philosophical society op washington. 203 



148th Meeting. October 26, 1878. 



Vice-President Taylor in the Chair. 

 • Fifty members and visitors present. 



Mr. J. C. Welling read the following address on the 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OP JOSEPH HENRY, 



and Mr. W. B. Taylor gave an historical account of 



HIS SCIENTIFIC LABORS. 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF JOSEPH HENRY. 

 Joseph Henry was born in Albany, N. Y., on the ITth of 

 December, 1799. His grandparents on both his father's and 

 mother's side emigrated from Scotland, and lauded in this country 

 on the 16th of June, 1775, the day before the battle of Bunker's 

 Hill. At the age of seven or earlier, for what reason is unknown, 

 he went to live with his maternal grandmother, who resided at 

 Galway, in the county of Saratoga, N. Y., and his father having 

 died soon afterwards, he continued to dwell for years under her 

 roof. At Galway he attended the district school, of which one 

 Israel Phelps was the master, and having there learned how "to 

 write and cipher, too," he was placed at the early age of ten in 

 a store kept in the village by a Mr. Broderick. Receiving from 

 his employer every token of kindness, and, indeed, of paternal 

 interest in his welfare, the boy-clerk, already remarkable for his 

 handsome visage, his slender figure, his delicate complexion, and 

 his vivacious temper, became a great favorite with his comrades, 

 who, according to the customs of the village store, were wont to 

 saunter about the door in summer, and to gather round the stove 

 in winter for the interchange of such trivial gossip as pertains to 

 yillage life. Though released at this time for the half of each 

 day from the duty of waiting in the store, that he might attend 

 the sessions of the common school in the afternoon, it does not 

 appear that he had as yet evinced any taste for books, notwith- 

 standing the fact, as he afterwards recalled, that his young brain 

 was even then troubled at times with the " malady of thought," 

 as he lost himself in the mazes of revery or speculation about 

 God and creation — "those obstinate questionings of sense and 

 outward things," which the philosophical poet of England has 



