1887] -^^7 [Garrett. 



Memoir of Pliny Earle Chase. By Philip C, Garrett. 



{Read before the American Philosophical Society, October 21, 18S7.) 



Pliny Early Chase was a native of the old Puritan Commonweallh 

 which has probably contributed more than any other to the intellectual 

 life of this country. He was born at Worcester, Mass., on the 18th of 

 August, 1820, and was descended on both sides from the hardy and intel- 

 ligent yeomanry of Xew England, most of his ancestors in this country 

 having been farmers. His father, Anthony Chase, wa5 for thirty-four years 

 Treasurer of the county of Worcester and for tlnrly years President of 

 the Worcester Mutual Fire Insurance Co., and died as recently as 1879 

 at the advanced age of eighty-eight years. His mother was Lydia Earle, 

 of the neighboring town of Leicester. Her father, Pliny Earle, "made 

 the first cards ever propelled by mechanical power in America, and 

 invented a machine by which the manufacture of them was greatly facili- 

 tated ;" Dr. Pliny Earle, one of the most distinguished alienists of this 

 countrj^ was her brother ; another was Thomas Earle, an eminent philan- 

 thropist, member of the Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention of 1887 

 and candidate of the Liberal Party for the Vice-Presidency in 1840 ; a 

 third, John Milton Earle, was for many years Editor of the Massachusetts 

 "Spy." 



The subject of this Memoir was of the eighth generation in descent from 

 Ralph Earle, who " was on the island of Rhode Island in 1638, was one 

 of the petitioners to the King for permission for the formation of a 'body 

 politic' on that island, and was subsequentlj^amember of their legislative 

 Assembly." 



Pliny Earle Chase's earl}^ education was received at the Worcester 

 Latin School, the principal of which, at that time, Hon. Charles Thurber, 

 afterwards member of the Massachusetts Senate, preceded his distinguished 

 pupil to the " Silent Land " only a few days. Ex-President John Adams 

 had been a teacher in the same school. Pliny afterwards attended the 

 Friends' School at Providence, R. I., and entered Harvard in 1835, gradu- 

 ating from that University in 1839 with the degree of A. B., and receiving 

 that of A. M. in 1844. "As a boy, he was bright, intelligent, apt and 

 quick in the acquisition of knowledge, but without special precocity. He 

 was always one of the best scholars, but there was nothing that indicated 

 the profundity of intellect manifested in his later years.'.' In a letter to 

 his uncle, he writes, in his Freshman year : "I am chiefly guided in the 

 path which I intend to pursue by an aspiration after such honors as are 

 calculated to be of lasting benefit in forming an acquaintance with the ways 

 of the world and in acquiring honorable fame." 



He was then only fifteen years of age, but his career would indicate that he 

 kept this honorable ambition of his boyhood constantly in view throughout 

 life. Edward Everett Hale, who was a Harvard classmate, informs that 

 he was " distinguished for scholarship, especially for mathematical scholar- 



