[1][2][3][4][5] He was born into a family with Midwestern roots that trace back to Mayflower passengers, Love Brewster, a founder of the town of Bridgewater, Massachusetts; Elder William Brewster, the Pilgrim colonist leader and spiritual elder of the Plymouth Colony; and William Bradford, Governor of the Plymouth Colony and the second signer and primary architect of the Mayflower Compact in Provincetown Harbor.
[1][4][9] Henry's father was a noted American educator, naturalist and Professor of Geology and kindred sciences at the University of Vermont.
She was the president of the Vermont Chapter of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and was active in her church and philanthropic work.
Eli Farnham served as secretary of the Board of Trustees for nearly forty years and also the first school teacher in Galesburg.
[15][16] Another brother was James Richard Edmunds Jr., a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania,[17] and a notable Architect in Baltimore, Maryland.
[18] Henry and Mary were the parents of two children, Anna Keyser Perkins-Middlebrook,[16] who married as her second husband, Stanwood Wollaston[1][19] and Harriet Perkins.
The results from the Army study showed that men from Vermont had an inordinately high rate of "defects" (such as diabetes, epilepsy, "deformities" and "mental deficiency").
Around the same time, he revamped his Zoology curriculum and began teaching courses specifically on Heredity and Evolution.