By the spring of 1900 Professor John Lyle Campbell, Class of 1848, had taught at the College for 51 years, focusing on physics, astronomy, mathematics, and civil engineering. The distinguished scientist had served as secretary to the Centennial Exhibition of 1876 in Philadelphia and brought electric lights to Crawfordsville.
But when five scientific expeditions—including one from England and another from the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory—headed to Wadesboro, NC, to photograph the solar eclipse of that year, the College’s longest-serving faculty member wasn’t about to miss it.
And thanks to Iowa astronomer D.E. Hadden—who set up his 3-inch refractor telescope on a corn thresher floor—the Archives has these photographs of the event, sent to Campbell by Hadden.
The first shows the Professor Campbell
(second from left) with members of the Princeton Observatory group.
The image of the eclipse is an achievement for its time, and Hadden wrote this about the moment:
“Words cannot describe the grandeur of the moment now. The sky was a deep, purplish black, while along the distant horizon rose rings of gray and orange, reminding one of a summer sunset. But the grandest scene
of all was the great, inky black lunar globe covering the sun’s disc, around which flashed that marvelous, soft, silvery-white mysterious radiance known as the corona.
“The effect of witnessing a total eclipse will never pass from one’s memory. The impression it leaves is vivid and quieting for many days afterward.