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 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924030676419 
 
Cornell University Library 
 NE1215.A54 L89 
 + 
 A memorial of Alexander Anderson M.D., 
 
 3 1924 030 676 419 
 
 ohn Overs 
 
MEMOEIAL 
 
 ALEXANDER ANDERSON, M.D. 
 
MEMORIAL 
 
 ALEXANDER ANDERSON, M.D., 
 
 jpirst (Sngrabcr on W&aotf in America. 
 
 HEAD BEFOKE THE SEW YOEK HISTOMCAI. SOCIETY, OCT., a. 1870. 
 
 BENSON" J*-™ LOS SING. 
 
 SEW YOEK: 
 
 PRINTED FOR THE SUBSCRIBERS: 
 
 1872. 
 
/^CORNEL^ 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 LIBRARY 
 
NEW YOKK HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 
 
 At a meeting of the Executive Committee, held at the Library, 
 on Tuesday evening, February 1, 1870, 
 
 " Mr. Moore offered the following resolution which was 
 adopted : 
 
 " Resolved, That Benson J. Lossing, Esq., be requested to 
 prepare and read before the Society a paper on The Life of the 
 late Dr. Alexander Anderson, and the History of Wood 
 Engraving in this Country." 
 
 Extract, from the Minutes. 
 
 George H. Moore, 
 
 Secretary. 
 
 At a meeting of the New York Historical Society, held in its 
 Hall, on Tuesday evening, October 5th. 1870, 
 
 •' Mr. Bexson J. Lossing read the paper of the evening on 
 ' The late Dr. Alexander Anderson , the First Engraver on 
 Wood, in America, with a Brief History of the Art! " 
 
 " On its conclusion, Mr. Erastus C. Benedict, after some 
 remarks, submitted the following resolution which was adopted : 
 
 " Resolved, That the thanks of the Society be presented to 
 Mr. Lossing for his able and highly interesting paper read this 
 evening, and that a copy be requested for the archives of the 
 Society." 
 
 Extract from the Minutes. 
 
 Andrew Warner, 
 Recording Secretary. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 This Memoir "was written, as the proceedings of the 
 Xew York Historical Society, herewith printed, indi- 
 cate, at the request of the Executive Committee of that 
 society. 
 
 It was prepared with care from materials gathered 
 from the Pioneer himself, from his daughter (Mrs. 
 Lewis) and her son, and from and hy other friends, to 
 all of whom I offer thanks. 
 
 In a special manner I acknowledge my obligations to 
 Evert A. Duyckinck, Esq., for the eminent assistance 
 which he has given me from the beginning : in furnish- 
 ing materials for the Memoir, such as notices of early 
 Xew York booksellers and their publications ; in pro- 
 curing wood-cuts by Dr. Anderson to illustrate the 
 work; and in other services essential to the success 
 of the undertaking. 
 
 In behalf of the Xew York Historical Society I here 
 acknowledge these obligations to the artists and others, 
 mentioned in the Appendix, Xumber H, who have 
 kindly contributed engravings for this memorial record. 
 
 B. J. L. 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
 Me. President — 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen : 
 
 I come at the bidding of this Society to parti- 
 cipate with you in the rendering of honor to the 
 memory of a venerable associate, whom it was 
 my privilege to love as a personal friend and 
 fellow-craftsman for the space of thirty years. 
 
 The eulogist of the late Horace Binney. Jr., 
 says : 
 
 " It is not often that the judgment of a man's 
 life and character by the world agrees with that 
 of his intimate friends. By the world, success in 
 life is too often measured by results which strike 
 most forcibly the popular imagination; it means 
 a large fortune, a brilliant professional reputation, 
 opportunities eagerly sought and adroitly taken 
 advantage of for gaining prominent public posi- 
 tions. To his friends, on the other hand, a man 
 may be most endeared and best remembered by 
 
2 MEMOIK OF 
 
 qualities of which the world knows nothing, or at 
 least best knows them only as they are seen in the 
 perfect symmetry of his life." 
 
 These thoughts may be fitly indulged in the 
 contemplation of the life of him whose memory 
 we honor this evening, and who, for eighty years, 
 skilfully practised among us the art of Wood 
 Engraving, which plays so conspicuous a part in 
 modern civilization ; but who was so modest, even 
 to timidity, that he was personally known to only 
 a few loving friends. For many years authors 
 and publishers, whose productions he had illus- 
 trated by his pencil and graver, supposed he was 
 no longer among the living. His name is indi- 
 cated by an asterisk, as of one among the dead, 
 in the last printed catalogue of Columbia College, 
 in this city (of whose medical classes he was a 
 graduate), issued while he was living within an 
 hour's distance of that institution. 
 
 Before considering the character of our friend, I 
 will, in compliance with the official request of this 
 Society, take a necessarily brief historic view of 
 the art of wood engraving. 
 
 Thirty centuries ago a wise man said, " there 
 is no new thing under the sun ; " and our egotism 
 is rebuked by the admitted fact that most of the 
 discoveries of our day are but rediscoveries of 
 
ALEXANDER, ANDERSON, M.D. 3 
 
 knowledge in ancient times — the revival of lost 
 arts. 
 
 Our accepted chronology, tested by Art alone, 
 appears absurd. In the Egyptian collections of 
 this Society you may see a seal ring of pure gold, 
 as exquisitely wrought as any workman of to-day 
 could do it, and which bears evidence, Egypto- 
 logists say, that it was made six hundred years 
 before Pharaoh placed his signet ring upon Joseph's 
 hand. That carries us back to the first patriarch 
 after the flood, according to our chronology. But 
 the workmanship of that ring indicates that it 
 must have been the result of centuries of growth 
 in the art, and makes us readily believe that 
 Manetho was right in declaring that 5,000 years 
 before the birth of Christ, Egypt was full of light 
 and knowledge. As with seal engraving so it 
 may have been with other arts. The arts of 
 Wood Engraving and its daughter, Printing, may 
 have been practised in that Golden Age of the 
 world about which the old poets sung, in greater 
 perfection than we know them. 
 
 The connected history of what is known of 
 wood engraving as an illustrative art covers but 
 a brief space of time — a little more than four 
 hundred years. The art appeared in Europe 
 immediately precedent to and suggestive of print- 
 
4 MEMOIR OF 
 
 ing, as we know it. We are allowed only a few 
 glances at undoubted antecedents of the art at an 
 earlier date. The first of these was the Stamp, 
 made of raised or sunken letters or signs, with 
 which to impress softer substances. In the Egyp- 
 tian collections of this Society you may see a 
 sun-dried brick of Nile mud, on which was so 
 impressed the monogram of the Pharaoh who 
 exalted Joseph. That is doubtless one of the 
 oldest specimens extant of the art of seal engrav- 
 ing, which Moses suppressed in the Wilderness, 
 because it kept in remembrance the idolatrous 
 uses of hieroglyphs, the picture language of the 
 Egyptian priesthood. 
 
 Similar stamps, from which impressions were 
 made on paper by inking the faces, were used by 
 emperors, princes, and popes of Rome, in the earlier 
 centuries of our era, to affix their signatures to 
 documents. This led to a revival of the use of 
 the seal. The Italian merchants, and those of 
 Western Europe afterward, used similar stamps 
 for printing their trade-marks; and these signs or 
 monograms were often placed upon their monu- 
 ments, or in memorial windows in churches. 
 
 These marks, which were common in the four- 
 teenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, bear a 
 strong resemblance to ancient Runic monograms 
 
ALEXANDER ANDERSON, M.D. 5 
 
 from which they may have been originally de- 
 rived. 
 
 Playing-cards were introduced into Europe from 
 the East, by the Crusaders, and were extensively 
 manufactured in Italy, Prance, and Germany, in 
 the fourteenth century. The stamps suggested to 
 the card-makers the printing of the figures of King, 
 Queen, Knave, and Jack, which had been pro- 
 duced by the slower process of drawing. This 
 was the first known use of wood engraving, as an 
 illustrative art, in Europe; for the popular story 
 of the earlier art-exploits of the Cunio twin- 
 children, of Ravenna, is regarded as a pure fiction. 1 
 But there seems to be positive proof that wood 
 engraving, as an illustrative art, and block print- 
 
 1 Papillon, in his " Traite de la G-ravure en Bois" gives an 
 account of certain old wood engravings which he professes to 
 have seen, and which it was recorded, were engraved by 
 "Alexander Alberic Cunio, Knight, and Isabella Cunio, his 
 twin sister, and finished by them when they were only sixteen 
 years of age." The time given is that of Pope Honorius the 
 Fourth, between the years 1285 and 1287. It is said that 
 there were eight pictures representing scenes in the life of 
 Alexander the Great. The size was " nine inches wide and 
 six inches high." Connected with a description of these 
 engravings is a florid and romantic account of the surprising 
 beauty and accomplishments of the maiden — the early death of 
 herself and lover, and the extraordinary heroism of the brother 
 when only fourteen years of age. The whole story is regarded 
 as a French romance. 
 
6 MEMOIK OF 
 
 ing, were practised in China at least four hundred 
 years earlier. And that was fifteen centuries after 
 Confucius, the Chinese sage, deplored the degen- 
 eracy of his people, and tried to revive the more 
 ancient civilization which he extolled, when these 
 arts may have flourished in far greater perfection. 
 The Church denounced playing cards as " books 
 of Satan." The printing of them appears to have 
 led the monks, some of whom were artists, espe- 
 cially those of the German races, to the production 
 of engravings on wood, of saints and sacred build- 
 ings. Of this character is an interesting wood 
 engraving which since its discovery by Baron 
 Heineken in 1769, has been generally accredited 
 as the earliest specimen of the art extant. It is 
 a picture in outline, of large dimensions, repre- 
 senting St. Christopher carrying the child Jesus 
 on his back across a river at night, by the light 
 of a lantern held by a hermit. I have made 
 a careful fac-simile of it, the exact size of the 
 original, 1 and now present it to the Society. The 
 original was found by Baron Heineken pasted on 
 the inside of the cover of a manuscript volume in 
 the Monastery of Buxheim, near Memmingen, 
 
 1 It is of folio size, being eleven and a quarter inches high 
 and eight and one-eighth inches wide. 
 
ALEXANDER ANDERSON, M.D. 7 
 
 ill Suabia, and is now in the library of Earl 
 Spencer, in England. It bears the date of 1423. 
 It is impossible to determine whether it was 
 printed on a machine, or by the pressure of a 
 burnisher as the wood engravers now take India 
 proofs of their work. 
 
 From the time of the appearance of the St. 
 Christopher until the publishing of block-books, 
 say twenty years later, single figures of saints 
 and some compositions became quite numerous. 
 The block-books were composed of entire pages of 
 words and pictures, each engraved on a single 
 block, and having the appearance of the stereotype 
 plate of our day. They were fully illustrated by 
 elaborate compositions drawn and engraved in 
 outline like the St. Christopher. Who was the 
 discoverer of this almost unfolded germ of the art 
 of modern printing is not certainly known. 
 
 The picture was produced by the combined 
 skill of the wood engraver and card colorer. The 
 engraved portions given in my fac simile, were pro- 
 duced in dark coloring matter similar to printer's 
 ink, after which the impression seems to have 
 been colored by means of a stencil plate. Under 
 the picture are the following lines, in Latin : 
 
 " Each day that thou the likeness of St. Christopher shall see, 
 That day no frightful form of death shall make an end of thee." 
 
