William Harlow Reed

He collected for a while for Othniel Charles Marsh but left after clashing with rival collectors at the height of the Bone Wars.

Reed sought to join the Union Army several times and at the end of the Civil War, he joined the Union Pacific Railroad to shovel snow but his skills at shooting were recognized, he was contracted to provide fresh meat for the railway construction workers.

In 1883, noting the problems with Marsh and the rivalry among collectors, he quit working on paleontological digs and began to ranch sheep along with George Bird Grinnell.

When most of the sheep were killed in the winter of 1884, Reed went back to the fossil collection business as an independent collector.

The lack of a formal training in science was a handicap and he was lost when it came to anatomy and matters of taxonomic description, leading to several mixed-up specimen mounts at the museum.