Miron Elisha Hard

Miron Elisha Hard (1849–1914) was an American educator and amateur mycologist, born in Columbus, Ohio, on December 6, 1849. He studied at Ohio Wesleyan University and later earned a master's degree there.

Much of his professional life was spent in education. He served as a high school principal in Gallipolis and Washington Court House, Ohio, and later worked as a superintendent of schools in several districts, including Chillicothe, Salem, Bowling Green, Sidney, and Kirkwood, Missouri.

He is remembered today for The Mushroom, Edible and Otherwise (1908), a book shaped by his long interest in the fungi of Ohio. According to biographical accounts, that interest deepened while he was working in Salem, where he noticed local immigrant children gathering mushrooms and began studying them more seriously. He died in Jacksonville, Florida, on October 6, 1914.