8 MEMOIE OE 
 
 This is in allusion to a popular superstition, 
 common at that period in all Roman Catholic 
 countries which induced people to believe that on 
 the day on which they should see a figure or image 
 of St. Christopher, they should not meet with a 
 violent death, nor die without confession. As a 
 talisman, a little silver image of St. Christopher 
 was sometimes worn upon the breast. 
 . I have before me an impression of a St. Christ- 
 opher of the same design, which is in the Royal 
 Library at Paris. For a long time it was sup- 
 posed to be a duplicate of that in the possession 
 of Earl Spencer. But a comparison shows it to 
 be an inferior engraving on another block — pro- 
 bably a copy. 
 
 The date when this St. Christopher was pro- 
 duced, has been a subject of discussion among 
 antiquaries. Its comparative excellence in exe- 
 cution and superiority to the wood-cuts of the 
 following half century, which have been preserved, 
 seems to render it probable that it was the work 
 of a later date. On this and other accounts its 
 date has been questioned by more than one writer 
 on the subject. Henry P. Holt, an ingenious 
 English antiquary, in a paper in " Notes and 
 Queries" in September, 1868, has. sought to get 
 over the difficulty by supposing the artist no other 
 
ALEXANDER ANDERSON, M.D. 9 
 
 than Albert Diirer, who copied the date from an 
 earlier legend. For various reasons he assigns the 
 engraving to the last quarter of the century. It 
 should be remembered, however, when considering 
 comparative excellence, that long after Diirer' s 
 time there was no artist capable of producing an 
 engraving equal to that great master. Might not 
 the artist who produced the St. Christopher been 
 without a rival during the next half century 
 after its date of 1423 ? M. Duplessis, an eminent 
 French authority, in his recently published " Mer- 
 veilles de la Gravure," of which an English trans- 
 lation has lately appeared, recognizes two other 
 wood engravings bearing the still earlier dates 
 of 1418, and 1406. 
 
 Movable or single types soon followed the ap- 
 pearance of the block-books. These were invented 
 by John Gtittenberg, a citizen of now desolated 
 Strasbourg, in the year 1437, when the pretty 
 Anna of Iserin Thure had sharpened his wits by 
 prosecuting him for a breach of promise of mai'- 
 riage. Others assisted him in bringing the inven- 
 tion into practical use. It was the conception of 
 Giittenberg, the money of John Faust, and in- 
 genuity of Peter Sch offer, Faust's son-in-law, which 
 developed in great perfection the art of printing 
 in its modern form, in or about the year 1452. 
 
10 MEMOIR OF 
 
 Then wood engraving as an illustrative art, and 
 type-cutting, became distinct pursuits; yet they 
 always have worked, and forever will work, as 
 allies and auxiliaries. Then metal types super- 
 seded the wooden ones, and printing was done by 
 a machine — a press — which varied but little in 
 the principle of its construction during three 
 hundred years. Whether the block-books were 
 printed with a press, there is no certain evidence. 
 Now, wood engraving in connection with print- 
 ing became a most useful and honored art, and 
 painters of the highest eminence, like Michael 
 Wolgemiith, Albert Diirer, his pupil, and Burg- 
 mair, Durer's pupil, were constantly making the 
 most careful drawings on wood, engraving them 
 with skill, and in every way promulgating and 
 promoting the beautiful art. Chromo-typography, 
 or printing in colors from wood blocks, was intro- 
 duced as early as 1457, when an initial letter 
 appeared in a Psalter, printed in red and blue 
 ink, in imitation of the illuminations in manu- 
 script books. Toward the close of the century 
 the principle was adopted in the production of 
 pictures, made by blending neutralized tints. 
 This was first effected by Carpi in Eome, by the use 
 of well-registered blocks, in printing ; and in the 
 16 Ul and 17 th centuries, the pencils of Kaphael, 
 
ALEXANDER ANDERSON, M.D. H 
 
 Parmegiano, Titian, Rubens and others, were em- 
 ployed with wood-engravers in the production of 
 such pictures. 
 
 Until the appearance of the Nuremberg Chroni- 
 cle, in 1493, which was largely illustrated by 
 Wolgemuth, all wood engravings were done in 
 outline. Afterward Diirer used the art most 
 extensively and effectively. He introduced fine 
 effects of light and shadow together with the most 
 perfect and delicate drawing ; and he may be 
 justly regarded as the father of wood engraving 
 as it is known in our day. He carried engraving, 
 both on wood and metal, to a perfection which has 
 scarcely been excelled. There are about two 
 hundred wood engravings extant bearing the 
 monogram of Diirer. Of these the most remark- 
 able may be found in the " Triumphal Procession 
 of Maximilian," Emperor of Germany, under whom 
 Diirer was court painter. 
 
 There were several eminent engravers on wood 
 in the 16 th century, among whom Holbein the 
 Swiss painter, Amman of Zurich, Stimmer of Schaff- 
 hausen, and Cesare Vecellio, a younger brother 
 of Titian, were most conspicuous. The remark- 
 able series of pictures known as " The Dance of 
 Death," designed by Holbein, were first engraved 
 on wood, and present some of the finest specimens 
 
12 MEMOIK OF 
 
 of the art. The engraving, also, has been gene- 
 rally attributed to Holbein, but it now seems to 
 be conceded that they were executed by Hans Lut- 
 zelburger, a Swiss wood engraver, who lived about 
 1520-40, and who engraved some fine illustrations 
 of the Old Testament, and a portrait of Erasmus. 
 The "Dance of Death," 1 appeared in a small 
 quarto volume at Lyons in 1538, which has 
 recently been reproduced in fac simile by the pho- 
 tolithographic process, and issued in the first of 
 the publications of the Holbein Society of England. 
 The peculiar excellence of the original engravings 
 is said to defy exact imitation. The series in the 
 well known work on the general subject by Douce, 
 
 iThe subject of " The Dance of Death" employed the skill 
 of the artist before Holbein's time. A " Dance of Death " was 
 painted in the cloisters of the church of the Innocents, at Paris, 
 ■which was imitated in the cloisters of St. Paul's, in London, in 
 the reign of Henry the Sixth. Another series with the same 
 title, was painted on the wall of a kind of court-house attached 
 to the Dominicans at Basle, in Switzerland, and is said to have 
 owed its origin to a plague that ravaged that city during the 
 time of a great council from 1431 to 1448, when persons of almost 
 all ranks, whom the council had brought together, perished by 
 the scourge. In the same city was a painting of the same subject 
 on the walls of the cloisters of a nunnery, executed in 1312, or 
 about two hundred years before Holbein, a native of that city, 
 used the pencil. Holbein's drawings of " The Dance of Death " 
 were made with a pen, and slightly shaded. They are now in 
 the royal collection at St. Petersburg. 
 
ALEXANDER ANDEKSON, M.D. 13 
 
 published by Pickering in 1833, has been well 
 executed by Bonner. 
 
 There were also, in the 17 th century, a few 
 wood engravers who approach Diirer and Liitzel- 
 burger in excellence, such as Van Sichem, Eck- 
 man, and Jergher. The last engraved some 
 masterly pieces from the designs and under the 
 direction of Rubens, early in the 17 th century, 
 and later the French family of Papillon produced 
 several good practitioners of the art. 
 
 But from the time of Diirer — the early part of 
 the 16 th century — when the commotions produced 
 by the German Reformers convulsed Europe, the 
 art of wood engraving, so young and promising, 
 declined; and during a period of two hundred 
 years nothing equal to what Diirer had done 
 appeared. The art never fell into absolute dis- 
 use, but for reasons inexplicable it was so neg- 
 lected that at the middle of the last century it 
 had, as a rule, degenerated into an inferiority 
 below that of the block-books printed three hundred 
 years before. 
 
 A second Diirer then appeared, in the person 
 of Thomas Bewick, son of a poor collier living 
 near Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in England. There 
 Thomas was born in 1753. At an early age he 
 became a skilful designer, draughtsman, and en- 
 
14 MEMOIK OF 
 
 graver on wood, and in the use of his three-fold 
 talent he made pictures that were then marvels in 
 the xylographic art. In the year 1775. when he 
 was twenty-two years of age, he received a premium 
 of seven guineas from the Society for the Encourage- 
 ment of Arts and Manufactures, for an engraving 
 of a huntsman and hound, which was first printed 
 in an edition of Gay's Fables, in 1779. 
 
 Bewick soon carried the art to that perfection 
 seen in his British Birds, in which his " Woodcock " 
 presents a specimen which has never been sur- 
 passed, if equalled. He . did not revive a lost or 
 forgotten art. It was alive, but degraded. He 
 practised it, with a full appreciation of its own 
 marvellous capabilities, and not in imitation 
 of another. He did not seek to show mere 
 mechanical skill in elaborate cross-hatching and 
 the sketchy style of etching which belong to 
 metal engravings, and which, a few years ago, 
 under the influence of draughtsmen who could not 
 comprehend its powers, threatened to bring it into 
 disrepute. He was faithful to its inexorable re- 
 quirements, and achieved for it legitimate victories, 
 which, happily, have been repeated within the 
 last few years by the French and Belgian engra- 
 vers of Dora's drawings on wood. These have 
 fully vindicated the character of wood engraving 
 
ALEXANDEK ANDEESON, M.D. 15 
 
 as a fine art of unrivalled potency in the work of 
 moral and intellectual culture and the advance- 
 ment of civilization. 
 
 In the same year when Bewick received his 
 premium, the wife of a Scotchman and printer 
 living near Beekman's Slip, in New York, gave 
 birth to a son who was afterward justly called the 
 " Bewick of America." That son was Dr. Alex- 
 ander Anderson, our late venerable associate. He 
 was born on the 21 Bt of April, 1775, or two days 
 after the skirmish on the " Green " at Lexington. 
 He lived until the 17" 1 of last January, the one 
 hundred and sixty-fourth anniversary of the birth 
 of Franklin, at whose death Anderson, then a lad 
 of fourteen years, engraved on copper a rude por- 
 trait of the sage, made some impressions on a 
 press of his own construction, and sold them to 
 the booksellers. 
 
 The father of Dr. Anderson was a near neigh- 
 bor and social and political friend of Isaac Sears — 
 " King Sears," as he was called — one of the most 
 zealous of the " Sons of Liberty " in New York 
 during the excitements which preceded the break- 
 ing out of the old war for Independence. Ander- 
 son printed many of the hand-bills calling political 
 meetings around the Liberty Pole, in " The Fields " 
 now City Hall Park; and, in 1775 he commenced 
 
16 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 the publication of a semi-weekly newspaper, en- 
 titled " The Constitutional Gazette " (of which this 
 Society has a file), in opposition to Eivington's 
 " New York Gazetteer." It heartily espoused the 
 cause of the colonists, and was as heartily denounced 
 by the Loyalists or Tories, who spoke of the pub- 
 lisher as "John Anderson, the Rebel." Long 
 years afterward one of these, who was also a 
 Scotchman, said to Dr. Anderson, " I knew your 
 
 Dr. Anderson's father. 
 From a drawing by Dr. Anderson. 
 
 father well. A line at the head of his paper read, 
 ' Printed by John Anderson, Beekman's slip : 
 
ALEXANDER ANDERSON, M.D. 17 
 
 Price two Coppers;' and these were the only 
 words of truth in it." 
 
 In 1776 Anderson reprinted twenty-seven num- 
 bers of the English "Crisis" that gave to Thomas 
 Paine the hint and title of his " American Crisis," 
 which was so potential in bringing the colonists to 
 a declaration of independence. Paine's "Common 
 Sense," of which 100,000 copies were sold, had 
 already produced a profound sensation, in both 
 hemispheres, and had opened away. The reprint 
 of the British " Crisis " accelerated the movement, 
 and the " American Crisis " completed it. 
 
