THE BOTANISTS OF PHILADELPHIA. 191 



military family, and of his first cabinet. He was bom on 

 Starucca Creek, on the Upper Susquehanna, Pennsylvania, 

 on a grant of land made to his grandfather, who resided 

 there. His father, Timothy Pickering, Jr., died at the age 

 of thirty years, leaving the two sons, Charles and his brother 

 Edward, to the care of their mother. 



Dr. Pickering was a member of the class of 1823 at 

 Harvard College, but left before graduation ; preferring 

 medicine, he took the degree of M. D. at the Harvard 

 Medical School in 1826. Living in these earlier years at 

 Salem, he became associated with William Oakes in botan- 

 ical exploration. It is probable that they first explored 

 the White Mountains together, following in the steps of the 

 first botanist to ascend Mount Washington. Pickering's 

 taste for botany and zoology showed itself in boyhood, and 

 probably decided his choice of a profession. About the 

 year 1829 he took up his residence at Philadelphia; and it 

 is probable that he was attracted thither more by the 

 facilities that city offered for study of science than by its 

 renown as a centre of medical instruction. We soon find him 

 one of the curators of the Academy of Natural Sciences, and 

 librarian, and with reputation established as the most 

 erudite and sharp-sighted of all the young naturalists of 

 that region. His knowledge then, as in mature years, was 

 encyclopedic and minute. During this time he published 

 a brief essay on " The Geographical Distribution and leading 

 Characters of the United States Flora." 



When the United States Exploring Expedition to the 

 South Seas, which sailed under command of Lieutenant 

 Charles Wilkes in the autumn of 1838, was first organized 

 under Commodore T. Ap. Catesby Jones, Dr. Pickering 



