Franklin B. Hough

[1] Martha was a descendant of Andrew Pitcher and Margaret Russell, early settlers of Milton, MA in 1634.

[2] Horatio, a physician from Meriden, Connecticut, was the first medical doctor to settle in Lewis County, in the west of the Adirondack Mountains.

Horatio Hough died in 1830 when Benjamin was eight years old, at which point he began to go by his middle name, Franklin; he was also a scientist and author.

He graduated with a degree from Union College in Schenectady in 1843, and in 1846 he was married to Maria Eggleston of Champion, New York, and a daughter was born, Lola.

He also published the first of his major scientific writings, A Catalogue of Indigenous, Naturalized, and Filicord Plants of Lewis Counties, New York.

[citation needed] In 1861, with the advent of the American Civil War, Hough worked as an inspector for the United States Sanitary Commission.

Finding additional evidence in the federal census of 1870, which he also supervised, he presented a paper entitled On the Duty of Governments in the Preservation of Forests to the 1873 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Portland, Maine.

[citation needed] Hough argued that Mediterranean countries had harmed the environment by excessive harvests of trees, and that a similar problem faced the United States.

As a result of Hough's presentation, the Association formed a committee to educate Congress and state legislatures on the dangers of deforestation, and to recommend legislation to avoid it.