 Anderson also printed, in small pamphlet form, 
 the first edition of the satirical poem entitled " The 
 Voyage to Boston," by Philip Freneau, the young 
 Bard of the Revolution. These and other publi- 
 cations offensive to the Loyalists, made Anderson 
 a conspicuous mark for the thunderbolts of British 
 wrath. When in the Autumn of 1776 the British 
 army, victorious in the battle of Long Island, was 
 menacing New York city with capture^ he pru- 
 dently packed the contents of his printing office 
 and his household goods into wagons, and with 
 his family began his flight toward Westchester 
 County, along the Kingsbridge road, now Chatham 
 Street, the Bowery, Fourth Avenue, a part of 
 Broadway, and the Bloomingdale road. He had 
 
18 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 just escaped the pickets of the British army, then 
 crossing the East River from Newtown, at Kip's 
 Bay (now 34 th street), and gained the high ground 
 at Fort "Washington (now Washington Heights), 
 then held by the Americans, when his wagons 
 were seized for the use of the Patriot army. 
 Their contents were thrown out, and Anderson's 
 books and papers were used by the garrison at 
 Fort Washington in making cartridges. 
 
 Dr. Anderson's Mother. 
 From a drawing by Dr. Anderson. 
 
 The fugitive printer finally reached Greenwich, 
 in Connecticut, where friends of his wife — a New 
 
ALEXANDER ANDERSON, M.D. 19 
 
 England woman — were living. Only a remnant 
 of his property was saved. His paper money soon 
 deteriorated to worthlessness, and he was ruined 
 in fortune. The roof of kind friends sheltered his 
 wife and two infant hoys, and he entered the 
 military service as captain of a sort of scouts on 
 the Neutral Ground. After peace was declared, 
 he returned to this city and resumed the business 
 of printing, but not of publishing. 
 
 According to a brief autobiography written by 
 Dr. Anderson in the seventy-third year of his age, 
 his taste for Art was first developed by his mother, 
 who amused her children during winter evenings 
 by drawing faces, animals, and flowers, with a pen 
 and dissolved indigo, when ink could not be 
 obtained. She appears to have been a woman of 
 rare excellence and strength of character. She 
 was the early and thorough educator of her 
 children, and by example and precept inspired 
 them with the loftiest moral and religious senti- 
 ments. She was a devout member of the Church 
 of England ; and in his earlier manhood our late 
 associate was a regular communicant in Trinity 
 Church in this city. 
 
 Toung Anderson's first evidence of his own 
 critical discernment, was when, at the age of four 
 or five years, he looked upon the rude pictures on 
 
20 MEMOIR OF 
 
 Dutch tiles around a fire-place, with feelings of 
 mingled curiosity and disgust. Some type orna- 
 ments saved from the wreck of the printing office, 
 delighted him. In a letter written to me a few years 
 ago, he said, " I recollect being allowed an occa- 
 sional peep at a considerable pile of prints, such as 
 were issued from the London shops, among which 
 were Hogarth's illustrations of the careers of the 
 Idle and Industrious Apprentices, which made a 
 strong impression on my mind. These prints 
 determined my destiny." 
 
 On his return to New York, Anderson's father 
 hired a house in Murray Street, near the Green- 
 wich road (now Greenwich Street) ; and nearly 
 opposite was a boarding house kept by Mistress 
 Day a woman of powerful physical frame and an 
 ardent Whig in politics. Dr. Anderson related to 
 me an incident of his experience in connection 
 with that boarding house on the morning of the 
 day on which the British troops evacuated this 
 city — the 25 th of November, 1783. At sunrise 
 Mrs. Day ran up the American flag upon a staff 
 at the gable of her house fronting the Greenwich 
 road. Cunningham, the notorious British provost- 
 marshal, heard of it, and sent a subaltern to order 
 the lowering of the flag, for he claimed that the 
 British had the right of possession until twelve 
 
ALEXANDER ANDERSON, M.D. 21 
 
 o'clock at noon. Mrs. Day refused to lower it. 
 A little while afterward, young Anderson, then 
 between eight and nine years of age, sitting in the 
 porch of his father's house, saw a stout, red-faced 
 man in scailet coat, buff waistcoat and breeches, 
 a well-powdered wig, and a cocked hat — a British 
 officer in full uniform — walking rapidly down 
 Murray street. It was Cunningham, full of pomp 
 and wrath. Mrs. Day was standing in her door 
 with a broom in her hand. With rough voice, 
 that carried with it an insult and a menace, the 
 provost-marshal ordered her to haul down the 
 flag. She refused, and defied him. He seized the 
 halliards to pull it down himself, when Mrs. Day 
 beat his head vigorously with her broom-stick. 
 " The powder flew from his wig,'' said Anderson, 
 " and in the bright sun appeared like the nimbus 
 of a saint around the head of the big sinner." 
 Mrs. Day triumphed, Cunningham beat a retreat, 
 and the stars and stripes continued to float de- 
 fiantly over the Day castle. 
 
 Young Anderson was soon afterward a pupil in 
 a school where he learned a little Greek and more 
 Latin. He retained a knowledge of the latter, 
 and all through life he was fond of reading it. 
 I remember visiting him just after the assassi- 
 nation of President Lincoln, in 1865, when I 
 
22 MEMOIR OF 
 
 found him reading in the original Cicero's Fourth 
 Oration against Cataline, in which the consul 
 pleaded for the vigorous punishment of the con- 
 spirators against the life of the Republic, as a 
 mercy to the state. 
 
 While in school, young Anderson indulged much 
 in copying engravings with India ink. How the 
 engravings were made was a mystery to him until, 
 through the kindness of a school-fellow who had 
 access to Chambers's Cyclopedia, edited by Dr. 
 Rees, he learned the particulars of the process of 
 production. He at once procured some small 
 copper plates, made of cents rolled out for him 
 by Burger, a silversmith, and on these, with a 
 graver made of the back-spring of a pocket-knife, 
 he began the practice of the engraver's art 
 when he was twelve years of age, or eighty-three 
 years before his death. " I did a head of Paul 
 Jones," he says in his autobiography, " and pleased 
 was I when I got an impression with red oil-paint, 
 in a rude rolling press which I had constructed " — 
 the same used by him two or three years later in 
 taking impressions of his engraving of the head 
 of Franklin. Afterward a blacksmith made him 
 some tools, when he cut some small ships and 
 houses, on type-metal, and sold them at the news- 
 paper offices. In this way he earned some money, 
 
ALEXANDER ANDERSON, M.D. 23 
 
 and as only one other person was then engaged in 
 the same employment in New York, he began to 
 feel, as he said, " of some consequence." 
 
 Young Anderson wished to make engraving his 
 life-profession. His father did not approve his 
 choice and it was determined that he should be a 
 physician. So, at the age of fourteen years, he 
 reluctantly left his workshop in his father's garret, 
 and entered, as a student of medicine, the office of 
 Dr. Joseph Young, who had been a surgeon in the 
 Continental army, under Doctor Cochran, a brother- 
 in-law of General Schuyler. That step was taken 
 on the first of May, 1789, or the day after the inau- 
 guration of Washington as the first President of 
 the Kepublic — a ceremony which young Anderson 
 witnessed. 
 
 Dr. Young was so kind-hearted and amiable, 
 that his pupil soon became reconciled to his fate, 
 and was a most attentive student for five years. 
 These were years of hard labor for brain and 
 muscle, for at that time the student compounded 
 all the medicines, delivered them to the patients, 
 and sometimes administered them. During his 
 studies Anderson also continued to engrave for 
 his own gratification and profit. He soon became 
 so famous that he had almost daily employment 
 in the art. He practised it in every form, from 
 
24 MEMOIK OF 
 
 the lettering of silver-ware jewellery, dog collars, 
 mathematical instruments and cane heads, to maps 
 
 Joseph Young, M.D. 
 
 From a drawing by Br. Anderson. 
 
 and elaborate pictorial illustrations for books; also 
 labels, and all sorts of objects for merchants' cards 
 and newspapers. He became so expert in engrav- 
 ing letters that he was employed for that purpose 
 by other engravers, when he was only eighteen 
 years of age. 
 
 In 1794, two years before his graduation, the 
 eminent Doctor Samuel L. Mitchill employed 
 Anderson in designing and engraving a Commence- 
 ment Ticket for Columbia College. He also 
 engraved in the spring of 1795, on copper, a book- 
 plate, for the library of that institution, for which 
 the artist wrote in his Diary, Brockholst Living- 
 
XLj/r„r,T,lcf 
 
 r/,' y. 
 
 MTlTCHIliX. 
 
ALEXANDER ANDEKSON, M.D. 25 
 
 ston paid him £2 8s. Mitcliill fully appreciated 
 his genius and kindly nature, and on every oc- 
 casion gave him his confidence, encouragement 
 and sincere friendship. In his Diary for Janu- 
 ary 26, 1796, Anderson wrote: "Dr. Mitchill 
 detained me in his room [after the chemical 
 lecture at the College] till near one o'clock, over- 
 hauling Montfaucon's Antiquities. He wishes me to 
 delineate a Cupid wrestling with and overcoming 
 Pan — allegorical of the power of Love over chaotic 
 nature." This he did the next day. It appears 
 as an ornament for an early portrait of Dr. 
 Mitchill drawn by Weaver, 1 and engraved on 
 copper by Scoles, 2 whom Anderson often mentions 
 in his diary. 
 
 With the earnings of his art labors while he was 
 a physician's apprentice, he partly clothed himself 
 and paid the fees for four courses of medical lec- 
 tures given by Doctors Bard, William Pitt Smith, 
 
 1 Weaver was an Englishman, who painted portraits in oil, 
 mostly on tin. Dunlap says they were as hard, and as " cutting 
 in the outline, as that metal." He painted a portrait of Alexan- 
 der Hamilton for Dr. Hosack, which attracted much attention 
 as an excellent likeness. Hosack exchanged it with Colonel 
 Trumbull, who, it is said, destroyed it. 
 
 2 A relative of Dr. Mitchill has kindly allowed the use of the 
 engraving on which Dr. Anderson's design is given, for the 
 illustration of this Memoir. 
 
 4 
 
26 MEMOIR OF 
 
 Hosack, Hammersly, Bayley and others ; a course 
 in Natural History and Chemistry by Dr. Mitchill; 
 another on Physics and Mechanics by Dr. Kemp; 
 some lectures on Law by Professor (late chancel- 
 lor) Kent, 1 and his instructions in French in an 
 
 Fac-Similb of Ticket of Admission to MncniLL's Lectdees. 
 
 evening school. 3 On the 14th of January, 1793, 
 entered his name in the Album of Columbia Col- 
 
 1 The ticket of admission to these lectures was designed and 
 beautifully engraved by young Anderson, when he was between 
 seventeen and eighteen years of ago. A compass lay upon a 
 table, on the rim of which were the words Fidem non derogat 
 error. Over this was an olive branch supporting a staff, around 
 which a serpent was entwined. 
 
