The Academy of Natural Sciences 7 



Jacob Gilliams, however, who had issued the invitation for the 

 preliminary meeting and the conclusion is a just one that the 

 foundation of the Academy is ascribable to these two men. 



John Speakman was born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and 

 belonged to the religious society of Friends. His apothecary shop at 

 the northwest corner of Second and Market Streets was a 

 center of literary and scientific gossip. He was for a time in 

 disastrous partnership with Say and was ever ready to do all the 

 work of the shop so as to enable his friend to devote almost his entire 

 time to the service of science. Through the endorsement of 

 unreliable friends the firm came to an unfortunate end, the partners 

 retaining scarcely anything for themselves. As late as 1839 Mr. 

 Speakman, at a considerable sacrifice of his private interests, visited 

 Mr. Maclure in Mexico, where he spent several months for the 

 benefit of the Academy. 



Mr. Jacob Gilliams was a native of Philadelphia and a leading 

 dentist of the day. He was an intimate associate of Thomas Say 

 and Alexander Wilson, and when the latter was engaged on his 

 American Ornithology the three friends were frequent visitors to 

 Mr. William Bartram at his house attached to the garden which has 

 now become classic ground. 



Mr. John Shinn, Jr., was a native of New Jersey. He was 

 employed as a manufacturing chemist. Soon after the Academy 

 was established in the new hall in Gilliams' Court he delivered a 

 course of lectures on chemistry, the first given under the auspices 

 of the society. 



Mr. Nicholas S. Parmentier was born in France. He was 

 a distiller and manufacturer of spermaceti oil. He removed to 

 Florida. 



Gerard Troost 2 was the first President of the Academy and 

 served efficiently until 1817 when he was succeeded by Mr. Maclure. 

 He was born in Bois-le-Duc in Holland and educated as a pharma- 

 cist and chemist. He settled in Philadelphia in 1810. In 1815 and 

 1816 he engaged in the manufacture of alum on the Magothy River 

 in Maryland. On his return to the city he delivered lectures on 

 mineralogy in the Philadelphia Museum and the College of Phar- 

 macy. After spending two years with his friend Maclure at New 

 Harmony, Ind., he was elected, in 1828, Professor of Chemistry, 



2 University of Tennessee, Bulletin of Information, v., 6, Jan., 1907. 



