144 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIE OF JOSEPH HENRY. 



of pleasant words, clieerM attention, and, if need were, wise counsel 

 and cordial help. But we are all passing,. as he has passed, and the 

 tribute to his memory which it is our privilege to pay, is a duty to those 

 who are to come after us. 



Joseph Henry was of Scotch descent. His grandparents, paternal 

 and maternal, landed at Xew York from the same vessel on tlie day 

 before the battle of Bunker Hill. The Henrys settled in Delaware 

 County, the Alexanders in Saratoga County, New York. Cf his father, 

 Wilham Henry, little is known. He died when his oldest son, Joseph, 

 was eight or nine years old. His mother lived to a good age.* He was 

 born at Albany very near the close of the last century, t His boyhood 

 was mostly passed with his maternal grandmother in the country at 

 Gal way. His early education was such as a country common school 

 would furnish to a lad of inquisitive mind but no ai)tness for study. 

 The fondness for reading came earlj', but in a surrei^titious way. 



One day, in the piu-suit of a pet rabbit, he penetrated through an 

 opening in the foundation- wall of the village meeting-house. A glim- 

 mer of light enticed him through the broken floor into a room above, in 

 which an open bookcase contained the village library. He took down 

 a book — Brooks's Fool of Quality — was soon absorbed in the perusal, 

 returned again and again to this, which he said was the first book he 

 ever opened voluntarily, and to all the works of fiction which the library 

 contained. Access in the regular way was soon granted to him. 



The lad at this time was a clerk, or office-boy, in the store of a Mr. 

 B^oderick. He returned to Albany at the age of fourteen or fifteen. 

 We may count it as a part of his education that he there served a brief 

 apprenticeship to a silversmith, in which he acquired the manual dex- 

 terity afterward so useful to him. Opportunely perhaps, the silversmith 

 soon failed in business, and young Henry was thrown out of employ- 

 ment. His iiowers were now developing, but not in the line they were 

 soon to take. To romance reading was now joined a fondness for the 

 theater. Not content with seeing all the plays he could, he found his 

 way behind the scenes, and learned the methods of producing stage 



* Slio is remembered as a lady of -winning refinement of mien and character, of small 

 size, with delicate Grecian features, fair complexion, and when young she is said to 

 liuve been very beautiful. 



tThe date, December 17, 1797, given in the American Cyclopedias, appears to be 

 wrong; was perhaps misprinted. There is little doubt that he was born on the 17th 

 of Deoeraberj 1799. 



