1884.] 



MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 



167 



the year. Dr. George E. Blackham 

 read a memoir of Robert B. Tolles. 

 It is too long to publish in full, but 

 we give the principal part of it as 

 follows : — 



' I am indebted, for most of the 

 facts now presented, to the kindness 

 of Mr. and Mrs. A. M. Lewis, of 

 Chicago, 111., the sister and brother- 

 in-law of the subject of this paper. 

 The story is a simple and touching 

 narrative of the struggle of genius 

 with poverty and ill-health, of steady 

 persistence in the face of apparently 

 insurmountable obstacles, and of final 

 and triumphant success, when he 

 finally yielded to the fatal malady 

 which had so long tortured him, and 

 died in the hospital, leaving scarce 

 enough of this world's goods to de- 

 fray his funeral expenses, but univer- 

 sally acknowledged as among the 

 first, if not, as many of us believe, 

 the very first optician of his time. 

 The story of his life is as follows : — 



' Robert B. Tolles was born in 

 Winchester, Litchfield county, Conn. 

 He was the son of Elisha and Harriet 

 Tolles, and the second of five chil- 

 dren, two sons and three daughters, 

 of whom the daughters only are now 

 living. They are Mrs. Helen M. 

 Clarke, with whom he made his 

 home for the last few years of his 

 life, and Mrs. Mary A. Grant, both 

 in Boston, Mass., and Mrs. Harriet 

 S. Lewis, in Chicago, 111. His early 

 life was spent at home on his grand- 

 father's farm near by, where he 

 worked to aid in supporting the fam- 

 ily, who were very poor. His edu- 

 cational advantages were very lim- 

 ited, being only those offered by the 

 common district school. He was, 

 even then, an eager seeker after 

 knowledge, and earnestly desired a 

 collegiate education, but poverty and 

 ill-health combined to prevent him 

 from attaining this object of his am- 

 bition. At the age of eighteen he 

 suffered from a very severe attack of 

 pleurisy, from the effects of which he 

 never wholly recovered, and which 

 probably laid the foundation for his 



life-long sufferings. His father, from 

 whom he doubtless inherited much 

 of his genius and skill, was an in- 

 ventor, and several of his inventions 

 were patented, but he seems to have 

 realized very little pecuniary advan- 

 tages from them — partly, no doubt, 

 because his poverty prevented him 

 from developing them. He died of 

 cholera, in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1848. 



' After the death of his mother, in 

 1843, Robert, just then of age, went 

 to visit an uncle residing near this 

 city — Rochester, N. Y. — performing 

 much of the journey on foot, as he 

 was too poor to afford the luxury 

 of traveling by public conveyance. 

 When his visit was finished he started 

 for New -York city, stopping on the 

 way at Canastota, N. Y., when a 

 happy chance led him to the little 

 workshop where Charles A. Spencer 

 was turning out the wonderful opti- 

 cal work which was at once the ad- 

 miration and the despair of the old- 

 world opticians. The young Yankee 

 boy looked about him, and in that 

 moment saw his life-work before 

 him. " Here," said he, " is the place 

 and the work for me." Soon after he 

 entered the sei"vice of Mr. Spencer as 

 an apprentice, and as apprentice and 

 journeyman he remained with him 

 till 1858, when he started in business 

 on his own account in a little loft in 

 Canastota. 



'In 1867 he received, through Mr. 

 Charles Stodder, a proposition from 

 several Boston gentlemen to remove 

 his business to that city and organize 

 it under the name of the Boston Op- 

 tical W^orks, with himself as superin- 

 tendent. The offer was accepted and 

 the business carried on in this way 

 for four years, when it was deemed 

 best to place the business entirely in 

 his hands, and from that time until 

 his death, on the 17th of November, 

 1883, R. B. Tolles and the Boston 

 Optical Works were one and the 

 same. In 1853 he married Miss 

 Freelove S. Dickey, but afl:er less 

 than a year of matrimonial happiness 

 was left a widower, as she died in 



