Richard Mead Atwater, Sr. (August 10, 1844 – 1922) was a chemist and public official in New Jersey and Pennsylvania involved in early scientific glass-making.

In 1874, he was appointed traveling agent and was responsible for writing many contracts, visiting all the large cities in the north of the US, and as far west as San Francisco.

He took the prompt to devise and patent accurate methods for constructing graduated cylinders, as well as reagent bottles with an embossed ground label, which were widely used.

In 1889, wanting to enhance his career and give his children better opportunities for education, he moved Germantown, a section of Philadelphia, where he worked at the main office of the Whitall Tatum glassworks.

Atwater and his wife had nine children, and as their family grew, purchased one of the first oceanside lots at Sea Isle City, New Jersey, where in 1881 he constructed the first summer beach house on the island.

It was a simple square structure, built among the dunes, with an open cathedral ceiling two stories high, and bedrooms at the corners of both floors.

Atwater was involved in many aspects of life in the town, became the Commodore of the Yacht Club for nine years, and was elected as Mayor of Sea Isle City from 1913 to 1917.

After three years the family returned to Syracuse, New York, where Atwater was recruited by Roland Hazard, the President of the Solvay Process Company (later Semet-Solvay Co.), eventually being appointed Secretary-Director and Field Agent, where he took an active part in the introduction of by-product coke ovens in the United States.

The business, very different from his earlier experiences in the glass and chemical industry, was a general retail and wholesale operation in France and throughout Europe into Russia.

At the end of the six-year term, the Johnson Harvester Company asked him to extend his contract, but by then all of the children had returned to America, and he had adequate savings for retirement.