 2 At that time the French Revolution was making a very 
 deep impression on the public mind in this country, and gave 
 
ALEXANDER ANDERSON, M.D. 27 
 
 lege as a student of medicine. "Without this 
 matriculation no certificate that he had attended 
 the lectures in that institution would have been 
 given. 
 
 tone and intensity to the energies of a new party in opposition 
 to the Federalists or supporters of our new national government, 
 who called themselves Republicans, and were led by Mr. Jeffer- 
 son. The Republicans warmly sympathized with the French 
 Democrats, and received with open arms, Citizen Genet, who 
 was sent hither as ambassador of the French Republic formed 
 after the death of the French Monarch. The seeming co- 
 patriotism of the American and French Republicans produced 
 great enthusiasm here, and under the inspiration of that enthu- 
 siasm, young Anderson, then eighteen years of age, was impelled 
 in common with a large number of young men, to study the French 
 language. In his Diary under date of August 7, 1793, he wrote : 
 " At twelve o'clock the arrival of Citizen Genet was an- 
 nounced by the ringing of bells. I went down to the Battery 
 and saw him land under a discharge of cannon. A procession 
 was formed and proceeded to the Coffee-house, where an address 
 was presented to him by the committee appointed for that pur- 
 pose." On the following day he wrote : " At 12, went to 
 Broadway, opposite Trinity Church, where a multitude was as- 
 sembled, and heard an address delivered by Colonel Troup 
 [Federalist] on the advantages of a state of neutrality ; after 
 which several resolves were passed expressing their approbation 
 of the President's [Washington] conduct, &c, amidst the general 
 assent and shouts of the peeple." The President had issued a 
 proclamation declaring the neutrality of our government in re- 
 gard to the affairs of France, which offended the Republicans. 
 Anderson afterwards records tumultuous gatherings at the Coffee- 
 house, collisions between French and English seamen in port, 
 and exciting political meetings. 
 
28 MEMOIR OF 
 
 Young Anderson's Diary shows that his life 
 while a student of medicine, was one of most ex- 
 traordinary activity and usefulness. Between 
 the age of seventeen and nineteen years, his 
 character appears to have been fully developed. 
 His tastes were most delicate. Profane or obscene 
 language shocked and disgusted him. Every day 
 was crowded with a variety of useful employments, 
 and not one was marked by frivolity. Yet they 
 were not days of wearing labor, but were enlivened 
 by many recreations, the chief of which was the 
 variety of his duties and the enjoyment of them. 
 During that period he was a diligent student of 
 medicine, and he was an industrious compounder 
 and distributor of remedies for Dr. Young, his pre- 
 ceptor. He also practised the healing art among 
 his friends and the poor, when occasion required. 
 His daily reading was extensive and varied. It 
 comprised the Scriptures, and the subjects of 
 Medicine, Surgery, Chemistry, Natural Philoso- 
 phy, Natural History, Theology, Biography, His- 
 tory, Travels, General Sciences, Belles-lettres, 
 Mechanics and Fiction. He was a close attend- 
 ant upon the lectures at the College and the Ser- 
 vices of the Protestant Episcopal Church in which 
 he was a communicant. He loved and studied 
 music, and played the violin daily. He also 
 
ALEXANDER, ANDERSON, M.D. 29 
 
 studied Greek, Arithmetic and Stenography, and, 
 as we have seen, also studied French. He was a 
 devoted son and often acted as clerk and account- 
 ant for his father who was then an Auctioneer and 
 kept a variety of articles for sale in a shop in 
 Wall street. He was a loving minister to the 
 wants and enjoyments of his mother, 1 and a gal- 
 lant beau among his feminine friends. He speaks 
 of the care with which his hair was tied with a 
 ribbon ; and in the summer of 1793, he was 
 slightly touched by Cupid's arrow. "After lec- 
 ture " he wrote in his Diary, " went with my brother 
 and Cousin Katy on the Battery — cannot altogether 
 approve of this employment on Sundays when I 
 review my thoughts during that time. The walk 
 
 1 His Diary abounds in records of attention to his Mother. He 
 accompanied her to church, on every visit, to tea with friends, 
 and on rides and walks for amusement. Ice-cream was first in- 
 troduced in New York hy a Frenchman, in the Summer of 
 1794, according to a statement once made by the veteran jour- 
 nalist, Mordecai M. Noah. In his Diary for June 25th, of that 
 year, Anderson wrote : " I proposed to mama to walk to Corr6's 
 to take a glass of ice-cream by way of experiment. She as- 
 sented, and I saw the pleasure this mark of attention gave her. 
 We each took a glass (Is. each) and found it a very delicious 
 refreshment for warm weather. While we were there, some 
 French officers came capering in upon the same errand. Mama 
 was much diverted at hearing one of them exclaim, that it was 
 ' good for Hell.' Corrfi's place was called ' the ice-house.' " 
 
30 MEMOIR OF 
 
 was very much crowded. Saw Miss E. Hall with 
 Borrowe (sail-maker) . I was irresistibly attracted 
 towards her — irresistibly do I say? I laughed 
 at myself and began to think I must put an 
 end to these feelings and not endeavor to per- 
 suade myself I was in love. Implored divine pro- 
 tection and guidance." At about this time he 
 became a rhymer. In the same month when he 
 encountered the danger on the Battery, his first 
 composition in print, appeared. It was entitled 
 " An authentic, surprising and wonderful Account 
 of the unaccountable Old Man in the Highlands of 
 Harlem Flats," which he calls, in his Diary " a 
 ridiculous jumble." 
 
 Young Anderson and his brother (then a hand- 
 some young law student who was also a lover and 
 practitioner of art) were affectionate companions 
 at home and in long walks together. He speaks 
 of strolling out to the hills near the Collect (just 
 east of the present Centre Market) to enjoy " rural 
 prospects," and of shooting snipe at Corlaer's Hook, 
 now the foot of Grand Street at the East Biver. 
 He took excursions to Hoboken and to Brooklyn 
 and beyond ; and in 1794, he was a volunteer 
 with many others in building fortifications on 
 Governor's Island- in the harbor of New York. 
 He went on scientific excursions with Dr. Mitchill 
 
ALEXANDER ANDERSON, M.D. 31 
 
 and others, and attended many surgical operations 
 at the Hospital, where he was always a keen ob- 
 server of methods. 1 
 
 During all this time, young Anderson was en- 
 gaged daily in the art of Engraving, of which he 
 was passionately fond. For a long time he carried 
 his tools and type-metal on which he engraved, in 
 his pocket, until he fell down stairs one day and 
 was severely injured by his gravers. He was now 
 very expert, and produced pictures with amazing 
 facility not only with his graver, but with his 
 pencil. Before he was eighteen years of age he 
 Avas employed by all the printers and publishers in 
 New York, and by persons up the North River, in 
 
 1 A single entry of this year, of the date of the month of 
 August, furnishes a characteristic account of Anderson's occupa- 
 tions for a single day: "20th, morning, sharpen'd my tools — 
 stitched up a small book for the Dr.'s little negro — went toScoles 
 and got another seal to cut — from that to the Doctor's — went to 
 market a little after and took home some fruit — cast the metal 
 for the seal and returned by 10 — went with the Dr. to dress the 
 boy at Buchanan's — took medicine to Dav. Johnson's and Mrs. 
 Hunter's child — returning call'd at Birdsall's and engag'd with 
 his partner to engrave 2 cuts for 10s. — -Din'd at the Doctor's — 
 after that came home and cast 2 type metal plates — call'd at 
 Louis Jones, he having sent for me. -Bought 121bs type metal 
 at Durell's for 9s. — returned to the shop about 4 — at 5, went to 
 Dr. Smith's Lecture — return'd and drank tea at which my 
 Brother bore us company — play'd on the violin a few tunes with 
 him — read in Cavallo — came away at nine. 
 
32 MEMOIR OF 
 
 New Jersey, Philadelphia, and remote Charleston. 
 He used copper and type-metal, until 1794, for 
 until that time he was ignorant of the use of box- 
 wood, its substitute, on which Bewick had achieved 
 such wonderful triumphs. But early in thatyear he 
 was favored with the perusal of a sketch of Bewick's 
 life and works, and also a sight of his marvellous 
 illustrations of birds and quadrupeds. He received 
 therefrom, anew revelation. He successfully tried 
 experiments with box-wood ; and the first mention 
 of its use for gain, in his Diary, is under the date 
 of the 25th of June, 1793, when he engraved a 
 tobacco stamp. A few days afterward, he agreed to 
 engrave on wood one hundred geometrical figures 
 for S. Campbell, a New York bookseller, for fifty 
 cents each, Campbell finding the wood. This was 
 procured from Ruthven, a maker of carpenter's 
 tools, who at first charged three cents a piece for 
 the blocks, but finally asked four cents. Campbell, 
 Anderson says, "was not well pleased, but con- 
 cluded he must give him that." 
 
 It was more than a year after that before An- 
 derson ventured to engrave elaborate pictures on 
 wood, excepting in the way of experiments. He 
 had engraved on type-metal for William Durell, a 
 leading bookseller, about one third of the illustra- 
 tions for " The Looking Glass for the Mind," 
 
VII. 
 
 VIII. 
 
ALEXANDER ANDERSON, M.D. 33 
 
 after Bewick's cuts, when he felt satisfied that he 
 could do them better on box wood, and in Sep- 
 tember, 1794, he attempted one of them, on the 
 new material. In his Diary on the 24th of that 
 month he wrote ; concerning a drawing on that 
 material : " This morning I was quite discouraged 
 on seeing a crack in the box-wood. Employed as 
 usual at the Doctor's. Came home to dinner, 
 glued the wood and began again with fresh hopes 
 of producing a good wood engraving." On the 
 25th he wrote : " This morning rose at 5 o'clock — 
 took a little walk — engraved. Employed during 
 the chief part of the forenoon in taking out medi- 
 cine. Came home after dinner and finished the 
 wooden cut. Was pretty well satisfied with the 
 impression and so was Durell. Desired the turner 
 to prepare the other 24." After overcoming some 
 difficulties, the young artist was delighted to find 
 a more pleasant material than type-metal for en- 
 graving on, and it was not long before he aban- 
 doned the use of the latter altogether. And so it 
 was that late in 1794, when he was between nine- 
 teen and twenty years of age, 1 Alexander Ander- 
 
 i Another edition of " The Looking Glass for the Mind" was 
 published by David Longworth in the year 1800. In a prefa- 
 tory advertisement, the publisher calls attention to the fact that 
 " our native American genius and artist, Dr. Alexander An- 
 5 
 
34 MEMOIE OF 
 
 son became the first engraver on wood in America — 
 the pioneer in the beautiful and useful art. 
 
 Before this time Young Anderson had numbered 
 among his chief employers, the following leading 
 publishers : "William Durell, Evert Duyckinck, S. 
 Campbell, Hugh Gaine, Bunce & Co., Bissett, Buel, 
 Harrison and Brower, of New York ; Philip Fre- 
 neau and Wood of New Jersey; John Babcock of 
 Hartford (afterward of New Haven, where his son, 
 Sidney Babcock yet [1870] carries on the business), 
 and Davis, a young printer at Bloomingdale, who, 
 in after years, printed the first edition of Irving's 
 " History of New York, by Diedrich Knicker- 
 bocker." For Durell, he had already engraved a 
 large number of illustrations for books, on copper 
 and type-metal. He became an extensive reprinter 
 of English works, small and great, from toy-books 
 to a folio edition of the works of Josephus, and 
 
 derson, executed the cuts for this edition all on wood," adding 
 that :l if they do not equal Mr. Bewick's, whose productions in 
 that line have justly gained him so great a reputation, and are 
 mentioned by the reviewers in England with an applause so 
 highly merited — yet, when the numerous opportunities there 
 afforded to the man of genius for improvement, and for the 
 want of which he languishes here, are considered, it must be ad- 
 mitted that Dr. Anderson's merit falls little short of Mr. Be- 
 wick's excellence." A copy of this now rare publication is in 
 the possession of our fellow member of the Historical Society, 
 Mr. Charles C. Moreau. to whom we are indebted for its use. 
 
ALEXANDER ANDERSON, M.D. 35 
 
 more than a hundred volumes of the British 
 Classics. He employed Anderson to reproduce 
 the pictures in these works, and they were done 
 with great skill considering his opportunities. 
 
