JOSEPH WINLOCK. 



JOSEPH WINLOCK. 



339 



Professor Joseph Wixlock was burn in Slielby County, Ken- 

 tucky, on February 6, 1826. lie died, suddenly, at Cambridge, Mass., 

 in all the strenjjth of his manhood, and at the height of his usefulness, 

 on June 11, 1S7.'>. The day before that of his death, he was at his 

 usual work, with no warning of his impending fate except fi'oni a 

 sense of increasing lassitude which he had felt for several weeks. 



His grandfather, a Virginian by birth, was General Josei)h Win- 

 lock, who joined the American army, at the outbreak of the Revo- 

 lution, when he was only eighteen years of age. He served at first 

 as a private, and was afterwards promoted to the rank of ensign, 

 lieutenant, and captain. He was engaged in the battles of German- 

 town, Brandywine, Monmouth, &c., and was with Washington at Val- 

 ley Forge. In 1787, he married Miss Stephenson of Virginia, and 

 settled in Kentucky, where he was employed in surveying and entering 

 land. He was sent to the Convention which framed the Constitution 

 of Kentucky, and, afterwards, for some years to the State Senate. 

 He commanded the troops of the State which were ordered out to 

 intercept the expedition of Aaron Burr in 1806. In the War of 1812, 

 he held the rank of Brigadier-General, and went with three regiments 

 to Vincennes. 



His son. Fielding Winlock, the father of Professor Winlock, was 

 born in Kentucky on May 4, 1787. He studied law, at first in the 

 office of Felix Grundy, and, after Mr. Grundy's removal to Nashville, 

 in the office of Henry Clay. During the preparations for the War of 

 1812, he was clerk of the committee of the State Senate on military 

 affiiirs, performing also many of the duties of Adjutant-General. He 

 left this position to serve in the army as aid to his father, and, in the 

 campaign which ended with the defeat of Proctor and Tecumseh, on 

 General Shelby's staff. After the war he held, at different times, 

 various places of honor and trust, and died at the advanced age of 

 eighty-five. 



Professor Winlock was educated at Shelby College, Kentucky, where 

 he graduated in 1845. At this early age his tastes and acquirements 

 were conspicuous ; and he received immediately the appointment of 

 Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy in that institution. He 

 devoted his first savings to the purchase of a set of the Astronomische 

 Nuchrichten ; and, in order to be able to read it, he rose early in the 

 morning to talk German with a rude laborer upon his father's farm, 



