The fourth child of Emily and Hiram Bailey, Vernon Orlando Bailey was born on June 21, 1864, in
Manchester, Michigan. Bailey and his pioneer family moved by horse-drawn wagon to
Elk River, Minnesota, in 1870. Hiram Bailey was a woodsman and a mason by trade who taught his son how to hunt at an early age. Since there was no school in the frontier town at the time, the Baileys schooled their children at home until they and several other local families established a school in 1873. Vernon briefly attended the
University of Michigan and later
Columbian University. While in
Elk River, Bailey began collecting specimens and forwarding them to
Dr. C. Hart Merriam, founder of the
Bureau of Biological Survey (the predecessor to the current U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service). Bailey was appointed special field agent to the Division of Economic Ornithology and Mammalogy in 1887. By 1890, Bailey was awarded the title of Chief Field Naturalist. He served in this position until his retirement in 1933. He was the president of the
American Society of Mammalogists from 1933 to 1934, which he also helped found in 1919. During his career, his fieldwork focused on collecting and describing mammals, but also included birds reptiles and plants. His efforts provided the bureau some 13,000 mammal specimens. In 1899, he married ornithologist
Florence Augusta Merriam. The two traveled the United States together and separately collecting and observing specimens in the field. They co-authored several articles including "Cave life of Kentucky" with Leonard Giovannoli, published in the September 1933 edition of
American Midland Naturalist (Vol. 14, No. 5). == Legacy ==