BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD. 

 By George C. Comstock. 



Benjamin Apthorp Gould was one of the incorporators of the National Academy of Sciences, 

 a conspicuous figure in its early annals as well as in the history of American science; or Science 

 in America, as Gould is careful to say. Untoward events have so delayed the preparation of 

 his biography that in considerable measure material once available for that purpose seems now 

 irretrievably lost, and a quarter century after his death his career must be studied and his 

 achievements told by a stranger who never saw him and who labors under unexpected diffi- 

 culties in obtaining adequate material. There is a dearth of that intimate information com- 

 monly to be obtained from relatives and close family friends, and its place must here be taken 

 by published memoirs and the recollections courteously supplied by some of his professional 

 associates. In great part this sketch is, from necessity, based upon secondary sources such that 

 inevitably much is lacking that would illumine the man's character, and even in its formal 

 parts, such as the bibliography, entire completeness can not be assured. 



B. A. Gould, jr., as he early indited his name, was born in Boston on September 27, 1824, of 

 sturdy English ancestry that upon both sides had been long resident in Massachusetts. In- 

 spired with a lifelong interest in genealogy, local history, and antiquities, he prepared and twice 

 published a Gould genealogy and from the second, revised and enlarged edition of this work, 

 it appears that both his father and his mother were descended in the sixth generation from the 

 Pilgrim Fathers of a date not long subsequent to 1620. These ancestors had been substantial 

 citizens, landholders and leaders in their communities, and their chief seat appears to have been 

 the estate at Topsford, not far from Boston, established by the immigrant ancestor, Zaccheus 

 Gould. The more remote ancestry may be traced back through English rural records for an 

 additional six generations, during which they appear as substantial yeomen, established not 

 far from London, drawing from the soil their living and by will transmitting their modest estates 

 from generation to generation. The earliest known appearance of the name antedates the 

 discovery of America. 



At the modern end of the line the father of B. A. Gould, jr., also a Benjamin Apthorp Gould, 

 having graduated from Harvard College in 1814, became head master of the Boston Latin 

 School, which he conducted successfully for many years, during which he acquired a reputation 

 for unusual scholarship, based upon his work as editor of numerous classical texts. He married 

 in 1823 Lucretia Goddard and to them were born four children, the eldest of whom is the subject 

 of this memoir. Failing health led the father to withdraw from his academic career and after 

 a journey abroad for recuperation he established himself in Boston as a merchant in the East 

 Indian trade. The activities and interests of the parent, here noted, found strong reflection 

 in at least the earlier parts of the son's career. 



During the father's absence from home the youthful Benjamin was entrusted to the care 

 and guidance of an aunt, Hannah Gould, who is described as a poetess of some fame and a woman 

 "characterized by a cheerful, frolicsome spirit and earnest piety." Gould speaks of her with 

 much respect and she appears to have had large influence in molding the lad's temperament to 

 her own standards and likeness. 



Trained in the Latin School in which his father had taught, and imbued with a lifelong 

 respect and fondness for its lore, the lad entered Harvard College at the age of 16 and there 

 followed for some years the cult of the ancient tongues in which he had been reared. But in 

 increasing measure his interest shifted to physics and especially to mathematics which, under 



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