THOMAS NUTTALL. 



1786-1859. 



IT has often happened that a young man who has begun 

 life as a printer has afterward attained to distinction in some 

 more intellectual pursuit. So it was with Benjamin Franklin, 

 and so it was with him whose story is now to be told. Whether 

 this is due to the information which the young printer obtains 

 from the matter constantly passing through his hands, or 

 whether it is because the most intellectual of the young men 

 who learn a mechanical trade take to printing, it would be 

 difficult to say. The fact only need be noted here. 



Thomas Nuttall was born in 1786, in the market town of 

 Settle, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England. His parents 

 were probably in humble circumstances, for at an early age 

 he was apprenticed to the printer's trade, either in his native 

 town or in Liverpool. In the latter place he had an uncle en- 

 gaged in this business, for whom he worked as a journeyman 

 several years ; then, having had a disagreement with him, young 

 Nuttall went to seek employment in London. He was not for- 

 tunate in the metropolis, and sometimes went to bed with- 

 out knowing where he would get his breakfast the next 

 morning. 



When twenty-two years of age he came to America, land- 

 ing in Philadelphia. He must have devoted a large part of 

 his spare moments to study during his early life, for he has 

 been described on his arrival in this country as a well-informed 

 young man, knowing the history of his country and somewhat 

 familiar with some branches of natural history and even with 

 Latin and Greek. A testimony to his early studious habits 

 came to notice sixteen years later. It is thus recorded in the 

 biographical notice of Nuttall, read by Elias Durand before 

 the American Philosophical Society, which has been taken as 

 the basis of this article: 



