MEMOIR OF JOSEPH LE CONTE 47 



MEMOIR OF JOSEPH LE CONTE ^ 



BY HERMAN L. FAIRCHILD 



The story of Le Conte's life has been so well told in his autobiography^ 

 and in memorials^ published at the time of his death that only a brief 

 outline will be necessary here. 



On his father's side he was Huguenot, his ancestors coming to America 

 about 1690. His mothers family was Puritan. Louis, the father of 

 Joseph, was a native of New York and a graduate of Columbia College. 

 He studied medicine "to better care for the slaves on his father's plan- 

 tation." His liome was Woodmanston plantation, Liberty County, 

 Georgia, in a Puritan colony, orthodox and exclusive. Joseph was the 

 fifth child and youngest son. His mother, Anne Quartermain, a Puritan, 

 died when Joseph was three years old, and "he was brought up by his 

 father with the most tender care. The father was a very remarkable 

 man — a good physician, a skillful chemist and naturalist, a great hunter, 

 fond of all manly sports, and a passionate lover of nature. Young Le 

 Conte owed much to his father's training, but he was partly prepared for 

 college by Alexander Stephens." Joseph was born February 26, 1823, 

 and died in Yosemite Valley July G, 1901. 



At the age of 18, young Le Conte graduated at Athens College, and in 

 1845, at the age of 22, he graduated in medicine in the College of Phy- 

 sicians and Surgeons in Xew York and began the practice of medicine in 

 his home district in Georgia. In 1847 he married Caroline E. Nisbit. 



He found the life of a country physician unsatisfactory, and, becoming 

 interested in osteology, he went to Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1850, 

 as a pupil of Agassiz. In 1851 he accompanied Agassiz in the latter's 

 study of the Florida coral reefs. 



Turning from medicine to natural science, he became, in 1852, Pro- 

 fessor of Science at Oglethorpe University, Midway, Georgia, teaching 

 physics, chemistry, and "natural science." After one year at Oglethorpe 

 and five years at his alma mater, Athens, Georgia, he accepted the pro- 

 fessorship of Chemistry and Geology at South Carolina College, Colum- 

 bia, South Carolina, which position he held until the end of the Civil 



^ Soon after the death of Professor Le Coute the preparation of his memoir was under- 

 taken by Dr. W J McOoc. The mullipjicily of his duties prevented immediate writing 

 and llie matter was long delayed, and his illness caused further delay and liiial failure. 

 Then the change in the Secretaryship of the Society diverted attention from the matter. 



■•=The Autohlography of Joseph Le Conte. D. Appleton & Co. lOO.'J. 



3 The writer is specially indel)led to the memoir by S. B. Christy, in the Trans. Am. 

 Inst. Mining Engineers, from which the quoted matter In the present writing is mostly 

 taken. 