 For Hugh Gaine, the eminent journalist before 
 and during the Revolution, he engraved on type- 
 metal illustrations of " The Pilgrim's Progress ;" for 
 Brower, cuts for " Tom Thumb's Folio ;" for Har- 
 rison, pictures for a "Book of Fables ;" for Babcock, 
 "15 cuts for 50 shillings :" for Reid, Campbell and 
 Wood, portraits and cuts for their separate edi- 
 tions of " Dilworth's Spelling Book ;" and in Feb- 
 ruary, 1795, he began engraving the cuts for an 
 edition of "Webster's Spelling Book," for Bunce 
 and Co. He finished the first cut on the last day 
 of that month. For Philip Freneau, the notable 
 bard of the Revolution, he engraved cuts for a 
 Primer. Under the date of June 12, 1794, he 
 made the following interesting record : 
 
 " Mr. Freneau came again. He had forgotten 
 my parents. Upon their reminding him of some 
 circumstances which occurred seventeen years ago, 
 much joy was caused. He drank tea, and gave in 
 a few words a sketch of his life since my father 
 printed the ' Voyage to Boston' for him. Upon 
 the commencement of hostilities, he said, being 
 averse to entering the army, and be knocked in the 
 
36 MEMOIR OE 
 
 head, he went to the West Indies and followed the 
 sea for fourteen years, and several times sailed out 
 of this port. He next went to Philadelphia and 
 was engaged in conducting the ' National Gazette' 
 for two years, but finding it a very expensive and 
 troublesome employment, he retired to his farm 
 on Middle town Point, New Jersey, where he has 
 built a printing house, and now spends his time in 
 printing and farming. His first appearance does 
 not bespeak great genius ; but the proof of it is, 
 that he composed the ' Voyage to Boston' when he 
 was seventeen years of age." 
 
 In 1792, a folio volume was published in New 
 York which, as a typographical undertaking, was 
 an affair of great magnitude for its day, and as an 
 illustrated work, rude in some respects as was the 
 execution of the engravings, was the most import- 
 ant yet attempted in that city. This was an 
 edition of Maynard's Josephus, " embellished with 
 upwards of sixty beautiful engravings taken from 
 original drawings of Messrs Metz, Stoddard and 
 Corbould, members of the Royal Academy, and 
 engraved by American Artists. Printed and sold 
 by William Durell at his bookstore and Printing 
 Office, No. 19 Queen [now Pearl] street, near the 
 Fly Market." The engravings were on copper by 
 C. Tiebout, Tisdale, Rollinson, J. Allen, A. Doo- 
 
ALEXANDER ANDERSON, M.D. 37 
 
 little of New Haven, B. Tanner, and Alexander 
 Anderson. 1 The latter was then only seventeen 
 years of age. A list of subscribers' names was 
 printed at the close of the volume. Among them 
 appear John Jacob Astor, Governor George Clin- 
 ton, Benjamin Foster, pastor of the First Baptist 
 Church, New York, Thomas Greenleaf the printer, 
 Dr. John Mc Knight, minister of the Presbyterian 
 church, Dr. John Onderdonk, John Pintard, Colonel 
 Ebenezer Stevens, and generally the solid men of 
 the time, of New York, New Jersey and Connec- 
 ticut. 
 
 1 Cornelius Tiebout was very little older than young An- 
 derson. He was a native of New York city, and began engrav- 
 ing on copper while yet an apprentice with Burger, a silversmith. 
 He engraved several heads for Dunlap, the painter, in 1794, to 
 illustrate his " German Theatre," and in 1796, went to England 
 for instruction— the first American Engraver who did so. On 
 his return he settled in Philadelphia and engraved for Matthew 
 Carey. He died in Kentucky. 
 
 E. Tisdale was aho a miniature-painter. He was a native 
 of New England and then quite young. He designed and en- 
 graved the illustrations of " The Echo," by Richard Alsop and 
 Theodore Dwight, published in 1807. He also made designs 
 for an edition of Trumbull's " M'Fingal," He wrote a politi- 
 cal Satire called " The Gerrymander," and made designs for it. 
 At one time he was a member of a firm of engravers of bank 
 notes, in Hartford, known as "The Graphic Company." 
 
 Of Rollinson, very little is known. He was one of the 
 oldest of the engravers here mentioned. Dunlap acknowledges 
 
38 MEMOIR OF 
 
 Anderson studied Bewick closely, and he imi- 
 tated his style faithfully, for he perceived in it the 
 true spirit of wood engraving. During his long 
 practice of the art he was never tempted to depart 
 from it. Fine examples of his style may be found 
 in forty illustrations of Shakespeare's plays en- 
 graved by him, from designs by T. H. Matteson, 
 when he was in the 77th year of his age. The 
 volume was issued by Cooledge & Brother, of this 
 city, then the publishers of Webster's " Elementary 
 Spelling-Book " which Anderson, as we have here 
 observed, had first illustrated more than fifty years 
 before, and of which, with his pictures, almost 
 50,000,000 copies have been sold. And the last 
 
 the receipt of information from him, but gives no sketch of his 
 career. Allen appears to have been an amateur engraver. 
 Amos Doolittle was then a middle aged man. He was a sol- 
 dier, for a short time, in the old war for Independence, and en- 
 graved four pictures representing the skirmishes at Lexington 
 and Concord in 1775, two days before Dr. Anderson was born. 
 The drawings were by Earl, a painter, who made them on the 
 theatre of the events. The engraving of the Skirmish at Lex- 
 ington, was Doolittle's first attempt at the art in that form, and 
 wa3 next to the first regular historical print published in Ame- 
 rica, which was Paul Revere's '' Boston Massacre" in 1770. 
 Doolittle died in 1832, at the age of 78 years. 
 
 B. Tanner was a native of New York, and a pupil of Corne- 
 lius Tiebout. He engraved for the publishers a long time, and 
 became an extensive map publisher. " Tanner's Atlas" was a 
 standard work for many years. 
 
IX. 
 
X. 
 
ALEXANDER ANDERSON, M.D. 41 
 
 fond of playing the violin ; and he recorded, with 
 evident delight, that a " clever old wench, belong- 
 ing to the Vanderbilt family, borrowed for me a 
 violin from one of the neighbors. This afforded a 
 very acceptable amusement." Having procured a 
 copy of" Scott's Elocution" " reading this, walking 
 and fiddling," he says, " filled up the remainder 
 of the day." Disappointment came. The violin 
 was taken away that night ; so, the next morning, 
 sighing for the loss of " one source of amusement," 
 he wrote a poetical epistle to his mother, in Hudi- 
 brastic style and measure, descriptive of his jour- 
 ney and adventures, closing with the postscript : 
 
 " A draught inclosed I send, that you 
 My present residence may view." 
 
 Then he took a long stroll, " almost to the Nar- 
 rows," and was for some hours lost in the woods. 
 He left for Brooklyn, in the stage wagon, the next 
 morning, with only one fellow-passenger — a stroll- 
 ing exhibitor of the wonders of the magic-lantern. 
 It was July — the height of " the season" for sea- 
 bathers ; yet Vanderbilt appears to have had no 
 other guests. Sea-side charges were then some- 
 what less than now. Anderson's entire expenses 
 at Vanderbilt's, for two days and a half, were two 
 dollars and a quarter. 
 
42 MEMOIR OF 
 
 Soon after this the yellow fever prevailed in 
 New York City as an epidemic, and our young 
 doctor, then twenty years of age, was employed, at 
 a salary of twenty shillings a day, by the Health 
 Commissioners, as Eesident Physician at Bellevue 
 Hospital, on the East River, then more than three 
 miles from the city, whither patients were sent in 
 the last stages of the disease. He was taken out 
 by Dr. Smith, who introduced him to the family 
 there, and the patients. 
 
 It may not be uninteresting here to mention 
 the constituents of the entire family at Bellevue, 
 at that time, as given by Dr. Anderson in a letter 
 to his brother, to whom he wrote every day and 
 sent his letters by the sail-boat which brought the 
 patients to the hospital. 1 " Our family," he says, 
 " consists of the steward and his wife, old Daddy 
 the gardener, a white and a black nurse, a black 
 
 1 The hospital boat that conveyed the sick by water from the 
 city to Bellevue, was managed by a colored man and two as- 
 sistants. In his Diary under date of the 30th of August, 1795 — 
 a few days after he was installed physician at the hospital — he 
 wrote, after mentioning the arrival of two sick girls : " I could 
 not help contrasting the characters of the boatmen who are ap- 
 pointed to convey the sick here, with that of the hearsemen. 
 I was pleased to see the care and attention of the former in 
 helping the poor girls from the boat, and the " God bless you" 
 which they left with them, but the other fellows seemed to 
 glory in a disregard to feeling and delicacy. 
 
ALEXANDER ANDERSON, M.D. 43 
 
 man, Mulatto Jim the oysterman, 3 dogs, a lop- 
 sided cat, a community of hogs, a flock of chickens, 
 and a pair of cows, and all fulfil their stations with 
 tolerable propriety." 
 
 Although Anderson was a witness of more than 
 one hundred deaths by the disease, and assisted at 
 post-mortem examinations, he escaped the epi- 
 demic. He remained there from August until No- 
 vember. A large portion of the time he was the 
 only physician, and he had at one period between 
 thirty and forty patients under treatment ; yet he 
 found leisure to walk, read, engrave a little, play 
 on the violin, at which he was expert, make draw- 
 ings in the neighborhood, 1 write poetical para- 
 phrases of the Scriptures and poetical epistles to his 
 mother, and withstand and moderate the stormy 
 wife of the steward who too often indulged in 
 strong drink. Dr. Bard and others highly com- 
 mended his professional skill and attention, and 
 he was offered the post of physician to the New 
 
 1 He made a beautiful sketch, in water colors, of the wharf at 
 Bellevue at which the patients were landed. The picture forms 
 one of the illustrations of this Memoir. We are indebted to 
 Mr. C. Parsons, the chief of Harper & Brothers' Art Depart- 
 ment, for the copying of it upon the wood, and to Mr. C. B. 
 Dolge, of the same department for the engraving of it. These 
 gentlemen have kindly made these services their contribution 
 to this Memorial of the pioneer wood-engraver. 
 
44 MEMOIR OF 
 
 York Dispensary, at a salary of $1,000 a year, 
 which he declined. 1 
 
 The following year (1796) Anderson was a 
 graduate of the medical class of Columbia College 
 (the eighteenth), with Dr. Saltonstall, and received 
 the degree of Medical Doctor. The subject of his 
 graduation thesis was " Chronic Mania." The late 
 Dr. Francis informed me that the doctrine of that 
 thesis, then first promulgated in due form, has ever 
 since been accepted by the Medical Faculty as 
 correct. 3 
 
 1 The following is copied from Dr. Anderson's register of 
 patients under treatment for the epidemic yellow fever at Belle- 
 vue, from the 24th of August until the 11th of November, 1795 : 
 
 " There were 238 entered, of whom 99 were cured and 137 
 died. 
 
 " 171 males, 67 females. Males cured, 65, died 106. Fe- 
 males cured, 34, died 33. 
 
 " 16 were blacks and mulattoes, of whom 3 died. 
 
 " 4 were Swedes — all died. 
 
 " 5 were Welch — 3 died. 
 
 " 3 were Italians, 1 died. 
 
 " The remaining part were chiefly English, Irish and Scotch." 
 
 Anderson was assisted during some portion of the time, by 
 Drs. Johnson and M'Farlane. 
 
