amateur archaeologist and naturalist, b. town of Newark, Rock County. He was a successful real-estate dealer, farmer, and businessman in Iowa and Wisconsin, and retired from active business pursuits in 1896. A self-taught naturalist, he settled on a farm at Lake Koshkonong, the site of an ancient Winnebago Indian village, and there devoted the remainder of his long life to the study of Indian culture and ornithology. He became an expert on the Indian mounds in the area, but was best known for his mastery of the art of reproducing Indian flint implements. A study of this phase of his work was written by Alonzo Pond, Primitive Methods of Working Stone Based on the Experiments of H. L. Skavlem (1930). Skavlem also possessed an unusual knowledge of the geology, and plant and animal life of his region. He was the author of a monograph on the feeding habits of the canvasback duck, and accumulated a large collection of local birds. He conducted numerous archaeological trips throughout the state, and was a frequent contributor to the Wisconsin Archeologist. Wis. Archeologist, 19; Janesville Daily Gazette, Jan. 6, 1939; Wis. Mag. Hist., 22.Learn More
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[Source: Dictionary of Wisconsin biography]
