Timothy Morgan Stoughton lived his whole life in Gill, Massachusetts. He was a farmer and president of a lumber manufacturing company in Turners Falls, just across the river from his home. His property abutted that of Roswell Field, who was deeply engaged in the fossil footprint trade and had become extremely knowledgeable about them. Seeing that his own property also held some of the finest fossil footprints known at the time, Stoughton followed Field's example, operating a dinosaur footprint quarry on his land from 1859 to 1867. The men became rivals, not only because of the fossils but due to opposing local interests. Stoughton eventually purchased property from the then-elderly Field to expand his own quarries. He and Field together met the famous English scientist Thomas Henry Huxley, who in 1876, came to see their fossil footprints while on a tour of the United States.