FRANCIS BOOTT. 1 



Francis Boott, M. D., died at his residence in London 

 on Christmas morning, in the seventy-first year of his age. 

 He was born in Boston, on the 26th of September, 1792. 

 His father, Kirk Boott, came to this country early in life, 

 from Derbyshire, England, became a successful merchant 

 in Boston, was one of the pioneers of manufacturing enter- 

 prise here, and one of the founders of Lowell, — the type, if 

 not wholly the original of manufacturing towns. His Boston 

 residence was on the site now occupied by the Revere House, 

 of which the Boott mansion forms a part. Francis Boott 

 entered Harvard University in the year 1806, and took his 

 bachelor's degree in 1810. A year after, being then in his 

 nineteenth year, namely, in the summer of 1811, he sailed 

 for England, intending to enter a counting-room in Liverpool, 

 as a preparation for mercantile life. This plan, however, 

 was soon relinquished ; and the three succeeding years were 

 mainly spent with his relatives and their friends near Derby, 

 where he made the acquaintance of Mrs. Hardcastle, his fu- 

 ture mother-in-law, who was something of a botanist, and 

 where he formed both the scientific and social attachments 

 which determined the aims and secured the happiness of his 

 whole after life. Returning to Boston at the close of the year 

 1814, he engaged with enthusiasm in botanical pursuits, and 

 amassed a good collection of New England plants. In the 

 summer of 1816 he took a leading part in a botanical ex- 

 ploration of the mountains of New England, ascending in the 

 course of one journey, Wachusett, Monadnock, Ascutney, and 

 Mount Washington ; and later in the season Dr. Boott with 

 his brother visited and ascended Moosehillock. His compan- 

 ions in the extended and then formidable tour which culmi- 



1 American Journal of Science and Arts, 2 ser., xxxvii. 288. (1864.) 



