INTRODUCTION 



John I. Northrop was born in New York City October 12, 1861. 

 He was named after his father, John Isaiah Northrop, born near 

 Rochester, N.Y., a pharmacist. His mother, Mary R. Havemeyer, 

 was a sister of Frederic C. Havemeyer, a graduate of Columbia Col- 

 lege, after whom Havemeyer Hall is named. His father died when he 

 was two years old. 



Dr. Northrop studied for some years at a private school in New 

 Windsor, N.Y., then at the Columbia Grammar School, in which he 

 prepared for the Columbia School of Mines. He graduated with the 

 class of 1884, with the degree of Engineer of Mines. While in college 

 he was very fond of outdoor life, was a member of his foot-ball team, 

 an enthusiastic fisherman, and interested in all outdoor sports. One 

 of his former classmates narrates how he once saved a companion's 

 life at the risk of his own. They were ascending a shaft at one of the 

 Lake Superior mines on a man engine when his companion, some dis- 

 tance above, missed a step and was falling down the shaft. Young 

 Northrop seized him as he fell and succeeded in holding him with one 

 arm while he supported himself with the other, an act which called 

 for a strong arm, quick action, and steady nerve, and showed that 

 complete forgetfulness of self which was ever one of his most prom- 

 inent characteristics. 



Immediately after graduation he accepted a position in Have- 

 meyer & Elder's Sugar Refinery, but shortly afterward he journeyed 

 to Deadwood, So. Dak., where he joined a former classmate, and 

 together they opened an office as ''mining engineers, chemists, and 

 assayers." He returned to New York in the spring of 1886 because 

 of the serious illness of his mother, whose death occurred shortly 

 afterward. 



It was evident that his tastes did not lie in the direction of engineer- 

 ing, and while the circumstances of his coming back to New York 

 were sad, they proved to be the turning point in his career. He 



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