BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.

IMMEDIATELY after the adoption of the resolution by which I was appointed by the college to prepare a biographical notice of its deceased fellow, Dr. HENRY BOND, I set about diligently to collect the materials requisite for the fulfilment of the task assigned me. My efforts have been attended, however, with only partial success. Of the portion of Dr. Bond's life preceding the period when he took up permanently his residence in Philadelphia, I have been unable to acquire any particulars beyond a few naked chronological dates. Not a single reminiscence has reached me in reference to his domestic training, his first associates, his favorite pursuits, nor to any other of the external circumstances amid which he was placed during his early youth-circumstances, which, if they do not stamp upon the mind and character of the individual their distinctive features, exercise, nevertheless, a powerful influence over both, and often give to them the particular bent they exhibit in after life. But, though unable to present any of the particulars of the early days of Dr. Bond, I may be permitted to point to his moral character, his unfeigned piety-the pure religious principles by which he professed to be actuated, and in accordance with which his intercourse and dealings with his fellow beings appeared invariably to be guided, and which imparted to his conversation and deportment, on all occasions, a peculiar dignity and truthfulness, as strong evidence of the careful nurture he had experienced in early life, and the favorable influences by which, from the cradle upwards, he had been continually surrounded.

The account I am about to present of such portions of the biography of our departed fellow as I am conversant with, will, necessarily, be little more than a simple enumeration of such of the movements of his life as have a more or less direct connection

with his daily routine of professional pursuits and engagements. Beyond these, indeed, the life of the quiet unambitious student and strictly professional man, such as was Dr. Bond, affords but little to interest or to instruct those without the circle of his intimates and immediate associates. The career of our departed fellow was one unvaried calm-broken by neither the love of adventure, nor by the aspirations and struggles which are prompted by a highaiming and all-absorbing ambition-disturbed by neither dazzling achievements nor startling reverses; but simply a quiet succession of days succeeding nights spent almost exclusively in the retirement of his study, or in the privacy of his patients' sick chambers. Such a career furnishes, it must be evident, no very promising materials for the use of the biographer.

Dr. Henry Bond was born at Watertown, Massachusetts, on the 21st of March, 1790. His ancestors on his father's side came from Bury St. Edmunds, in the county of Suffolk, England. They were among the early immigrants who sought to secure for themselves and their descendants, upon the shores of the new world, the enjoy ment of that freedom-personal, political, and religious-which they were denied at home. As early as 1636 they were settled at Watertown, in the then colony of Massachusetts; and they continued to reside there for several generations.

William Bond, the grandfather of the doctor, was, in common with the greater part of the descendants of the first settlers of New England, a determined whig in principles-prepared at any moment to risk everything, even life itself, rather than permit the slightest infringement of that liberty, in the pursuit of which his ancestors had left their homes and country, and willingly subjected themselves to the privations, toils, and dangers of a life amid the wilderness, and in the immediate neighborhood of treacherous and ruthless savages. As might be expected, therefore, William Bond. was among the very earliest of those who had the boldness openly to embrace the cause of the American colonies in their contest for independence with the mother country. In 1775 we find him serving, in the 25th regiment of Massachusetts troops, as lieutenant colonel, under Col. Thomas Gardiner, who was mortally wounded at the battle of Bunker's Hill. On the death of the latter, he suc ceeded to the command of the regiment, which was then on duty at Prospect Hill, near Boston. In the spring of 1776, Colonel Bond was ordered to proceed, with his regiment, to the northern

frontier, to assist in the military operations against the Canadas. · Whilst stationed at Mount Independence, on Lake Champlain, Col. Bond was attacked with dysentery, to which he fell a victim on the 31st of August, 1776. He left behind him several sons, residing at Watertown. Of these sons, Henry Manuel, a farmer by occupation, was the father of Dr. Bond. His mother was the eldest daughter of Captain Phineas Stearns, also of Watertown.

In June, 1790, when Dr. Bond was scarcely three months old, his father removed with his family to Livermore, in the then District of Maine, where he continued his agricultural pursuits, while, at the same time, he had an interest in certain mills in the neighborhood. He soon became there an active and influential citizen. He served as a deacon of the first church organized in the town, and was the second person who taught school in the place, which he did in the winter of 1794. He died on the 27th of March, 1796, in the thirty-fifth year of his age, leaving a widow and twò children, a son and daughter. The widow subsequently married Zebedee Rose, of Livermore, by whom she had several children. She survived until August 13th, 1803.

Young Bond, in the spring of 1806, was sent to school at an academy, in Hebron, Maine, over which Albion K. Paris for some time presided. At this seminary he was prepared for admission as a pupil of Dartmouth College, into which he matriculated in the year 1809, he being then in the nineteenth year of his age. Four years subsequently (August, 1813) he obtained his Bachelor's de gree. While in college, we are told, he exhibited a fondness for the exact sciences, and was esteemed an excellent mathematician. He devoted himself with success to various literary pursuits, and was especially interested in historical investigations.1

Of the particular circumstances which prompted young Bond to make choice of the profession of medicine as the pursuit of his future years I am uninformed; all that I know is that his medical pupilage was commenced, immediately after his graduation at college, under the direction of Professors Cyrus Perkins and Nathan Smith, of Hanover, New Hampshire, and diligently prosecuted until March, 1815; at which period he was appointed a tutor in Dartmouth College. This position he held until August, 1816, when he resigned. His professional education was completed in

'Memoir of Dr. Bond, by Horatio Gates Jones, A. M., Esq., Boston, 1860.

the medical department of Dartmouth College; by the faculty of which he was admitted to the degree of Doctor in Medicine, in the month of December, 1816.

Dr. Bond entered upon the practice of his profession, at Concord, New Hampshire, on the first day of January, 1817, he being then twenty-seven years of age. During his residence in Concord, he delivered three summer courses of popular lectures on chemistry; pursuing at the same time, with great application, his general literary studies.

"In 1818 he was appointed to deliver the oration before the New Hampshire Alpha of the Phi Beta Kappa Society. He selected as his theme, 'Traits of American Genius.' The manuscript of this oration, now lying before the writer" (we quote from the memoir of Mr. Jones), "shows that devotion to his profession had not produced a distaste for the paths of literature. Those who knew Dr. Bond only in his later days would be surprised at the tone and execution of the entire production."

From some cause, the nature of which is unknown to me, Dr. Bond very soon became dissatisfied with his position as a medical practitioner in Concord, and, in consequence, finally left the place. In the autumn of 1819 we find him in the city of Philadelphia, in attendance upon the lectures of the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania; and in the spring of the ensuing year he settled himself down as a permanent resident of our city, where he continued actively engaged in the practice of medicine during the remainder of his life.

In the memoir of Dr. Bond, by Horatio Gates Jones, Esq., it is stated that it was originally the intention of the doctor to have removed from Concord, N. H., to Augusta, Maine, where he had relations residing, and where an office had been actually engaged for him; but the several new and strong friendships he formed in Philadelphia, and the encouragement these held out to him, induced him to give the latter city his preference as a place of permanent abode.

In the month of December, 1819, Dr. Bond was admitted an honorary member of the Philadelphia Medical Society. In the proceedings of this society he took a deep and active interest from the period he was admitted to membership until its meetings were formally suspended a few years since: serving it with untiring zeal