l68 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA. 



joined by others, and in a few years the town of Herrnhut was 

 built by the colonists. Zinzendorf took an interest in this set- 

 tlement from the start, became a bishop in the church, and de- 

 voted his life to its service. The efforts of the Brethren were 

 early turned toward foreign missions, and it was in furtherance 

 of mission work that Zinzendorf and Watteville came to 

 America and founded the first Moravian settlements in this 

 country. 



Being so closely connected with the refounders of an an- 

 cient denomination, the parents of Lewis naturally looked for- 

 ward to his becoming an able promoter of the interests of their 

 church. He was their eldest son, of a decidedly intellectual 

 temperament and an enthusiastic disposition, and when in early 

 boyhood he developed the habit of addressing short speeches 

 and little sermons to the family circle, his future seemed to be 

 definitely marked out. 



When a little more than seven years old, Lewis was placed 

 in the academy of the Moravian community at Nazareth Hall, 

 where he remained eleven years. Young Lewis received his 

 first impulse toward scientific study when on a visit to this 

 school with his grandfather, Bishop de Watteville, before he 

 entered it as a pupil. Seeing a specimen of the Lichen digitatus 

 lying on a table, the child examined it with interest, and was 

 told its name and something about its physiology. From that 

 moment he was wont to date his interest in the vegetable 

 kingdom. After entering the school he received some instruc- 

 tion in the elements of botany. A partial flora of Nazareth 

 and vicinity, made while he was at this institution, which re- 

 mained among his manuscripts at his death, is evidence that 

 this study took immediate hold upon the mind of the youth. 

 During his school days his powers of language and his vein of 

 satirical humour were occasionally manifested in poetical effu- 

 sions. While still a pupil and not yet eighteen years of age 

 he assisted in teaching some of the younger classes. Lewis 

 had three brothers and two sisters, none of whom ever turned 

 to scientific pursuits. 



In 1798 Hans von Schweinitz was called to Germany and 

 took his family with him. Lewis was removed from the Naza- 

 reth seminary and after the family reached Germany was en- 

 tered as a student in the theological institution at Niesky, in 

 what was then known as the province of Lusatia, in Silesia. 



