56 LEADING AMERICAN MEN OF SCIENCE 



Wilson became involved in a love affair while at Milestown, 

 which did not end happily for him, and his sensitive nature ever 

 subject to fits of despondency became more than ever affected 

 during his stay at Bloomfield where he was surrounded by stran- 

 gers. He proposed to his friend Orr that they open a school 

 somewhere under their joint management; he even thought of 

 turning his back upon his adopted country and returning to the 

 shores of Caledonia, and meanwhile he consoled himself in his 

 solitude with writing poems. 



In February, 1802, he moved again, this time to take charge of 

 the school at Gray's Ferry just outside the city of Philadelphia. 

 He had evidently not recovered from his despondency, as he writes, 

 "I shall recommence that painful profession once more with the 

 same gloomy sullen resignation that a prisoner re-enters his dun- 

 geon or a malefactor mounts the scaffold; fate urges him, necessity 

 me. The present pedagogue is a noisy, outrageous fat old cap- 

 tain of a ship, who has taught these ten years in different places. 

 You may hear him bawling 300 yards off. The boys seem to 

 pay as little regard to it as ducks to the rumbling of a stream 

 under them. I shall have many difficulties to overcome in estab- 

 lishing my own rules and authority. But perseverance over- 

 cometh all things." 



Little did Wilson suspect that this last move would prove the 

 turning-point of his life and raise him from oblivion to fame though 

 not in the field in which he had always imagined that his genius 

 lay. 



Amid the green fields and the budding woods of early spring he 

 forgot his troubles and his spirits rose again with their charac- 

 teristic impetuosity. Poetry as usual was his resource: "My harp 

 J is new strung," he writes, "and my soul glows with more ardour 

 ) than ever to emulate those immortal bards who have gone before 

 I me ... my heart swells, my soul rises to an elevation I cannot 

 X express." 



But poetry was soon to take second place in his consideration. 



Close to Gray's Ferry lay the homestead of the Bartrams, a 

 curious old stone mansion surrounded by the historic botanical 



