John White Webster

John White Webster (1793-1850), a physician and chemist in Boston, Massachusetts, served as Lecturer on Chemistry, Mineralogy, and Geology at Harvard from 1824 to 1826; Adjunct Professor of Chemistry from 1826 to 1827; and Erving Professor of Chemistry and Mineralogy from 1827 to 1850.

Webster graduated from Harvard in 1811. After receiving his Doctor of Medicine from Harvard in 1815, Webster completed his medical studies in London. Webster pursued a medical practice in Boston until his appointment as Lecturer on Chemistry, Mineralogy, and Geology in 1824, confining his instruction to the Harvard Medical School. Like his predecessors, Webster used experiments to demonstrate the principles of chemistry and recent scientific discoveries.

Webster served as an associate editor of the Boston Journal of Philosophy of Arts (1823-1826) and edited two well-known foreign works for use in the United States, Elements of Chemistry (1827) by Andrew Fyfe (1792-1861) and Animal Chemistry or Organic Chemistry by Justus Liebig (1803-1873). In 1826, Webster published a textbook designed for students studying chemistry at Harvard, A Manual of Chemistry. This chemistry book presented the latest advances in chemistry and discussed general chemical principals, electronegative substances, electropositive substances, metals and their combination with other substances, mineral analysis, and vegetable and animal substances.

In 1849, police investigators discovered something gruesome in the tea chest in which Professor Webster stored his prized collection of minerals: the dismembered torso of George Parkman, a Boston businessman that Webster had murdered in order to avoid repaying a debt. It was the "murder of the century." Webster was found guilty and was hanged on August 30, 1850.