WILLIAM BALDWIN 



1779-1819 

 Baldwinia unifiora — NUTTALL 



William Baldwin's name is closely associated 

 with that of Darlington. They were classmates 

 in the University of Pennsylvania; and when 

 Darlington was ill, he says: " My friend Bald- 

 win promptly sought me out, devoted to me every 

 hour he could command .... and night and 

 day, like a ministering angel, was hovering round 

 my bed." 



The botanist who makes his biographical debut 

 as " a ministering angel " was the son of a Quaker 

 preacher and was born in Newlin, Chester 

 County, Pennsylvania, on the 27th of March, 

 1779. When school days were over, he studied 

 medicine under Dr. William A. Todd, in Down- 

 ingtown, Chester County, taking his first course 

 of medical lectures at the University of Tennessee 

 in 1802, though when the second session opened, 

 Baldwin, with a full heart but an empty purse, 

 was already back with Dr. Todd, yet hoping for 

 better times in order to take his medical degree. 



This blighting of budding ambition was really 

 the best thing which could have happened, for, in 

 little Downingtown, not big Philadelphia, he met 



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