THEODOEE NICHOLAS GILL. 



By William Healey Dall. 



[With 1 plate.] 



Dr. Theodore Nicholas Gill was born on Broadway, New York 

 City, below the city hall, March 21, 1837, and died at Washington, 

 D. C, September 25, 1914. He was the son of James Darrell and 

 Elizabeth Vosburgh Gill. The father was the son of a merchant 

 of St. Johns, Newfoundland, descended from an old Devonshire 

 family. The mother came of old New York Dutch stock. 



A few years later the family moved to 164 Grand Street, on the 

 border of the city, which was then almost the country, with open 

 fields, trees, and groves in plain view. The city of New York had 

 at that time only some 300,000 population. 



The boy received the rudiments of education from his mother, and 

 at the age of 8 was sent to the Mechanics' Grammar School on 

 Crosby Street, then a highly esteemed educational establishment. 



A year later his mother died, the father gave up housekeeping, and 

 his son was placed in charge of a private tutor at Greenville, N. Y. 

 Here he received a very thorough training in Latin and Greek, the 

 father having ambitions that the son should eventually become a 

 clergyman. 



Later his father married again and resumed housekeeping on 

 West Twenty-sixth Street near Sixth Avenue, and still later moved 

 to Brooklyn. Young Gill was then recalled from Greenville and 

 sent to a private classical school in the city. 



His love of nature and instinct for collecting developed early, and 

 it is perhaps not merely a coincidence that, in coming by the ferry 

 from Brooklyn and daily passing the great Fulton fish market, his 

 attention should have been especially drawn to the study of the 

 fishes of New York. 



As young Gill arrived at the age when it seemed necessary to 

 decide on a profession, it became evident to him that he had no taste 

 for theological studies. After due deliberation he decided to study 



1 Reprinted by permission from Biographical Memoirs. Vol. 8. National Academy of 

 Sciences, July, 1916. The original article contains a bibliography of all of Dr. Gill's 

 most important contributions to systematic zoology and ecology. 



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