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Benjamin Silliman

Born	August 8, 1779 North Stratford, Connecticut, USA
Died	November 24, 1864 New Haven, Connecticut, USA
Residence	USA
Nationality	USA
Field	chemist
Institution	Yale University
Alma mater	Yale University
Known for	Distillation of petroleum
Notable prizes	National Academy of Sciences

Benjamin Silliman (8 August 1779 – 24 November 1864) was an American chemist, one of the first American professors of science (at Yale University), and the first to distill petroleum.

Born in North Stratford, Connecticut, now Trumbull, he was the son of General Gold Selleck Silliman and his wife Mary Fish, widow of John Noyes. He was educated at Yale, receiving an A.B. degree in 1796 and an A.M. in 1799. He studied law with Simeon Baldwin from 1798 to 1799 and became a tutor at Yale from 1799 to 1802. He was admitted to the bar in 1802. President Timothy Dwight IV of Yale proposed that he equip himself to teach in chemistry and natural history and accept a new professorship at the university.

Silliman studied chemistry with Professor James Woodhouse in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and delivered his first lectures in chemistry at Yale in 1804. In 1805, he traveled to Edinburgh for further study. Returning to New Haven, he studied its geology, and made a chemical analysis of the meteorite that fell near Weston, Connecticut, publishing the first scientific account of any American meteorite. He lectured publicly at New Haven in 1808 and came to discover many of the constituent elements of many minerals. Upon the founding of the Medical School, he also taught there as one of the founding faculty members. As professor emeritus, he delivered lectures at Yale on geology until 1855; in 1854, he became the first person to fractionate petroleum by distillation.

Silliman was an opponent of slavery and a supporter of Abraham Lincoln. He was a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He founded and edited the American Journal of Science, and was appointed one of the corporate members of the National Academy of Sciences by the United States Congress.

A statue of Silliman in front of Yale's Sterling Chemistry Laboratory.

His first marriage was on 17 September 1809 to Harriet Trumbull, daughter of Connecticut governor Jonathan Trumbull, Jr., who was the son of Governor Jonathan Trumbull, Sr. of Connecticut, a hero of the American Revolution. Silliman and his wife had four children: one daughter married Professor Oliver P. Hubbard, and another married Professor James Dwight Dana. His son Benjamin Silliman Jr., also a professor of chemistry at Yale, wrote a report that convinced investors to back George Bissell's seminal search for oil.

His second marriage was in 1851 to Mrs Sarah Isabella (McClellan) Webb, daughter of John McClellan.

Silliman died at New Haven and is buried in Grove Street Cemetery.

Silliman College, one of Yale's residential colleges, is named for him, as is the mineral Sillimanite.

• Yale University on Silliman
• On his abolitionism