442 memorial of joseph henry. 



Biographical Notice. 



The interest which, in the light of modern theories of heredity, 

 attaches to the ancestry of men possessing uncommon intellectual 

 powers would naturally lead us to desire a knowledge of Professor 

 Henry's ancestors. We have, however, no sufficient historical data 

 for gratifying any desire of this kind. Little more can be said than 

 that his grand-parents were of Scottish origin, and landed in this 

 country about the beginning of the revolutionary war. Of his 

 father little is known, and that little does not enable us to explain 

 why he had such a son. His mother was a woman of great refine- 

 ment, intelligence, and strength of character, but of a delicate 

 physical constitution. Like the mothers of many other great men 

 she was of deeply devotional character. She was a Presbyterian of 

 the old-fashioned Scottish stamp, and exacted from her children 

 the strictest i)erformance of religious duties. 



The son Joseph was born in Albany, on the 17th of December, 

 either 1797 or 1799.* The doubt respecting the year has not yet 

 been decisively settled. At the age of seven years he left his pater- 

 nal home and went to live with his grandmother at Galway, where 

 he attended the district school for three years. At the age of ten 

 he was placed in a store kept by a Mr. Broderick, and spent part 

 of the day in business duties and part at school. This position he 

 kept until the age of fifteen. During these early years his intel- 

 lectual qualities were fully displayed, but in a direction totally dif- 

 ferent from that which they ultimately took. He was slender in 

 person, not vigorous in health, with almost the delicate complexion 

 and features of a girl. His favorite reading was books of romance. 

 The lounging-place for the young villagers of an evening was 

 around the stove in Mr. Broderick's store. Here young Henry, 

 although the slenderest of the group, was the central figure, retail- 

 ing to those around him the stories which he had read, or which 

 his imagination suggested. He was of a highly imaginative turn 

 of mind, and seemed to live in the ideal world of the fairies. 



♦This uncertainty appears to liavo resulted from the difficulty of deciphering the 

 faded record of date In the old family Bible. 



