WILLIAM STARLING SULLIVANT. 1 



William Starling Sullivant, LL. D., died at his resi- 

 dence in Columbus, Ohio, on the 30th of April, ultimo. In 

 him we lose the most accomplished bryologist which this 

 country has produced ; and it can hardly be said that he 

 leaves behind him anywhere a superior. 



He was born, January 15, 1803, at the little village of 

 Franklinton, then a frontier settlement in the midst of primi- 

 tive forest, near the site of the present city of Columbus. His 

 father, a Virginian, and a man of marked character, was ap- 

 pointed by government to survey the lands of that district of 

 the Northwestern Territory which became the central part 

 of the now populous State of Ohio ; and he early purchased 

 a large tract of land, bordering on the Scioto River, near by, 

 if not including, the locality which was afterwards fixed upon 

 for the state capital. 



William, his eldest son, in his boyhood, if he endured some 

 of the privations, yet enjoyed the advantages of this frontier 

 life, in the way of physical training and early self-reliance. 

 But he was sent to school in Kentucky ; he received the rudi- 

 ments of his classical education at the so-called Ohio Univer- 

 sity at Athens, upon the opening of that seminary ; and was 

 afterward transferred to Yale College, where he was graduated 

 in the year 1823. His plans for studying a profession were 

 frustrated by the death of his father in that year. This re- 

 quired him to occupy himself with the care of the family 

 property, then mainly in lands, mills, etc., and demanding 

 much and varied attention. He became surveyor and prac- 

 tical engineer, and indeed took an active part in business 

 down to a recent period. Leisure is hardly to be had in a 



1 Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, ix. 271. 

 (1873.) 



