Shear-Stevens: Mycological Work of M. A. Curtis 183 



prepared for Williams College largely under the tuition of his 

 father, who kept a school in Stockbridge.- Curtis' cousin, Mark 

 Hopkins,^ also received a part of his early training from Jared 

 Curtis. 



Curtis graduated from Williams College in 1827. Three years 

 afterward (October, 1830, 21, p. 10) he went to Wilmington, 

 N. C, as tutor in the family of Governor Dudley. In 1833 

 p. 15), he returned to Charlestown, Mass., for a year and a half, 

 where he prepared his first botanical paper and began his studies 

 for the ministry. He married Miss Mary de Rosset of Wilming- 

 ton, December 3, 1834, and was ordained in the Episcopal Church 

 in 1835, and at once took up missionary work in western North 

 Carolina, with headquarters at Lincolnton. From early in 1837 

 to May, 1839, he was engaged as a teacher in the Episcopal 

 School at Raleigh. The summer of 1839 was spent in the moun- 

 tain country largely for his health, but that he used this time to 

 good botanical purpose is evidenced by the testimony of Asa 

 Gray (10, p. 12), that ''no living botanist is so well acquainted 

 with the vegetation of the Southern Alleghany Mountains . . . 

 as the Reverend M. A. Curtis." Early in 1840 (21, p. 16) he was 

 called to mission work about Washington, N. C, and early in 

 1841, removed to Hillsboro. Here, with the exception of nine 

 years (1847-1856) spent at Society Hill, South Carolina, he 

 resided until his death in 1872. 



Early Botanical Work 



Both Gray (11) and Dudley (7) note that Curtis' attention 

 must have been early directed to botany, and in the letter trans- 

 mitting the manuscript of his " Woody Plants of North Caro- 

 lina" (5) to Dr. Ebenezer Emmons, then state geologist, Curtis 

 writes as follows (5, p. 6) : 



" I will state in conclusion, what you were not before 

 aware of, that this Report is one of the fruits of your long 

 continued service in the field of Science. My first knowl- 

 edge of the elementary forms of Botany was derived from 



2 Information in a personal letter from Rev. Charles J. Curtis. 



3 Born at Stockbridge, Mass., February 4, 1802, eldest son of Archibald 

 Hopkins and Mary Curtis. 



