JOSEPH HENRY 



PHYSICIST 



1797-1878 

 BY SIMON NEWCOMB 



THE visitor to the great rotunda of the Congressional Library 

 at Washington will see among the ^tatues which surround it and 

 illustrative of the history of thought one bearing the very simple 

 name of HENRY. The object of the present chapter is to present 

 a brief sketch of the man whose memory is thus honored. 



Joseph Henry was the first American after Franklin to reach 

 high eminence as an origin ajMiny estimator in pJiYsicaLscifinc^^ He 

 was born in Albany, December 17, 1797. It should be remarked 

 that there is some doubt whether the year was not 1799. But the 

 writer has reason to believe the earlier date to be the correct one. 

 Little more is known of his ancestors than that his grandparents 

 were Scotch-Irish, and landed in this country about the beginning 

 of the Revolutionary War. Nothing was known of his father 

 which would explain his having had such a son. His mother was 

 a woman of great refinement, intelligence and strength of charac- 

 ter, but of a delicate physical constitution. T.ikf th<> mnthprg p 

 many nthpr or^t men, ch** w Qg flf f ^ pf T)]y devotional chfirfictfiF- 

 Sfie~was a Presbyterian of the old-fashioned Scottish stamp and 

 exacted from her children the strictest performance of religious 

 duty. 



The educational advantages of young Joseph were no other 

 than those commonly enjoyed by youth born in -the same walk of 

 life. At the age of seven years he left his paternal home and went 

 to live with his grandmother at Galway, where he attended the 

 district school for three years. At the age of ten he was placed in 



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