Charles Anthony Goessmann

Goessmann was born in Naumburg, Germany. He was educated at the gymnasium in Fritzlar. After leaving the gymnasium, he became an apprentice pharmacist, and worked as an assistant pharmacist in several towns.[1] He studied under Friedrich Wöhler in the University of Göttingen, where he received the degree of Ph.D. in 1853. From 1852 until 1857, he was assistant in the chemical laboratory, and privatdocent in the university. During this time, he studied the peanut.[2]

One of Goessmann's students at Göttingen was J. H. Eastwick, and in 1857 Goessmann came to the United States as chemist and manager of the Eastwick Bros. sugar refinery in Philadelphia.[1][2] He remained in that position until 1861. He was then chemist of the Onondaga Salt Company, 1862 to 1869, engaged in the development of the salt industry in New York and Michigan. In 1862, he became professor of chemistry in the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, but resigned that chair after two years.

William S. Clark, president of the Massachusetts Agricultural College, had also been one of Goessmann's students at Göttingen,[1] and in 1869 Goessmann was appointed professor of chemistry at MAC. His research focused on the chemistry of crops and agricultural soils.[2] In addition to his professorship, he was chemist to the Massachusetts Board of Agriculture in 1873, director of the Massachusetts Agricultural Experiment Station in 1882, and analyst of the Massachusetts Board of Health in 1883. In 1873, he got a law passed for accurate fertilizer labeling.[2]

He was the first president of the American Association of Agricultural Chemists. On his retirement in 1907, he received a Carnegie pension. He died in Amherst, Massachusetts, leaving a widow, Mary Anna Clara Kinny Goessmann, whom he had married on 22 October 1862,[1] and three children.

He has a building named after him at UMass Amherst, Goessmann Hall, which is the main chemical engineering building on campus.