156 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 
Subsequent to 1863 when he became one of the incorporators of 
the National Academy of Sciences, many honors and degrees 
were conferred on him at home and abroad. General Abbot 
remarks that the keynote to his whole life may be found in his own 
words: “I cannot understand how any man can be willing to 
assume charge of a work without making it his business to know 
everything about it from A to Izzard.” 
(From Henry L. Assort, in Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy 
of Sciences, vol. 2, 1886, pp. 201-215.) 
JOHN LAWRENCE Let CONTE 
Born, May 13, 1825; died, November 15, 1883 
Among the many families of Huguenots who fled from 
France after the revocation of the edict of Nantes, may be found 
the name of LeConte. The family was of noble birth and 
possessed of wealth, and no small number of its members had 
that spirit of scientific investigation, which characterized so 
many of the refugees. John Lawrence LeConte traced his 
descent from Guillaume LeConte who was born in Rouen in 
1859. John Lawrence LeConte was born in New York, May 13, 
1825. After taking a collegiate course at St. Mary’s College in 
Emmettsburg, Maryland, he entered the College of Physicians 
and Surgeons in New York, from which he was graduated in 
1846. 
Possessing an independent fortune, he practiced his profession 
but to a limited extent, though during the Civil War he entered 
the army medical corps of the volunteers, becoming medical 
inspector, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. After this, he 
held no regular position until 1878, when he became connected 
with the United States Mint in Philadelphia, remaining there 
until his death on November 15, 1883. 
As early as 1848, Dr. LeConte made several journeys to Lake 
Superior and California to study the fauna, and later travelled 
more extensively, visiting the Rocky Mountains, Honduras and 
Panama, Europe, Egypt and Algiers. He inherited from his 
father a taste for natural history and at the early age of nineteen 
