CHARLES PICKERING. 1 



Charles Pickering, M. D., died in Boston, of pneumonia, 

 on the 17th of March, 1878, in the seventy-third year of his 

 age. He was of a noted New England stock, being a grand- 

 son of Colonel Timothy Pickering, a member of Washington's 

 military family, and of his first cabinet as President ; and he 

 was elected into this Academy under the presidency of his 

 uncle, John Pickering. He was born on Starucca Creek, on 

 the Upper Susquehanna, in the northern part of Pennsylva- 

 nia, at a settlement made on a grant of land taken up by his 

 grandfather, who then resided there. His father, Timothy 

 Pickering, Jr., died at the age of thirty years, leaving to the 

 care of the mother — who lived to a good old age — the two 

 sons, Charles and his brother Edward, who were much united 

 in their earlier and later lives, and were not long divided in 

 death, the subject of this notice having been for only a year 

 the survivor. 



Dr. Pickering was a member of the class of 1823 at Har- 

 vard College, but left before graduation. He studied medi- 

 cine, and took the degree of M. D. at the Harvard Medical 

 School in 1826. Living in these earlier years at Salem, he 

 was associated with the late William Oakes in botanical ex- 

 ploration ; and it is believed that the two first explored the 

 White Mountains together, following in the steps of the first 

 botanist to ascend Mount Washington, Dr. Manasseh Cutler 

 of Essex County, and of Francis Boott and the still surviving 

 Dr. Bigelow. His taste for natural history showed itself in 

 boyhood, both for botany and zoology, and probably decided 

 his choice of a profession. He may have intended to practise 

 medicine for a livelihood, when, about the year 1829, he took 



1 Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, xiii. 

 414. (1878.) 



