In the mid–1800s, Edward Hitchcock was a clergyman and president of Amherst College, Massachusetts. In 1836, six years before the term “dinosaur” was coined, Hitchcock presented a paper describing the footprints in stone found in the Connecticut Valley. He collected over 20,000 of these fossil footprints during his life-time, and organized the world’s largest collection at Amherst College. He believed giant birds made the tracks, not lizards or reptiles.