 - In his Diary under the date of March 14, 1796, he wrote : 
 "At 3, I repaired to the college and remained in Saltonstall's 
 room 'till the Professors sent word that they were ready to ex- 
 amine me. They were Drs. Mitchill, Rogers, Hammersley and 
 Hosack. I entered the room with rather more courage than I 
 expected I should be able to muster, and was ply'd with ques- 
 
ALEXANDER ANDERSON, M.D. 45 
 
 In January, 1797, Dr. Anderson was betrothed 
 to Nancy Van Vleck, a member of a most excel- 
 lent Moravian family, then living in Partition 
 street now the western part of Fulton street. In 
 
 tions for an hour and a half. Being then desired to withdraw, 
 I returned to Saltonstall who was grieving for his fate to-mor- 
 row. Dr. Mitchill afterward informed me that I had given 
 satisfaction, but desired me, as a matter of form, to call on Dr. 
 Bard to-morrow." On the following day he wrote: "This 
 morning I called on Dr. Bard, who desired me to proceed and 
 finish my dissertation. In the afternoon I went to encourage 
 my fellow sufferer, Saltonstall, who was under the greatest 
 anxiety at the thoughts of his examination. I staid until it was 
 over — about 6 o'clock. He was in better spirits when he was 
 informed of his having given satisfaction." 
 
 Anderson's thesis was printed in April. " I presented my 
 father and mother with a copy each," he wrote : " The impres- 
 sion made on the former was very evident on this occasion. 
 Then came preparations for a public examination on parts of 
 his thesis at the approaching Commencement on the 3d of May, 
 On the 24th of April, he wrote : " Sunday .—This morning I 
 went to Dr. Hosack's and breakfasted with him, after which we 
 had some conversation on the subject of my thesis." On the 3d 
 of May he wrote : 
 
 The great, tli' important day big with the fate, 
 Of Saltonstall and Anderson. 
 
 I dressed myself in black and awaited, with some dread, the 
 time for the examination. In order to divert my mind, I had 
 recourse to ' The Romance of the Forest,' and then to the 
 violin. At 10 I went to the college and staid with my com- 
 panion in affliction 'till 11. The Professors, Trustees, &c, be- 
 gan to assemble ; and amongst the rest, the Governor. We 
 entered the Hall and seated ourselves at a table opposite the 
 
46 MEMOIE OF 
 
 February he hired a house at 45 Beekman street ; 
 on the first of April, he engraved upon the wed- 
 ding ring " United in Heaven," and on the same 
 day was gratified by the appearance of one of his 
 
 Medical Professors. Dr. Hosack began first with me, and after 
 puzzling me a little, ended with an encomium. Dr. Rogers 
 next asked several questions for which I was better prepared. 
 After Saltonstall had been examin'd on his thesis, by Mitchill 
 and Hammersley, we were desired to withdraw. At our return, 
 the oath was read which we severally repeated and subscribed. 
 The business was begun and concluded with prayer. The Di- 
 plomas were handed to us to procure the signatures of the Pro- 
 fessors." 
 
 On the following day Anderson wrote : " I went to the Col- 
 lege this morning where the students, &c, were collecting. 
 About 10 the procession was formed. Salstonstall and I joined 
 it, and marched to St. Paul's with a band of music. We were 
 seated near the stage and attended to the orations of the stu- 
 dents. At 3 p. M., the church was again opened. When the 
 time arriv'd for conferring the degrees, my panic increased ; 
 however I ascended the stage and went through with the cere- 
 mony with less confusion than 1 expected. Here I was dubbed 
 M.D. 
 
 " ' Hie finis laborum' I should have said, had I not taken a 
 peep into futurity. 
 
 " Saltonstall called upon me and we went to the Tontine Coflee 
 house at eight o'clock in the evening to partake of the Commence- 
 ment Supper. A number of toasts were given, and I was at my 
 wit's end to evade drinking to them. I threw the greatest part 
 of my wine over my shoulder or under the table, and by that 
 means contrived to drink but a small quantity. The company 
 became noisy and merry." And so Medical Doctors were com- 
 missioned three quarters of a century ago. 
 
ALEXANDER ANDERSON, M.D. 47 
 
 poems in the " New York Magazine." A fortnight 
 later he was married by Dr. (afterward Bishop) 
 Moore, a friend and frequent visitor of Dr. Ander- 
 son's family. 
 
 Anderson now undertook the business of a 
 publisher and bookseller. He hired a small room, 
 had some small illustrated books printed, employed 
 a boy as clerk and tried the experiment. It did 
 not succeed, and he very soon abandoned the en- 
 terprise. On the 2d of September, 1797, he wrote 
 in his Diary : " Some desponding thoughts are 
 now and then popping in along with the book 
 store, but pride and shame forbid me to retreat 
 until I have given the plan a fair chance." On 
 the 18 th he wrote : " I came to the resolution of 
 dismissing my lad and sending my books (of which 
 I have above 7000) to my father's auction. This 
 was disagreeable news to the lad who was fixed in 
 a snug berth and was earning three shillings a 
 day; but poor I had not received enough from 
 the sales to pay his wages." And so the under- 
 taking ended. 
 
 Anderson was now a regular practising physi- 
 cian and skilful engraver. One of his art pro- 
 ductions at about this period was a picture of a 
 human skeleton, which he enlarged from Albinus' 
 Anatomy to three feet in height. After getting a 
 
48 MEMOIR OF 
 
 few impressions by means of a lever, his work 
 became disjointed and fell in pieces. It was the 
 largest fine wood engraving ever attempted. As a 
 work of art it was remarkable for accuracy of 
 drawing and beauty of execution . 
 
 A prominent quality of Dr. Anderson's character 
 was conscientiousness. He could do nothing which 
 conscience — Emmanuel, God with us — did not 
 approve. This quality was morbidly sensitive in 
 him; and because the practice of medicine neces- 
 sarily involved continual uncertainty and unceas- 
 ing experiment, he was unwilling to bear the 
 responsibility of a professional healer of disease, 
 when expectations might be often disappointed. 
 He was therefore impelled to abandon the vocation, 
 and that the more willingly because it was not his 
 choice ; yet he pursued it until the fearful yellow 
 fever season in New York, in 1798, when he was 
 again, for a short time, in the hospital service, and 
 also physician to the poor in the city. During that 
 period he was called in consultation with Drs. 
 Rogers, Hosack, Kissam, and others; and he was 
 again offered the post of physician to the Dispen- 
 sary, which he declined. 1 
 
 1 In his diary for October 18, 1795, (just after he had been 
 offered the place of physician to the Dispensary the first time) 
 he wrote : " Sunday about 9 I went to town, found our people 
 
ALEXANDER ANDERSON, M.D. 49 
 
 During the prevalence of the fever, death made 
 sad havoc among Dr. Anderson's idols. First he 
 lost his infant son, in July. In September his 
 brother, father, wife, mother, mother-in-law, and 
 sister-in-law died ; also many of his friends, whom 
 he visited in their illness. Like Job, he was utterly 
 desolated ; yet with that sublime faith and equa- 
 nimity which never forsook him, he allowed no 
 murmur to escape his lips. He Avas a happy 
 optimist, and never experienced an eclipse of 
 faith in the righteousness of Providence. He 
 only said, in his autobiography : " This succession 
 of calamities seemed rather severe, and I sought 
 consolation in a change of scene." At the close of 
 the year he wrote in his diary : " A tremendous 
 scene have I witnessed ; but yet I have reason to 
 thank the Great Author of my existence, and am 
 
 sitting round the fire, ready for church. I received a sort of 
 rebuke for refusing to offer myself as candidate for the office 
 of physician to the Dispensary. My brother was not behind 
 hand in enforcing arguments. The letter I received from my 
 mother was in the same style. I may have acted imprudently 
 in refusing it, when proposed by Dr. Smith, but my feelings are 
 entirely discordant with such an employment; besides, the 
 engravings which I have undertaken, and my unwillingness to 
 disappoint my employers had great weight with me. My pre- 
 sent employment is much against the grain — a sense of duty 
 and acquiescence in the will of God are the chief motives which 
 detain me here.'' 
 
 7 
 
50 MEMOIR OE 
 
 still convinced that ' Whatever is, is right.' I 
 make no petition for the ensuing year." 
 
 In March following Dr. Anderson made a voyage 
 to the West Indies in the Essiquibo packet, where 
 he spent two or three months with his paternal 
 uncle, Dr. Alexander Anderson, who was king's 
 botanist in the island of St. Vincent. The botanic 
 garden there was a perfect paradise ; and during 
 his sojourn with his uncle, Dr. Anderson revelled 
 in its delights and found balm for his wounded 
 spirit. There he imbibed a taste for plants and 
 flowers, that remained with him, like a good angel 
 through life. There was never a more thoroughly 
 satisfied visitor to the Elgin Botanical Garden, 
 established upon this island early in our century 
 by Dr. David Hosack (then Professor of Botany 
 and Materia Medica in Columbia College), than 
 young Dr. Anderson. That garden covered twenty 
 acres, from the present line of Fifth Avenue 
 westward toward the Hudson River, between 
 46th and 50th streets. Through the dreary open 
 country, from Canal street northward, Anderson 
 strolled to that Eden whenever a leisure day would 
 allow; and Dr. Hosack employed his pencil and 
 burin in making a picture of the conservatory and 
 surroundings for a catalogue of the Elgin Garden 
 
XIII. 
 
ALEXANDER ANDERSON, M.D. 51 
 
 plants, which comprised some of the rarest exotics 
 from each quarter of the globe. 1 
 
 Anderson's uncle offered him a situation that 
 would have speedily secured to him a pecuniary 
 independence. He declined it, and returned to 
 New York with a resistless craving for quiet and 
 solitude in the practice of the engraver's art. He 
 suffered much from indigestion and depression of 
 spirits. He was a frequent subject of somnam- 
 bulism and the victim of nightmare. 2 Physical 
 and mental irregularity was the rule of his life. 
 "Last month the traveling mania laid such a 
 
 1 Dr. David Hosack was a native of New York city, where 
 he was born in 1769. He was a graduate of Princeton College, 
 and received the degree of M.D., in Philadelphia. He after- 
 ward pursued medical studies in Edinburgh and London, and 
 on his return, brought with him a cabinet of minerals, the 
 first collection of the kind ever seen in this country. He 
 also brought with him a fine collection of plants. He was 
 appointed professor of botany in Columbia College, in 1795, 
 and afterward held other professorships in the same institution. 
 He established the Elgin garden at great expense of time and 
 money, and kept it up for a number of years. His medical 
 practice became very extensive, yet he was found active in the 
 public enterprises of the day. He was one of the founders of 
 the New York Historical Society, and with his business partner, 
 the late John "W. Francis, he published the " American Medi- 
 cal and Philosophical Register," which contained engravings 
 by Dr. Anderson. He died in 1835. 
 
 - His diary abounds with notices of his sufferings at night. 
 Sometimes ho would spring out of bed and be awakened by 
 
52 MEMOIR OF 
 
 hold on me," he wrote in his Diary in January, 
 1799, " that I set about drafting a petition to 
 the president for an appointment to what ? — to 
 explore the continent of America! Next day I 
 made my will and bequeathed my body to a 
 surgeon for the purpose of dissection." He ate 
 raisins plentifully, took gin and pancakes for 
 supper, and so obtained a right to have horrible 
 nightmares. For many months he shunned all 
 society, lived chiefly upon bread and water, 
 and was a hermit in a populous city. Then 
 he suddenly went to the opposite extreme, indulg- 
 ing in gayety and- stimulants, and giving his 
 appetite loose rein. It was during one of these 
 seasons of depression that he wrote the following 
 lament : 
 
 " ! what avails a long-protracted life — 
 
 A hopeless, helpless, misery of years — 
 A tortured witnessing of madmen's strife — 
 
 Their blasted hopes, their rage, their groans and tears. 
 We pity those who fall in Youth's gay bloom : 
 
 Far happier they than those who mourn their fate, 
 The tranquil rest, the slumber of the tomb 
 
 Is bliss compared with life's mysterious state." 
 
 severe contacts with objects in the room. Sometimes he would 
 arouse other sleepers by his outcries. Once he found himself 
 lying half way out of the door of his room; and at another 
 time while in a somnambulic state, he lifted a heavy chest 
 upon his bed. 
 
