SKETCH OF THOMAS NUTTALL. 689 



SKETCH OF THOMAS NUTTALL. 



"FT lias often happened that a young man who has begun life as 

 J- a printer has afterward attained to distinction in some more 

 intellectual pursuit. So it was with Benjamin Franklin and so 

 with him whose story is to be told here. Whether this is due to 

 the information which the young printer obtains from the matter 

 constantly passing through his hands, or whether it is because 

 the most intellectual of the young men who learn a mechanical 

 trade take to printing, it would be difficult to say. The fact only 

 need be noted here. 



Thomas Nuttall was born in 1786, in the market town of 

 Settle, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England. His parents 

 were probably in humble circumstances, for at an early age he 

 was apprenticed to the printer's trade, either in his native town 

 or in Liverpool, where he had an uncle engaged in this business. 

 He worked as a journeyman for this uncle several years ; then, 

 having had a disagreement with him, young Nuttall went to seek 

 employment in London. He was not fortunate in the metropolis, 

 and sometimes went to bed without knowing where he would get 

 his breakfast the next morning. 



When twenty-two years of age he came to America, landing 

 in Philadelphia. He must have devoted a large part of his spare 

 moments to study during his early life, for he has been de- 

 scribed on his arrival in this country as a well-informed young 

 man, knowing the history of his country and somewhat familiar 

 with some branches of natural history and even with Latin and 

 Greek. A testimony to his early studious habits came to notice 

 sixteen years later. It is thus recorded in the biographical notice 

 of Nuttall, read by Elias Durand before the American Philosoph- 

 ical Society, which has been taken as the basis of this article : 



" When, in 1824, Prof. Torrey was preparing for publication 

 his Flora of the Northern and Middle States, which he dedicated 

 to his friend Thomas Nuttall, with high compliments, the printer 

 who was engaged upon it asked the professor who was that 

 Nuttall so frequently referred to in his work, adding that he had 

 once worked with a printer of that name, who spent the greatest 

 part of his time in reading books, and he would not be surprised 

 if he were the same man. Prof. Torrey rejoined that ' his surmise 

 was correct ; the printer of former times had proved a most ardu- 

 ous laborer in the field of science, and was now a distinguished 

 botanist and an officer of one of the first scientific institutions of 



the country.' " 



That Nuttall knew nothing of botany when he landed in the 

 United States is shown by an anecdote that he used to tell of him- 



TOL. XLTI. 62 



