6-01-2025 12:22am

Mrs. Edith Boyer, Dayton’s First Official Weather Observer

Beth Callahan Editor

Story and illustrations courtesy of Misti Spillman, Manager, Preservation and Community Outreach Woodland Cemetery & Arboretum

Living here in Warren County, we our fortunate to be between the two larger cities of Dayton and Cincinnati. This allows us to not only share in both of these city's accomplishments, but in their residents. And, believe it or not, one way of learning about these people can often be found in historical cemeteries. Dayton, Ohio's Woodland Cemetery and Arboretum, which is one of the oldest garden cemeteries in the United States, is filled with history. And, this June, the WarrenCountyPost.com has been given the privilege to publish a piece from Woodland Cemetery and Arboretum about Edith Boyer.

Dayton’s first official weather observer was Mrs. Edith Boyer, who began studying the local weather in 1882. Boyer began recording temperature, precipitation, and barometric pressure from the roof of her home on Findlay St., sharing the data with local newspapers. When she was officially recognized by the state in 1911, she was paid $36 a year for her services—about $1,211 today. Edith then paid her son, Alexander G.L. Boyer, 10 cents per day to deliver the reports to the post office downtown.

Interest in science, not the money, intrigued her. Many years after an official weather station was established, Edith was still keeping a record of Dayton’s weather by using the meteorological instruments she kept in her home.

Edith & her husband Israel were both mechanically minded.

Mr. Boyer died suddenly in 1899, as they were working on a tag making machine. Mrs. Boyer completed the machine, which took paper or cardboard tags and inserted a knotted string loop into a hole in the tag. From 1910 until 1915, the Boyers’ small factory produced about 20 million tags for many different companies.