ALEXANDER ANDERSON,. M.D. 53 
 
 A second marriage to a charming young woman, 
 sister of his lost wife — seems to have been the 
 regulator of his life. He lived sensibly, and 
 applied himself closely — too closely — to the Arts. 
 He was passionately fond of his quiet home, and 
 allowed himself no amusements, excepting occa- 
 sional rambles out of town to commune with 
 Nature, botanize, and make pencil sketches. He 
 was now happy ; and in a joyous mood he gave 
 expression to his feelings in composing the follow- 
 ing verses, partly in the Scottish dialect, to his 
 favorite tune of " Whistle o'er the lave o't." 1 He 
 entitled his piece 
 
 "ANEW 'WHISTLE O'ER THE LAVE O'T."' 
 
 " We should na fret oursel's to stane 
 
 Like Niobe, wha's dead an' gane, 
 
 Nor blear our een out a' our lane 
 
 But whistle o'er the lave o't. 
 
 Gie me a man wha's een can blink : 
 Wha's heart is free, wha's soul can think ; 
 Wha's Clishma-Clarer care can sink 
 And whistle o'er the lave o't. 
 
 • In his Diary for July 3, 1794, he wrote : " At dark amused 
 myself with the violin, and not myself only, for lo ! two negroe3 
 set down their load in the middle of the street, and listened to 
 the Caledonian strains of ' Whistle o'er the lave o't.' " 
 
54 MEMOIK OF 
 
 Let Beauty's smiles illume the way, 
 The murky glen through which we stray ; 
 Thus may we live our little day 
 And whistle o'er the lave o't. 
 
 When fortune shows a scowlin' brow, 
 And lays our fairest prospects low; 
 As pleasures fade, let reason grow, 
 Then whistle o'er the lave o.'t. 
 
 But when she glints with face serene 
 And decks the warP in gayest sheen, 
 We'll aye distrust the fickle quean 
 And whistle o'er the lave o't. 
 
 And when auld Death wi' ruthless paw, 
 Shall clapperclaw us, ane and a,' 
 We maun submit to Nature's law 
 And whistle o'er the lave o't." 
 
 He added 
 
 " Quantum mutatus ab illo." 
 
 Among Anderson's acquaintances at that time 
 was John Roberts, an eccentric Scotchman from 
 Dumfries, whom Burns mentioned as expert with 
 the burin. He came to America in 1793, and 
 soon attracted much attention because of the 
 versatility of his genius and social qualities. He 
 was a meritorious miniature painter and engraver, 
 an ingenious mechanic, and a skilful musician 
 and mathematician — a universal genius, with all 
 
ALEXANDER ANDERSON, M.D. 55 
 
 the waywardness which often distinguish men of 
 that character. He was the founder of a musical 
 club called the " Euterpian Society," whose first 
 meeting place was next to the Methodist chapel 
 in John street. There the musicians, with pro- 
 fane intent, tried to drown the sounds of prayer 
 and singing of their devout neighbors. They 
 failed. Fervency of soul and strong lungs were an 
 over-match for flutes and fiddles, and the " Euter- 
 pians " stopped their ears and fled to a more quiet 
 neighborhood. 
 
 Anderson sought and obtained employment with 
 Roberts, chiefly for the purpose of improvement 
 in his art. He assisted the wayward Scotchman 
 in finishing several large engravings on copper. 
 He wholly engraved others, among them the por- 
 trait of Francis the First, as a frontispiece for 
 Robertson's History of Charles the Fifth, published 
 in New York in the year 1800. Roberts's habits 
 were so irregular, that Anderson dropped his 
 acquaintance after he had learned much that was 
 new about engraving, and also how to play the 
 clarionet. In the latter accomplishment Anderson 
 taught Washington Irving, then a gentle youth 
 whom he often met in the publishing houses of 
 Durell, Duyckinck, Swords, Longworth, and others. 
 When mentioning this circumstance to me, Mr. 
 
56 MEMOIR OF 
 
 Irving spoke of Dr. Anderson in the most affec- 
 tionate terms. " He was handsome, artless, and 
 full of good humor," he said, " and as gentle as a 
 woman." 
 
 An incident in Roberts's career as an engraver, 
 is worth alluding to in connection with Dr. 
 Anderson. The story is told by Dunlap in his 
 " Arts of Design," his informant probably being 
 Dr. Anderson himself. Benjamin Trott, a painter 
 of the day, " had executed a beautiful miniature 
 of Washington from Stuart's portrait of the hero, 
 and Roberts engraved a plate from it, but after 
 he had finished his work to the satisfaction of his 
 friends, he was retouching it, when Trott came 
 in, and some misunderstanding taking place 
 between the engraver and the painter, Roberts 
 deliberately took up a piece of pumice and apply- 
 ing it to the copper, obliterated all traces of his 
 work ; then taking the miniature, he handed it 
 to its owner, saying, " There, sir, take your picture, 
 I have done with it and with you." A very few 
 proofs had been taken of Roberts's work before its 
 destruction. One of them, showing great merit in 
 the engraver, was preserved by Dr. Anderson, who 
 also engraved a fine head after it on wood, and 
 made it the model of his many future engravings 
 of Washington. 
 
ALEXANDER ANDERSON, M.D. 57 
 
 For all of the New York publishers, and for 
 Matthew Carey, of Philadelphia, Anderson was an 
 engraver at the beginning of this century. So early 
 as 1802 he was employed by David Longworth in 
 the reproduction, by careful redrawing and engrav- 
 ing, of three hundred of Bewick's Illustrations of 
 Quadrupeds 1 — "a laborious undertaking," he said, 
 " and poorly paid." He also made a set of illustra- 
 tions on copper, for Dr. Langhorne's " Fables of 
 Flora," issued by Longworth, and executed for the 
 same publisher the engravings, both on wood and 
 copper, which accompanied the early editions of 
 Irving and Paulding's " Salmagundi." Several 
 of the copper plate engravings of Riley's once 
 celebrated " Narrative of Travel in Africa," were 
 from his burin ; also several of the best of those 
 which were inserted in the first American edition, 
 published by Stansbury of New York, of Fessen- 
 
 1 Dr. Anderson appears to have first seen this fine produc- 
 tion of Bewick, in the summer of 1795. In his Diary for the 
 17th of August, a few days before he went to Bellevue — he 
 wrote : " Mr. Loudon called on me, and informed me of a 
 history of Quadrupeds with elegant wooden cuts of Bewick, at 
 Wayland's. I went to price and examine it, when Wayland 
 desired me to take it along, and let him know what I would 
 engrave the cuts for." Anderson sent a copy of Longworth's 
 edition to the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, 
 for which that body officially thanked him, in 1806. 
 
58 MBMOIK OF 
 
 den's " Terrible Tractorations ; " also a number 
 for an American edition of Bell's " Anatomy." He 
 engraved many cuts for the excellent small books 
 issued by that eminent publisher and member of 
 the Society of Friends, the late Samuel Wood. 
 His last considerable engraving on copper was a 
 picture of the Last Supper, after Holbein, done at 
 about the year 1812, to illustrate a quarto Bible. 1 
 After that he confined his art labors chiefly to 
 engraving on wood. Some of his wood engrav- 
 ings at about that time, were very large. A series 
 engraved in 1818, illustrating the four seasons 
 were nine and a half by twelve and a half inches 
 in size, and are remarkable specimens of the art. 
 
 1 This is a fine specimen of the graphic art in America at 
 that time. It was six by eight inches in size. Holbein's com- 
 position of " The Last Supper " is more pleasing than that of 
 Da Vinci, yet, perhaps, not so truthful. Its whole air is more 
 modern. Jesus sits talking, while the Apostles, all fine looking 
 men, are attentively listening. In one corner, a curtain hangs 
 in a graceful festoon, and a lighted antique lamp is suspended 
 from above. In the foreground is a handsome Etruscan vase 
 and a cushioned seat. 
 
 At about the same time (1812), Anderson designed, en- 
 graved on copper and published a series of designs in a semi- 
 circle, entitled : " The twelve different Stages of Human Life, 
 from the Cradle to the Grave : " also an allegorical picture entitled 
 the " Wheel of Fortune." Winged Time is turning, by a crank, 
 an immense wheel, from the rim of which project more than a 
 dozen arms upon which are different characters, men and women. 
 
ALEXANDER ANDERSON, M.D. 59 
 
 They are after pictures by Riedenger, an eminent 
 German designer and engraver, who nourished 
 early in the eighteenth century. He also engraved 
 on a little smaller scale, another series illustrat- 
 ing the same subject from paintings by Teniers. 
 
 The late Dr. J. W. Francis, in the portion of his 
 " Old New York," devoted to the literature of the 
 city, mentions among other notable undertakings 
 ■ the issue of Isaac Collins's " highly prized quarto 
 Family Bible." The second edition of this work, 
 published in 1807, made some pretensions to a 
 revised edition of the Holy Scriptures, and a preface, 
 or address " To the reader," by Dr. Witherspoon 
 was substituted for the dedication of the old ver- 
 
 some ascending, some at top, some descending, as the wheel 
 revolves. For example : on the descending side is seen Napoleon 
 half between the arm from which the members of the French 
 Directory have fallen, and another on which is Louis the Sixteenth 
 whose crown and sceptre have fallen beyond his reach. On the 
 ascending side at the bottom, is Toussaint L'Ouverture, the black 
 general-in-chief of San Domingo (whom the jealous Napoleon 
 starved to death in prison) trying to mount one of the arms, 
 while a host of white people are trying to prevent him. There 
 are artists, students, soldiers and statesmen, some going up, and 
 some going down, as the great wheel revolves. That wheel 
 and Time stand upon a huge stone block, on which are inscribed 
 the Scripture words : " They are exalted for a little while, but 
 are gone and brought low." — Job, xxiv, 24. " He bringeth low 
 and lifteth up. He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and 
 lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill." — I Samuel, ii, 7, 8. 
 
60 MEMOIK OP 
 
 sion to King James. It was illustrated by a series 
 of engravings on copper of remarkable excellence. 
 " The admirers of engravings in their Bible," says 
 the advertisement, " will be pleased with those in- 
 troduced into this edition. The great price paid 
 for the engravings, the plan of procuring a single 
 plate from each of the first artists of our country, 
 and some from an eminent engraver lately from 
 London, and the exciting of a competition of the 
 reward of a gold medal for the best, have produced 
 a set of plates which may be regarded as a speci- 
 men of the degree of perfection to which the art 
 of line engraving has advanced in the United 
 States." From the following additional paragraph 
 it would appear that there existed, at that time, 
 in some minds, a prejudice against this species of 
 fine art illustrations of the Scriptures — " As some 
 persons may prefer their Bibles without plates, 
 copies may be had without them." 
 
