•  412  Charles  Bullock.  {^JZlggg' 
the  doors  were  not  barred  at  night,  and  that  it  was  no  unusual  thing 
for  him,  in  his  boyhood  days,  on  coming  downstairs  in  the  early 
morning,  to  stumble  over  the  prostrate  forms  of  some  of  their  Indian 
neighbors  slumbering  around  the  kitchen  fire.  He  was  a  scholarly 
gentleman,  and  was  married  in  1821  to  Rachel  Griscom,  the  sister 
of  Prof.  John  Griscom.  He  became  principal  of  a  select  school  for 
boys  at  Wilmington,  Del.  While  apparently  not  established  by  the 
Society,  yet  from  the  devout  character  of  the  principal  and  associa- 
tions it  became  known  as  a  Friends'  school,  and  received  encour- 
agement and  support  from  many  families  of  that  faith. 
It  enjoyed  an  excellent  reputation,  and  attracted  many  students 
from  a  distance  and  was  particularly  well  patronized  by  students 
from  the  West  Indies  and  South  America. 
To  this  couple  was  born  in  Wilmington,  on  February  25,  1826,  a 
son,  Charles  Bullock,  the  subject  of  this  memoir.  He  and  an  elder 
brother,  Dr.  Wm.  R.  Bullock,  were  the  only  ones  of  five  children 
to  reach  maturity. 
His  early  education  was  obtained  at  the  school  established  by  the 
monthly  meeting  of  the  Society  of  Friends,  and  afterwards  he 
attended  the  school  conducted  by  his  father. 
His  uncle,  Prof.  John  Griscom,  was  an  enthusiastic  and  progres- 
sive teacher  of  chemistry.  He  is  said  to  have  possessed  remarkable 
conversational  ability,  and  was  noted  for  his  successful  experiments 
in  illustration  of  his  lectures  on  chemistry.  He  spared  no  effort  to  • 
obtain  materials  and  apparatus,  even  importing  these  when  neces- 
sary. On  his  visits  to  Wilmington,  many  of  these  lectures  and 
experiments  were  repeated.  In  addition  to  his  scholastic  attain- 
ments, Charles'  father  possessed  considerable  mechanical  skill  and 
ingenuity,  which  he  loved  to  apply  to  the  construction  of  apparatus 
to  illustrate  the  tuition  of  the  school. 
The  visits  of  his  uncle  were  greatly  enjoyed  by  Charles,  and  with 
boyish  enthusiasm  he  entered  upon  the  study  of  chemistry  and 
natural  philosophy,  electrical  phenomena  claiming  special  attention. 
His  father's  cabinet  of  apparatus,  designed  to  illustrate  the  teaching 
of  physics  in  the  school,  was  at  his  command,  and  with  a  workshop 
fitted  up  with  a  lathe  and  the  necessary  tools  at  his  disposal,  he 
devoted  most  of  his  leisure  time  to  improvising  apparatus  for  his 
experiments. 
These  associations  of  his  youth,  undoubtedly,  directed  the  trend 
