Oliver A. Farwell, librarian, botanist, and drug inspector, was born on December 13, 1867 in Boston, Massachusetts. He was the son of Oliver Atkins Farwell and Charlotte (Brockway) Farwell and the grandson of Daniel D. and Lucena Brockway. In his early childhood his family relocated to the Copper Harbor area of Michigan. It was at the one-room schoolhouse at the Cliff Mine location that he received what is believed to be the only systematic teaching of botany that he ever had. Farwell later studied at Ypsilanti Normal School and taught in the Michigan public schools in 1899 and 1900. Thwarted by his mother in his desire to attend the Naval Academy at Annapolis (her father had died at sea and her husband had been almost lost at sea), Oliver pursued his interest in botany. Through family connections he was hired by the Parke, Davis and Company drug firm in Detroit where he became the curator of the hebarium and the librarian. He had the responsibility for the pharmacognosy of raw botanical products, a position he retained for the rest of his professional life. He was a member of the Society of Botanists of the Central States, the Michigan Academy of Sciences, the Torrey Botanical Club, New York Academy of Science, and the American Academy for the Advancement of Science, the Agassiz Association, and the National Geographic Society. He published many papers during his career concerning his specialized research on Michigan flora. The Brockway family is descendants of passengers on the Mayflower and as such Farwell was involved in the Society of Mayflower Descendants, the Sons of the American Revolution, The Pilgrim John Howland Society, the New England Society of Detroit, and the Governor & Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England. Oliver A. Farwell passed away in Lake Linden, Michigan in 1944.