234 BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 



Todd, of Downingtown, in the same county; and afterwards, in 

 the winter of 1802-3, attended his first course of medical lectures 

 at the University of Pennsylvania. Here he formed the ac- 

 quaintance and secured the intimate friendship of Dr. William 

 Darlington, who, while suffering from a severe attack of illness, 

 received from young Baldwin assiduous kindness and attention, 

 which he never forgot. After his first course of lectures at 

 Philadelphia he resumed his studies with Dr. Todd, at Downing 

 town; and here he became acquainted with Dr. Moses Marshall, 

 nephew of Humphrey Marshall, the well-known author of >{ Ar- 

 bu'stum Arnericanum" and founder of a botanic garden at Mar- 

 shallton. The nephew had also some botanical knowledge, and 

 had been of material service to the uncle, both in the establish- 

 ment of his garden and in the preparation of his work on Ameri- 

 can Forest Trees and Shrubs. Dr. Marshall seems to have first 

 awakened Baldwin's taste for the study of the vegetable creation - T 

 and the rich collection of indigenous plants in the Marshallton 

 garden served to strengthen this ta«te, which soon deepened into 

 zeal under the instruction of Dr. Benj. Smith Barton, of Phila- 

 delphia. 



In 1805 Baldwin received the appointment of surgeon on a 

 merchant ship bound to Canton. Returning from China in 

 1800, he resumed the medical course at the University of Penn- 

 sylvania, and on the 10th of April, 1807, he received the degree 

 of M. D. He selected Wilmington, Del., for the practice of his 

 profession, 1 and soon afterward was married to Miss Hannah M. 

 Webster, of that city, a lady of superior intellectual endowments, 

 and favored with a finished classical education, unusual for that 

 day. At Wilmington he devoted his leisure to the study of the 

 plants of that vicinity, and while there, in 1811, he attracted the 

 attention of Dr. Muhlenberg, of Lancaster, who sought a corres- 

 pondence with him, which was actively maintained until Muhlen 

 berg's death in 1815. Dr. Darlington has given this correspond- 

 ence to the world, and the letters on both sides, ninety in all, are 

 characteristic cf the respective writers, and illustrative of the 

 formative period of American botany. Botanical students of the 

 present day, supplied with text-books and Floras of the most per- 

 fect -kind, can hardly realize the difficulties of those early stu- 



*Dr. Baldwin joined the Delaware State Medical Society May 4, 1811, the 

 same year and time at which Dr. Gibbons became a member. Dr. Gibbons was 

 long the Nestor of the medical profession in Wilmington, and was the father of 

 Charles Gibbons, of Philadelphia, and of the Gibbons (brothers) of California, 

 who have been of service to botany there. — Minutes of Delaware State Medical So- 

 ciety, per Dr. Bush. 



