Birth Dates of Notable Kentuckians: April 19, 1849: John Uri Lloyd

Image from www.nkyviews.com

From The Kentucky Encyclopedia –
John Uri Lloyd, chemist and novelist, was born on April 19, 1849, in West Bloomfield Township, New York, the eldest son of Nelson Marvin and Sophia (Webster) Lloyd. His mother was a descendant of Gov. John Webster of Connecticut. When he was four years old, his family moved to Petersburg in Boone County, Kentucky, where his father worked as a surveyor and both parents were teachers. Lloyd was educated at local private schools in Petersburg, Burlington , and Florence. At the age of fourteen, he was apprenticed in Cincinnati to William J.M. Gordon, a pharmacist, and at sixteen he was employed by George Eger, beginning his lifelong career as a scientist and pharmacist. In 1871 he became manager of the laboratory of H.M. Merrell and Company, which he and his brothers, Curtis and Nelson, took over in 1885 as Lloyd Brothers Pharmacists, Inc. He and Curtis donated to the city of Cincinnati the Lloyd Scientific Library, containing 35,000 volumes on chemistry, pharmacy, and medicine. Lloyd promoted eclectic medicine (the use of plant extracts in treating patients) and he has been called the father of colloidal chemistry. In collaboration with his brother, he was the author of eight scientific books, including Chemistry of Medicine (1881) and Drugs and Medicines of North America (1884).

Although most famous as a plant scientist and chemist, Lloyd was also well-known as a novelist. His most famous novel is perhaps Stringtown on the Pike (1900), which immortalizes Florence, Kentucky (known earlier as Stringtown), and reveals Lloyd's interest in the folklore, superstitions, and dialect of northern Kentucky and the feuds of eastern Kentucky. He wrote eight novels, among them Etidorpha: or the End of the Earth (1893); Warwick of the Knobs (1901); Red Head (1903), a sequel to Stringtown on the Pike; and Felix Moses: the Beloved Jew of Stringtown (1930).

In 1876 Lloyd married Adelaide Meader, who died ten days after their marriage. In 1880 he married Emma Rouse of Crittenden, Kentucky, the mother of his three children: Annie, John Thomas, and Dorothy. Lloyd died in Van Nuys, California, on April 9, 1936; his ashes were buried at the Hopeful Cemetery near Florence, Kentucky.

See 

Corinne Miller Simons, John Uri Lloyd: His Life and His Works, 1849-1936, With a History of the Lloyd Library (Cincinnati 1972)

"John Uri Lloyd Memorial Issue," Eclectic Medical Journal 92 (May 1936).

DANNY MILLER, Entry Author

Selected Sources from UK Libraries:

Lloyd, John Uri. Coffee, "the Intellectual Drink." or "the Soverign Drink of Pleasure and of Health" / by Joh Uri Lloyd. Print.
Special Collections Research Center

Lloyd, John Uri, and American Drug Manufacturers Association. Origin and History of All the Pharmacopeial Vegetable Drugs 8th and 9th Decennial Revisions (botanical Descriptions Omitted) with Bibliography. Cincinnati: Caxton, 1929. Print. Beyond the Shelf, Serving Historic Kentuckiana through Virtual Access ; B92-242-30611193.
B 92-242 Young Library Periodicals Desk Microfilm

Sebree, Frances L. Biographical Sketches from the Life of John Uri Lloyd. S.l.: S.n., 1951. Print.
Special Collections Research Center - Biography Collection B L77