Necrology of i8go. 



291 



GEORGE THURBER. 



Dr. Thurber, long known to all lovers of rural life as one 

 of our most genial writers, died in April. The following 

 sketch of him was prepared by Dr. Byron D. Halsted, of Rut- 

 gers College, who knew him long and intimately. The por- 

 trait is a faithful interpretation of the most characteristic pho- 

 tograph extant. 



George Thurber, A. M,, M. D., a brief sketch of whose life and labors 

 is herewith recorded, was born in Providence, R. I., on September 2, 1821, 

 and died at his home near Passaic, N. J., on April 2 of the present year, 

 and was, therefore, in the 69th year of his age. In ancestral lines he was 

 of Scotch descent. As a boy he possessed a special fondness for natural 

 history, and after enjoying a partial course in the Union Classical and En- 

 gineering School of Providence, he became interested in pharmacy and 

 served an apprenticeship as an apothecary, at the end of which period he 

 engaged in that business for himself and was soon a master of the history 

 and derivation of every drug in his store. During this time he became en- 

 thusiastic in chemistry and botany in addition to his strictly pharmaceutical 

 studies. His appointment soon after, as lecturer upon chemistry at the 

 Franklin Society of his native city, is sufficient evidence of the early prog- 

 ress in sciences of the rising apothecary. A copy of Turner's chemistry 

 in the possession of his relatives shows that it was a present to him by his 

 class in 1840, or when he was only nineteen years of age. While fond of 

 the natural sciences in general, he found his greatest delight in botany, a 

 branch of science congenial with his occupation, and particularly adapted 



