12 NATHANIEL SOUTHGATE SHALER 



to give him a good education ; so he was sent to school in Lan- 

 caster, Massachusetts, where he was lodged in the establishment 

 which his uncle had prepared for those of his generation. 

 Thence he went, as all the boys were intended to go, to Harvard 

 College, where he entered the class of 1827. Although he had a 

 large measure of ability, he was only moderately successful in 

 his studies. Yet he gained and kept to old age a fair knowledge 

 of Latin and Greek and of mineralogy as it was then taught. 

 His combative humor led him into trouble with his teachers; 

 he therefore withdrew at the beginning of his last year, and 

 went to the Medical School, where he had as preceptors Drs. 

 Channing and Jackson and was much influenced by Dr. Warren. 

 In this school my father was successful ; for he had a distinct 

 aptitude for the tasks of a physician, and for a part of his life 

 was devoted to his profession. After graduating, the course 

 was then a small affair, with most of the training given by pre- 

 ceptors, he went to Havana, where his uncle was consul, 

 with the intention of making his career in that place. He ap- 

 pears to have been successful as a practitioner and to have accu- 

 mulated some money. But his combative motive was still upon 

 him, and in two years he started in search of some other spot 

 "to locate" in. This he found as by chance in Newport, Ken- 

 tucky, then a little village with no educated physician and with 

 the Asiatic cholera upon it. His success with this disease, due 

 to his resourcefulness and intrepidity, quickly gave him place 

 among the people. He there married in 1832 Anne Southgate, 

 my mother, and ceased his wanderings. 



I first distinctly remember my father when he was about forty- 

 five years of age. He was then of a singularly noble aspect. I 

 recollect thinking at the time that the only other man to com- 

 pare with him was Robert E. Lee, whom I first saw at about 

 that time, who had a like nobility of form and carriage, 

 though my father was much the more powerful man. Six feet 

 and an inch high, weighing about two hundred pounds, straight 

 limbed, with regular Roman features and with a certain majesty 



