692 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



SKETCH OF SAMUEL LOCKWOOD. 



BY W. S. SNYDER. 



IN Freehold, N. J., and almost upon the historic ground of the 

 battle of Monmouth Courthouse, in an inviting home built to 

 his liking, lived until January 9, 1894, the Rev. Samuel Lock- 

 wood, Ph. D., widely known as a general naturalist, and a shrewd 

 observer and describer of the habits of animals. Such was his 

 retiring and unpretentious nature that the writer had great diffi- 

 culty in securing his consent to the publication of the story of 

 his life. But long acquaintance and occasional meetings at last 

 thawed the reticence, and I am now, after his death, permitted 

 to give a brief account of it. 



Prof. Lockwood was born in Mansfield, England, January 20, 

 1819. His father, "William Lockwood, was a man of devout piety, 

 a leader among the Wesleyan Methodists, and, as a citizen, well 

 versed in public affairs. His mother, who was taken from him at 

 an early age, and for whom he entertained a loving regard, was 

 the daughter of a Moravian exile from Prussia, who became head 

 master of an English endowed school, and was known for his 

 superior artistic tastes and for his engravings on copper. On 

 her death the household in England was broken up, and the 

 father with his little boy started for New York city, where the 

 boy was brought up and received his education. I am unable 

 to give his exact age at the time, but in very tender years the 

 future naturalist began to unfold. A huckleberry party, going 

 into the country one day, were caught in a drenching thunder- 

 shower. Returning in haste to their stopping place, the boy 

 Samuel left the others, and, making a short cut, went by a by- 

 path through a low meadow. Suddenly he paused. Finding a 

 snake lying in the path, and supposing the reptile was dead, he 

 picked it up and carried it home, reaching the house in advance 

 of the others. Before the rest of the party came in, a little boy in 

 the house was taken into the confidence of the young naturalist, 

 who, with the reptile on his lap and a pin in one hand, dis- 

 coursed to him about the beauty of the scales upon his snake, 

 pointing to their outlines with the pin. So absorbed was the 

 juvenile lecturer in his theme that he was unaware that the entire 

 company had become his auditors. 



Young Lockwood's education, with the exception of the bare 

 rudiments, had to be provided by the labor of his hands and 

 brain. He worked his way into the University of the City of 

 New York, where he attracted the attention of the eminent classi- 

 cist, Dr. Lewis, and of the elder Draper, eminent in physics. 

 With Dr. Henry, the rhetorician, his relation was different. Lock- 



