IV BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 



name comes solely through one son, John Eatton, who was born Sept. 2, 

 1739, and married Jane Sloan in 1770, by whom he had three children, 

 — William, who died at the age of thirty, unmarried ; Lewis, born in 

 1782, who lived in Greorgia, where he married Anne Quartermann, and 

 was the father of Professors John and Joseph LeConte of the University 

 of California, the only living children out of four sons and three daugh- 

 ters ; and finally John Eatton, born in Schrewsbury, N. J., Feb. 22, 

 17H4, who married Mary Anne H. Lawrence in July, 1821, and had 

 three sons, two Edwards, both of whom died in infancy, and the subject 

 (if the present notice, John Lawrence, who was born May 13, 1825.* 



A.'^ the life of Dr. JicConte was an uneventful one, its principal inci- 

 dents may be merely sketched. At the completion of his collegiate 

 course at Mt. St. Mary's College in P]mmetsburg, Md., he entered the 

 College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York, from which he was 

 graduated in 1846. Although he thus made medicine his declared pro- 

 fession, he never followed its practice to any extent, inheriting, as he did, 

 means sufficient to render him independent. From 1848 to 1850 he 

 made several journeys to Lake Superior and California to increase his 

 knowledge of our fauna. In 1852 his father's family removed to Phila- 

 delphia, where he has since resided, marrying in 1861, — the year after 

 his father's death, — the daughter of the late Judge Grier, who, with two 

 sons, survives him. He made other expeditions at various times both 

 before and after his marriage to Honduras and Panama, the Rocky 

 Mountains, Europe, Egypt and Algiers. At the outbreak of the civil 

 war he entered the army medical corps as surgeon of volunteers, and was 

 soon advanced to the post of medical inspector, with the rank of lieu- 

 tenant-colonel, where he remained until the close of the war. In this 

 field his fine organizing power and good sense showed themselves to ex- 

 cellent advantage. After this he held no post demanding his time until 

 1878, when he entered the United States Mint in Philadelphia, — a posi- 

 tion which he retained until his death, which occurred November 15th 

 last. 



Francis Cralton in his work on " Hereditary Genius," and Alphonse 

 DeCandolle in his " Histoire des Sciences et des Savants depuis deux 

 siecles," have clearly proved the influence of heredity in the development 

 of scientific men. To mention a single example, DeCandolle points out 

 that among the ninety-two persons who had been the chosen '' foreign 

 associates" of the French Academy of Sciences up to the time of his 



® Fuller details of the genealogy of the family will be found in an appendix. 



