BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 



By ASA GRAY. 



William Starling Sullivant, LL. D., died at liis resi- 

 dence in Columbas, Ohio, on the 30th of April, ultimo. 

 In him we lose the most accomplished bryologist which 

 this country has produced; and it can hardly be said that 

 he leaves behind anywhere a superior. 



He was born, January 15, 1803, at the little village of 

 Franklinton, then a frontier settlement in the midst of 

 primitive forest, near the site of the present city of Co- 

 lumbus. His father, a Virginian, and a man of marked 

 character, was appointed by government to survey the 

 lands of that district of the "Northwestern Territory" 

 which became the central part of the now populous State 

 of Ohio ; and he early purchased a large tract of land, 

 bordering on the Scioto River, near by, if not including, 

 the locality which was afterward fixed upon for the State 

 caj^ital. 



William, his eldest son, in his boyhood, if he endured 

 some of the privations, yet enjoyed the advantages of this 

 frontier life, in the way of physical training and early 

 self-reliance. But he was sent to school in Kentucky ; 

 he received the rudiments of his classical education at 

 the Ohio University at Athens, upon the opening of 

 that institution ; and was afterward transferred to Yale 

 College, where he was graduated in the year 1823. 

 His plans for studying a profession were frustrated by 

 the death of his father in that year. This required him 

 to occupy himself with the care of the family property, 

 then mainly in lands, mills, etc., and demanding much 



