Background
He was born on June 18, 1870, in Deer Brook, Mississippi, the son of Charles and Augusta (Johnston) Baskerville.
He was born on June 18, 1870, in Deer Brook, Mississippi, the son of Charles and Augusta (Johnston) Baskerville.
He studied successively at the University of Mississippi, the University of Virginia, Vanderbilt University, and the University of North Carolina.
In 1891 he was appointed instructor of chemistry at the University of North Carolina. From then on his promotion at this institution was rapid; and in 1900 he became professor of chemistry in succession to Dr. F. P. Venable, who had been elected to the presidency. In 1904 Baskerville accepted the directorship of the chemical laboratories of the College of the City of New York, in succession to Dr. R. O. Doremus, and here he remained until his death.
Baskerville was the author of nearly 200 educational, scientific, and technological papers, in addition to being the author or co-author of a number of books, such as Qualitative Analysis, with L. J. Curtman (1910); Municipal Chemistry, with other experts (1911); and Anæsthesia, with J. T. Gwathmey (1914). His earlier researches dealt with the rare earths (thorium, lanthanum, praseodymium and neodymium) and rare metals (titanium and zirconium).
Later, in New York, he turned his attention more to industrial problems: the manufacture and use of several anesthetics employed in surgery; the methods of treating and refining edible vegetable oils; the development of the oil-shale industry; and the recovery of used stock in the pulp and paper industry.
He was a Fellow of the London Chemical Society, member of the Society of Chemical Industry, of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, American Electrochemical Society, the Washington and New York Academies of Science, the Franklin Institute, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
On April 24, 1895, he had married Mary Snow, by whom he had two children.