Page:A Short History of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia (1909).djvu/13

Rh Jacob Gilliams, however, who had issued the invitation for the preliminary meeting and the conclusion is a just one that the foundation of the Academy is ascribable to these two men.

John Speakman was born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and belonged to the religious society of Friends. His apothecary shop at the northwest corner of Second and Market Streets was a center of literary and scientific gossip. He was for a time in disastrous partnership with Say and was ever ready to do all the work of the shop so as to enable his friend to devote almost his entire time to the service of science. Through the endorsement of unreliable friends the firm came to an unfortunate end, the partners retaining scarcely anything for themselves. As late as 1839 Mr. Speakman, at a considerable sacrifice of his private interests, visited Mr. Maclure in Mexico, where he spent several months for the benefit of the Academy.

Mr. Jacob Gilliams was a native of Philadelphia and a leading dentist of the day. He was an intimate associate of Thomas Say and Alexander Wilson, and when the latter was engaged on his American Ornithology the three friends were frequent visitors to Mr. William Bartram at his house attached to the garden which has now become classic ground.

Mr. John Shinn, Jr., was a native of New Jersey. He was employed as a manufacturing chemist. Soon after the Academy was established in the new hall in Gilliams' Court he delivered a course of lectures on chemistry, the first given under the auspices of the society.

Mr. Nicholas S. Parmentier was born in France. He was a distiller and manufacturer of spermaceti oil. He removed to Florida. Gerard Troost was the first President of the Academy and served efficiently until 1817 when he was succeeded by Mr. Maclure. He was born in Bois-le-Duc in Holland and educated as a pharmacist and chemist. He settled in Philadelphia in 1810. In 1815 and 1816 he engaged in the manufacture of alum on the Magothy River in Maryland. On his return to the city he delivered lectures on mineralogy in the Philadelphia Museum and the College of Pharmacy. After spending two years with his friend Maclure at New Harmony, Ind., he was elected, in 1828, Professor of Chemistry,