ALEXANDER WILSON. 93 



find, and have continued so since." This employment was in 

 the shop of a copper-plate printer. The above-quoted letter 

 was a long and very newsy one, and contains Wilson's first ob- 

 servation of the feathered creatures that were to make his 

 fame. He writes : *' As we passed through the woods on our 

 way to Philadelphia, I did not observe one bird such as those 

 in Scotland, but all much richer in colour. We saw a great 

 number of squirrels, snakes about a yard long, and some red 

 birds, several of which I shot for our curiosity." 



Wilson remained in his first found employment but a few 

 weeks. After that he worked at his trade of weaving at a place 

 ten miles north of Philadelphia, and for a short time in Vir- 

 ginia. In 1795 he tramped through northern New Jersey as a 

 peddler. He had been in America but little over a year when 

 he took up school-teaching, and at this occupation he suc- 

 ceeded remarkably well, although it gave him only a scanty 

 income. He first opened a school at Frankford, but soon gave 

 it up to become master of the school at Milestown, in Phila- 

 delphia County, where he taught for nearly six years. His 

 own education had been limited ; so, after he began to teach, 

 he had to study diligently to make up his deficiencies. He ad- 

 vanced so far in mathematics that he was enabled to take oc- 

 casional employment as a surveyor. 



After leaving Milestown he taught for a while at Bloom- 

 field, N. J., but found this place disagreeable ; and he was at 

 the same time burdened with a trouble, only dimly revealed in 

 his letters, but in which one of the Milestown young ladies 

 figured. He became very despondent, and even thought of re- 

 turning to Scotland. It was not long before he obtained a 

 school at Kingsessing, near Gray's Ferry, on the Schuylkill. 

 His removal to this place was attended with important results, 

 He became acquainted with William Bartram, who lived at the 

 famous garden of his father, not far away, and with Alexander 

 Lawson, the engraver, both of whom became his steadfast 

 friends. Bartram lent him books, among them the works of 

 Catesby and Edwards. In the parts of these works relating to 

 American birds, Wilson's own acquaintance with the birds was 

 enough to show him an exasperating number of errors, false 

 theories, and caricatured figures. During the early part of his 

 life at this place Wilson was so despondent that Lawson at one 

 time feared for his reason, and advised him to give up poetry 



