BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. xiij 



the committees of the Academy. He was certainly a distinguished alumnus of the 

 Institution. 



Dr. Pickering was characterized by imperturbable firmness of purpose, and by his 

 loyalty to truth, and integrity in every sense. He was extremely modest, averse to 

 parade, and remarkably free from pretension of every kind. His acquirements were 

 extensive, varied, and minutely accurate. His friends loved him for his unaggressive, 

 always tranquil temper, and his obliging disposition. 



To this imperfect outline of Dr. Pickering's scientific career, though a thing apart, 

 may be added a few words on his heredity. 



Colonel Timothy^Pickering, his grandfather, was a native of Salem, Mass., but his 

 active participation in the Revolution brought him to Philadelphia. He served in the 

 army, took part in the battles of Brandywine and Germantown, and was present at 

 the surrender of Yorktown. He was appointed postmaster-general, August, 1792, 

 secretary of war, January, 1795, and secretary of state, December, 1795, from which 

 office he was removed May 12, 1800, by President John Adams. His son, Timothy 

 Pickering, jr., the father of Dr. Pickering, was born in this city Oct: 1, 1779. He 

 graduated at Harvard College ; was appointed a midshipman in the navy Jan. 17, 

 1799 ; served creditably one cruise under command of the famous Stephen Decatur, 

 and resigned May 2, 1801. 



His father, Colonel Pickering, had acquired extensive tracts of " wild lands " in 

 western Pennsylvania. Finding himself in restricted circumstances when removed 

 from office by President John Adams, he determined to transfer his family to those 

 lands with a view to their settlement. Timothy Pickering, jr., joined his father, and 

 settled at Starucca, now in Susquehanna County, Pa. There he married Lurena 

 Cole, Dec. 29, 1804, and there Dr. Charles Pickering was born Nov. 10, 1805. His 

 father died May 14, 1807, in the twenty-eighth year of his age. A few years prior 

 to this date, Colonel Pickering had changed his place of residence to a farm at 

 Wenham, near Salem, and thither he took the widow and her son to remain members 

 of his own household. There Dr. Pickering was raised and educated, under the im- 

 mediate direction of his mother and the supervision of his distinguished grand- 

 father. 



[The following article, by Dr. Asa Gray, is reprinted from the " Proceedings " of the American 

 Academy of Arts and Sciences, vol. xiii.] 



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 grandson 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 Pennsylvania, at a settlement 



