Theodore Lyman ( Massachusetts ) Theodore Lyman III ( August 23 , 1833 - September 9 , 1897 ) was a natural scientist , military staff officer during the American Civil War , and United States Representative from Massachusetts . Biography . He was born in Waltham , Massachusetts on August 23 , 1833 , son of Boston mayor Theodore Lyman II and Mary Henderson of a prominent New York family . The first Theodore , Lyman ' s grandfather , founded a successful shipping firm in the 1790s in York , Maine , that provided the basis for the family fortune . Captain Lyman , as he was known , relocated to the Boston suburb of Waltham and sought out noted Salem architect , Samuel McIntire , to design and build the Lyman Estate known as the Vale , which is today a park and house museum . Mayor Lyman served two terms and retired from public office in 1836 upon the sudden death of his wife Mary . His son Ted , as he was known by family and friends , was educated by private tutors and traveled extensively in Europe with his father . Mayor Lyman died in 1849 , possibly from a stroke . Young Theodore was sixteen years old . From his father he inherited a working farm in Brookline , called Singletree . His older sister Cora inherited the town house on Beacon Hill , and the two split stocks and investment income amounting to $ 430 , 000 . Lyman ' s uncle , George Williams Lyman , took deed to the Vale . Cora ' s husband , Gardner Howland Shaw , guided Theodore into Harvard University where he was graduated in 1855 near the top of his class . Theodore then entered the University ' s Lawrence Scientific School and studied under professor Louis Agassiz , one of the preeminent natural scientists of the 19th century . He graduated with honors in 1858 . Lyman was a founding member and underwriter of Harvard ' s Museum of Comparative Anatomy . Lyman first met future major - general George Gordon Meade in 1856 while conducting research on starfish in Florida . Lieutenant Meade was there overseeing construction of lighthouses for the Army Corps of Engineers . They became friends and corresponded frequently prior to the Civil War . Ted Lyman married Elizabeth " Mimi " Russell in 1858 . Elizabeth was the daughter of George Robert Russell of Russell & Company , a successful merchant turned philanthropist . Mimi ' s mother was Sarah Parkman Shaw . Colonel Robert Gould Shaw , commander of the famed 54th Massachusetts Infantry ( which was portrayed in the movie " Glory " , was Mimi ' s first cousin . On the eve of the Civil War , Ted and Mimi embarked on a Grand Tour of Europe ' s capitals and their first child , Cora , was born in 1862 in Florence , Italy . Lyman returned to the United States in May 1863 to serve on the staff of Major General Meade as aide - de - camp with a commission as lieutenant - colonel from Governor Andrew of Massachusetts . Lyman followed Meade until the end of the war from September 2 , 1863 , to April 20 , 1865 . During this time , he served as headquarters archivist . He also put his life on the line carrying flags of truce through hostile lines at Cold Harbor and Petersburg . His published letters and notebooks establish him as the preeminent recorder of events and personalities within the headquarters of Army of the Potomac . He was a companion of the Massachusetts Commandery of the Loyal Legion . After the war , he was a state Fish Commissioner , after wards a federal commissioner , and one of the first scientists to advocate the widespread use of fish ladders , known then as " fishways . " He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the National Academy of Sciences , a trustee of the Peabody Education Fund , and an overseer of Harvard University . In his role as overseer he was influential in getting his cousin Charles W . Eliot elected as President of Harvard , a position Eliot held for near forty years . Lyman was also active in the Massachusetts Historical Society , the Society of the Army of the Potomac , and the Military Historical Society of Massachusetts . Ted and Mimi ' s daughter Cora died in 1869 of a " brain fever . " The couple subsequently raised two boys , Theodore IV and Henry . Theodore Lyman IV attained renown as a physicist . Lyman was elected as an Independent Republican representative to the Forty - eighth Congress ( March 4 , 1883 – March 3 , 1885 ) on a reform platform . The bipartisan coalition that put him into office collapsed by 1885 , and he was passed over for nomination for a second term . He retired to Singletree in Brookline , where he devoted himself to the care of his sons . Through the last decade of his life , he suffered from a debilitating nervous disease . He gradually lost use of his limbs and was unable to continue work at the Museum of Comparative Zoology . Despite his paralysis , he was lucid and retained a sense of humor until the end of his life . He died in Nahant , Massachusetts on September 9 , 1897 and was buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge . During his life , Theodore Lyman acquired hundreds of acres of land on Buttermilk Bay , Cape Cod , to preserve the spawning grounds of the ocean running red brook trout . His legacy and summer cottage are preserved today as the Theodore Lyman Reserve , located in Wareham , Plymouth and Bourne . The property is open to the public and managed by The Trustees of Reservations . Bibliography . Adams , Charles Francis , Jr . Theodore Lyman ( 1833 – 1897 ) and Robert Charles Winthrop , Jr . ( 1834 – 1905 ) : Two Memoirs Prepared by Charles Francis Adams for the Massachusetts Historical Society . Cambridge : John Wilson and Son , 1906 . Agassiz , George R . Meade ' s Headquarters 1863 - 1865 Letters of Colonel Theodore Lyman . Boston : The Atlantic Monthly Press . Bowditch , Henry P . Biographical Memoir of Theodore Lyman . Biographical Memoirs , National Academy of Sciences , vol . 5 , 141 - 154 . Washington , DC , 1905 . Coleman , Lyman . Genealogy of the Lyman Family in Great Britain and America . Albany , NY : Munsell , 1872 . Crawford , Mary . Famous Families of Massachusetts , 2 vols . Boston : Little , Brown , 1930 . Lyman , Theodore . With Grant and Meade from the Wilderness to Appomattox . Letters Selected and Edited by George R . Agassiz ; Introduction to the Bison Book edition by Brooks D . Simpson . Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press , 1994 . Lyman , Theodore . Meade ' s Army : the Private Notebooks of Lt . Col . Theodore Lyman . Edited by David W . Lowe . Foreword by John Y . Simon . Kent , OH : Kent State University Press , 2007 Lyman , Theodore , " Meade ' s Headquarters , 1863 - 1865 : Letters of Colonel Theodore Lyman from the Wilderness to Appomattox " , Massachusetts Historical Society , 1922 .