r^iy^W-^T . - .-^ j"-*^*<- 



1863. 



THE ILLINOIS FAEMEE. 



199 



to him with veneration and respect, and now not 

 only as a dear old friend departed, but as a co-la- 

 borer in that field of all others needed in the west 

 to make it what it should be, the garden of the 

 world. A few years more and we, too, shall stand 

 on the other side of the great river and look back 

 into the dim and misty past. . ■; 



There are, or was, three Dr. Kennicotts, so 

 called, two of them dentists, standing high in the 

 profession, and to distinguish them, our old friend 

 was called the "Old Doctor." The younger broth- 

 er is yet living near Chicago. 



The Kennicott family was originally from Dev- 

 onshire, England, and came to Philadelphia at an 

 early day of its settlement. The grandfather of 

 the " Old Doctor " was one of the survivors of 

 the " Jersey Prison Ship." His father was a 

 mechanic and farmer, and was one of the first to 

 see the value of new inventions and new modes of 

 culture. He owned and worked one of the first 

 carding machines in the county to which he first 

 moved, about 1810. The "Old Doctor," as we 

 choose to call him, was born in Montgomery coun- 

 ty, New York, in the year 1800. His mother was 

 of Scotch descent, and possessed a great taste for 

 gardening. There is no doubt that from her is due 

 his taste for rural adornment. The labor of his 

 early years was devoted to gardening under the di- 

 rection of his mother, and at a dozen years of age 

 he had a small nursery of fruit trees. Of course 

 none of them were grafted, for grafting in that 

 county was little known and less practiced at that 

 time. "We allude to the above more for the pur- 

 pose of showing the influence of the mother on 

 her offspring than for the bare fact itself. 



The germ was not only set, but practically in- 

 clined, and though afterwards drawn off into an- 

 other channel, the education of the young, yet it 

 came back to its first promptings when left to its 

 own volition. He always had a dislike to aristo- 

 cratic pretenses and humbugs of all kinds, but 

 an intense lover of nature. Nothing pleased him 

 more than to wander through the deep wood and 

 pursue his favorite study, botany, under its shade, 

 and listen to the music of the birds. 



His bumps of romance and credulity were small, 

 — he has often assured us that he never believed 

 in anything antiquated or conventional. "Dead 

 languages " and fashionable society — priests — pol- 

 iticians, especially the latter, always were his aver- 

 sion, as well as every ism where a one idea was 

 the hobby. . ^ ' ; 



The family removed to Western New York, and 

 in itg wilds the Doctor grew up to manhood. He 

 was self-educated, for at that date there was no 

 district schools in western New York, and, as he 



has often said, his school room was the deep wood 

 where he pui-sued his studies, with such help as his 

 parents could give him. His studies did not inter- 

 fere with his labor, for at that time there were no 

 idlers in the Gennese country where new homes 

 must be carved out of the dense forest, and from 

 his twelfth to his twentieth year, his labors were 

 of the most exacting kind, carving down the dense 

 forest with his axe in assisting his father to make 

 a home for the family. At that time the Doctor 

 thought few woodmen could " bult " him, while 

 with the gun and fish line he was an expert. 

 Through those busy years of his youth he never, 

 for a moment, lost sight of his favorite botany, 

 though only books' and nature to assist him. 



At about the age of twenty he was broken down 

 with acute rheumatism and forced to seek some 

 other employment. School teaching and the study 

 of medicine were the most feasible presented to his 

 view, and he at once entered upon it. 



In 1820, Western New York began to emerge 

 from the forest wall that bound it, and the light 

 of civilization penetrated its wild waste of tangled 

 wood, out of which thousands of homes had been 

 carved. 



He left Lis forest home and went to Buffalo, then 

 a small village at the foot of Lake Erie. He soon 

 made the acquaintance of such men as David 

 Thomas, John Torrey, and others of like habits, 

 and thus had an opportunity to complete his study 

 of botany through their assistance. 



He taught school, and delivered a course of lec- 

 tures on botany to enable him to pursue the study 

 of medicince. - ; - : 



He also, at this time, commenced writing for 

 the Buiiiilo papers, and says he was even " guilty 

 of writing poetry, which some of the editors were 

 green enough to publish." 



His medical education was completed at Fairfield 

 in Herkimer county. After his return to Buffalo 

 he lectured on botany,naturaI philosophy, anatomy, . 

 etc. He also wrote several scientific articles for 

 the press, but always anonymous. 



Now came the crisis in his affairs in debt and in 

 law. Self-educated, self-reliant, he felt as though 

 the world was before him and he would boldly 

 strike out to carry out his fortune. He spent a 

 year in Mississippi in teaching and lecturing, and 

 then went to New Orleans, where his talent and 

 energy soon obtained him the position of principal 

 of "the upper primary school," then supported by 

 the State. For this position Judah P. Benjamin, 

 of confederate notoriety was also an applicant, bat 

 the Dr. beat him in the election before the board 

 of education. This school was very large, num. 

 bering three thousand on its rolls while in charge 



