Albany, Dr. Myers attended the "Two-Steeple Dutch" church in North Pearl street, being a member also of one of the many Sunday school classes. Evidently, his early training and his more recent affiliation with the Episcopal church of Bainbridge, is a striking tribute to the affinity of his belief in practical Christianity with the study of the unknown, not always compatible in the minds of many savants of scientific research. His biography should add a considerable amount of enlightenment to post-war chemical development, in which the Albany Area will play an important role. The General Electric mazda lamp division in Cleveland is one of the largest users of argon, the gas which is used for filling electric light bulbs, because it does not combine with any other elements, so far as known at the present time. This refusal of argon to combine saves the materials of which the light filaments are made from disintegration for a longer time than any other gas now commercially available.
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Country Home of Dr. William S. Myers
Tianaderhah
The rock used in house and wall were all taken from nearby fields.
The entrance to Tianaderhah
"Tianaderhah, The Home of Dr. William S. Myers, Situated in The Unadilla Valley of the Famous Fenimore Cooper Country" (Privately Printed)
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