SKETCH OF SAMUEL LOCKWOOD. |
By W. S. SNYDER.
IN Freehold, N. J., and almost upon the historic ground of the battle of Monmouth Courthouse, in an inviting home built to his liking, lived until January 9, 1894, the Rev. Samuel Lockwood, Ph. D., widely known as a general naturalist, and a shrewd observer and describer of the habits of animals. Such was his retiring and unpretentious nature that the writer had great difficulty in securing his consent to the publication of the story of his life. But long acquaintance and occasional meetings at last thawed the reticence, and I am now, after his death, permitted to give a brief account of it.
Prof. Lockwood was born in Mansfield, England, January 20, 1819. His father, William Lockwood, was a man of devout piety, a leader among the Wesleyan Methodists, and, as a citizen, well versed in public affairs. His mother, who was taken from him at an early age, and for whom he entertained a loving regard, was the daughter of a Moravian exile from Prussia, who became head master of an English endowed school, and was known for his superior artistic tastes and for his engravings on copper. On her death the household in England was broken up, and the father with his little boy started for New York city, where the boy was brought up and received his education. I am unable to give his exact age at the time, but in very tender years the future naturalist began to unfold. A huckleberry party, going into the country one day, were caught in a drenching thundershower. Returning in haste to their stopping place, the boy Samuel left the others, and, making a short cut, went by a bypath through a low meadow. Suddenly he paused. Finding a snake lying in the path, and supposing the reptile was dead, he picked it up and carried it home, reaching the house in advance of the others. Before the rest of the party came in, a little boy in the house was taken into the confidence of the young naturalist, who, with the reptile on his lap and a pin in one hand, discoursed to him about the beauty of the scales upon his snake, pointing to their outlines with the pin. So absorbed was the juvenile lecturer in his theme that he was unaware that the entire company had become his auditors.
Young Lock wood's education, with the exception of the bare rudiments, had to be provided by the labor of his hands and brain. He worked his way into the University of the City of New York, where he attracted the attention of the eminent classicist. Dr. Lewis, and of the elder Draper, eminent in physics. With Dr. Henry, the rhetorician, his relation was different. Lock-