CHARLES PICKERING. 
CHARLES PickERING, M. D., died in Boston, of pneumonia, 
on the 17th of March, 1878, in the seventy-third year of his 
age. He was of a noted New England stock, being a grand- 
son of Colonel Timothy Pickering, a member of Washington’s 
military family, and of his first cabinet as President; and he 
was elected into this Academy under the presidency of his 
uncle, John Pickering. He was born on Starucca Creek, on 
the Upper Susquehanna, in the northern part of Pennsylva- 
nia, at a settlement made on a grant of land taken up by his 
grandfather, who then resided there. His father, Timothy 
Pickering, Jr., died at the age of thirty years, leaving to the 
care of the mother — who lived to a good old age — the two 
sons, Charles and his brother Edward, who were much united 
in their earlier and later lives, and were not long divided in 
death, the subject of this notice having been for only a year 
the survivor. . 
Dr. Pickering was a member of the class of 1823 at Har- 
vard College, but left before graduation. He studied medi- 
cine, and took the degree of M. D. at the Harvard Medical 
School in 1826. Living in these earlier years at Salem, he 
was associated with the late William Oakes in botanical ex- 
ploration ; and it is believed that the two first explored the 
White Mountains together, following in the steps of the first 
botanist to ascend Mount Washington, Dr. Manasseh Cutler 
of Essex County, and of Francis Boott and the still surviving 
Dr. Bigelow. His taste for natural history showed itself in 
boyhood, both for botany and zodlogy, and probably decided 
his choice of a profession. He may have intended to practise 
medicine for a livelihood, when, about the year 1829, he took 
1 Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, xl. 
414. (1878.) 