 The "eminent engraver," alluded to was pro- 
 bably W. S. Leney, 1 whose figure of the Angel 
 
 1 W. S. Leney was a native of London, where lie established 
 a reputation for stipple engraving in the style introduced by 
 Bartolozzi a quarter of a century before. Among his finer 
 works was one from Rubens's " Descent from the cross.'' After 
 his arrival in New York he entered into partnership with Rollin- 
 
ALEXANDER ANDEESON, M.D. 61 
 
 appearing to St. Matthew is gracefully and most 
 skillfully executed. 
 
 There is a St. Mark, by Scoles. Dr. Anderson's 
 subject after Domenichino was admirably exe- 
 cuted — a spiritual St. John the Evangelist sitting 
 at a table holding an open scroll, his countenance 
 raised to an eagle on the wing bearing in its beak 
 a reed, the pen of inspiration. 
 
 Among the more noticeable of Dr. Anderson's 
 early works, connecting his name with that of 
 Bewick and the memorable work of Holbein, was 
 the reproduction of the fifty-two cuts of " Emblems 
 of Mortality " by Thomas and John Bewick, after 
 Holbein's "Dance of Death," which appeared in 
 London in 1789. Anderson's engravings appeared 
 in an edition of this work first published by John 
 Babcock already mentioned, then in Hartford, in 
 the year 1800, and reprinted by Sidney Babcock, 
 his son, in 1846. Devices of the old school of art, 
 introducing the "fleshless monarch of the hour- 
 
 son, in bank note engraving. He made money and saved it. 
 In the course of a few years he had sufficient to buy a farm on 
 the St. Lawrence river, below Montreal. " His eldest son was 
 his farmer" saysDunlap; "and he, having renounced his occu- 
 pation to enjoy life — died.'' Leney engraved in the stipple 
 style, Tisdale's illustrations of " The Echo" already mentioned. 
 
62 MEMOIR OF 
 
 glass and scythe," seem to have had a peculiar 
 fascination for Dr. Anderson, it may be from his 
 early professional studies and experience of pesti- 
 lence in New York. In one form and another 
 when working to please himself, he frequently 
 recurred to the designs of this nature. One of a 
 very striking character — Death in the form of a 
 skeleton preaching at a pulpit or lectern com- 
 posed of another bending skeleton, before him, 
 supporting an open book, was preserved with 
 his early drawings and was among his latest 
 engravings on wood. It was copied from a rare 
 print by Adrian Van Venne, a Dutch poet and 
 artist, who contributed to the designs of "Cat's 
 Emblems." 
 
 For many years the publications issued by the 
 American Tract Society were illustrated with 
 printed wood cuts designed and engraved by Dr. 
 Anderson. The first tract sent forth by this In- 
 stitution, " An Address to the Christian Public," 
 was decorated with an effective vignette on the title 
 page from his hand and was followed by a host 
 of others in a long series of several hundreds 
 similarly illustrated by him, exhibiting a great 
 variety of subjects of sacred history, religious, 
 and domestic scenes, of much simplicity and feeling, 
 
XIV. 
 
XV. 
 
 ■--^rj-S&S - -^&£*~.- *- 
 
 XVI. 
 
 '— ^-f^ 
 
ALEXANDER ANDERSON, M.D. 63 
 
 and often, when temperance was the theme, of 
 considerable power. 
 
 A. series of cuts, fifty-nine in number, were exe- 
 cuted by him as illustrations for " The Fables of 
 Pilpay." These generally followed the designs in 
 an old English edition ; but they were better en- 
 graved. After lying many years unused, they re- 
 mained still unpublished after Dr. Anderson's death. 
 They are now in the possession of Messrs. Hurd & 
 Houghton, and have been lately issued in an 
 edition of the work for which they were de- 
 signed. By the favor of these publishers several 
 of these cuts are included in the illustrations of 
 the present memoir. 
 
 The antiquarian interest of New York is in- 
 debted to Dr. Anderson for a series of well exe- 
 cuted wood engravings, mainly of old Dutch 
 buildings existing in the city in his earlier days, 
 engraved about thirty years ago for the old Mirror 
 of George P. Morris, after the faithful drawings of 
 the architect Alexander J. Davis who, with the 
 late worthy collector, John Allan, often sought 
 the society of our honored associate. Both tho- 
 roughly appreciated Anderson's labors, and ad- 
 mired his high character and intelligence. The 
 late Robert Balmanno, another virtuoso, held him 
 
64 MEMOTK OP 
 
 in high regard, and in the illustration of that ele- 
 gant volume, " Pen and Pencil," by Mrs. Balmanno, 
 Anderson's aid was sought and obtained for the 
 execution of a series of beautiful initial letters. 
 In 1838, he engraved a series of admirable illus- 
 trations for O'Keilly's " Sketches of Rochester with 
 incidental notices of Western New York." 1 A few 
 years later (1841) he engraved the fine illustra- 
 tions of A. J. Downing's work on "Landscape 
 Gardening." He also engraved a series of excel- 
 lent Shaksperian cuts for Monroe & Francis, of 
 Boston, and illustrations for Peter Parley's maga- 
 
 1 This work was prepared by our fellow member, Mr. Henry 
 O'Reilly, well known as one of the most active, zealous and 
 intelligent promoters of the system of telegraphing in this 
 country. Mr. O'Reilly edited the first daily newspaper that 
 was established in the vast region between the Hudson 
 river and the Pacific ocean. It was published by Luther 
 Tucker & Co., at Rochester, N. Y., and its first issue was 
 on the 26th of October, 1826. The first book issued about 
 the origin and progress of any city in that same region, was the 
 volume alluded to, for which Anderson made illustrations. It 
 was published in 1838. Its frontispiece, engraved by Anderson, 
 kindly lent by Mr. O'Rielly for the illustration of this memoir, 
 is a view of all there was of the now large city of Rochester, in 
 1812 — a log house and barn, and a man shooting a bear, in a 
 tree between them — an actual occurrence. Mr. O'Rielly has a 
 fine circular oak table made of a portion of the timber of that 
 log-house. 
 
X 
 
XIX. 
 
ALEXANDER ANDERSON, M.D. 65 
 
 zine and other publications of that popular author. 
 Late in life he engraved exquisite illustrations 
 for Bentley's Spelling Book, from drawings by 
 one of his pupils, Mr. Morgan, then seventy years 
 of age. Still later in life he engraved for Mr. 
 Charles I. Bushnell, of this city, an extensive 
 series of portraits of revolutionary men and other 
 subjects. During many years he engraved a large 
 number of religious pictures, (a greater portion 
 of them illustrations of the life of the Virgin 
 Mary) for Spanish printers in the West Indies, 
 Mexico, and South America. One of these has 
 been kindly lent by his family for an illustration 
 of this Memoir. 
 
 I should weary your patience unprofitably were 
 I to attempt to enumerate the works of every 
 description, from sheet-ballads and primers, busi- 
 ness cards, tobacconists' devices, wrappers of 
 playing cards, diplomas and newspaper cuts of 
 every sort, to magazines, stately scientific treatises 
 and large Bibles, which pictures from Anderson's 
 graver, both on wood and copper, illustrated during 
 fifty years from near the close of the last century, 
 and I will forbear. For a long time he was the 
 only skilful engraver on wood in this country; 
 and I venture to say that every owner of gray 
 
66 MEMOIR OF 
 
 locks in this hall will readily recall the pleasure 
 derived, when a child, from pictures in school- 
 books, in which, in a dark corner, were seen the 
 mysterious little white letters "A A" — Alexander 
 Anderson. 
 
 Although Dr. Anderson was exceedingly modest, 
 and habitually shrank from contact with general 
 society, and especially with persons of renown, 
 he became, through his professional intercourse, 
 acquainted with distinguished men of letters 
 and art, all of whom cherished for him the 
 highest personal regard. Among these in this 
 city were Drs. Hosack, Mitchill, 1 Bard, Smith and 
 
 1 Samuel Latham Mitchill was a native of North Hempstead, 
 Long Island, where he was born in 1764. He was graduated 
 as M.D. at the University of Edinburgh. On his return to 
 America, he studied law. He was an Indian commissioner in 
 1788 ; a representative of his native county in the legisla- 
 ture of the state of New York in 1790, and two years later 
 was appointed Professor of Chemistry, Natural History and 
 Philosophy in Columbia College. He was one of the founders of a 
 Society for the Promotion of Agriculture, Manufactures and the 
 Useful Arts, which employed him to make a geological and 
 mineralogical tour along the Hudson river in 1796, the report 
 of which gave him a great reputation abroad. For sixteen years 
 he was editor of the " Medical Repository," the first scientific 
 periodical published in the United States. He was a member 
 of Congress; and was ever active in society where he might be 
 useful. He died in New York in 1S31. 
 
ALEXANDER ANDERSON, M.D. 67 
 
 Francis; 1 Coleman, Editor of the Evening Post, 
 established in 1801, and Cheetham, his political 
 opponent; the late Gulian C. Verplanck, "Wash- 
 ington Irving, and others ; also Colonel Trumbull, 2 
 
 1 John Wakefield Francis was born in the city of New 
 York in 1789. He began to learn the printer's trade, when a 
 lad, but was prepared for college under distinguished teachers, 
 and entered Columbia College in 1807. Soon afterward he com- 
 menced the study of medicine under Dr. Hosack, and received the 
 degree of M.D. in 1811, at the College of Physicians and 
 Surgeons. He entered into professional partnership with Dr. 
 Hosack and was his co-worker in literary and scientific labors 
 likewise. They edited the " American and Philosophical Regis- 
 ter," begun in 1810. At the age of twenty-four years he was 
 appointed lecturer in the Institute of Medicine and Materia 
 Medica at the College of Physicians and Surgeons. He soon 
 afterward went to Europe to perfect himself in knowledge re- 
 quisite for his professorship, and there he formed an acquaint- 
 ance with many of the most eminent literary and scientific men 
 of that time. On his return, he was at once fully occupied in 
 medical practice, professional duties, and literary and scientific 
 pursuits. The New York Historical Society was his favorite insti- 
 tution, and he was active in the service of many other associations, 
 benevolent and otherwise. Dr. Francis was a voluminous and 
 elegant writer; and no man has ever contributed so much to the 
 records of American Biography as did he. His genius and 
 character were highly appreciated at home and abroad, and nu- 
 merous societies considered it an honor to have his name enrolled 
 in the lists of their membership. He died in February, 1861. 
 
 - Colonel John Trumbull was a son of the patriotic Go- 
 vernor Trumbull of Connecticut, and was born in Lebanon, in 
 1756. He was a graduate of Yale College, and was an officer in 
 the Continental army. He studied painting, went to England, 
 
68 MEMOIR OP 
 
 John Vanderlyn, 1 William Dunlap, 2 John Wesley 
 Jarvis, and other artists who nourished in the 
 
 and in 1780, was under the tutelage of Benjamin West. He 
 confined himself to portrait and historical painting. His first 
 picture illustrative of American History was " The Battle of 
 Bunker Hill." He lived abroad most of the time from the close 
 of the Revolution until 1815, a part of the time employed in 
 diplomatic duties. Under a commission from Congress he painted 
 four historical pictures for the National Capitol, namely : " Sign- 
 ers of the Declaration of Independence; " " Surrender of Bur- 
 goyne ; " " Surrender of Cornwallis," and " Washington resign- 
 ing his Commission." The Trumbull Gallery of Yale College 
 contains a large collection of his works. He was President of 
 the Academy of Fine Arts from its foundation in 1816, until 
 the formation of the National Academy of Design ten years 
 later. He died in New York in November, 1843. 
 
 1 John Vanderlyn was born in Kingston, New York, in 
 1776. He was an art pupil of Grilbert Stuart, and through the 
 assistance of Aaron Burr, he went to Europe to study painting, 
 in 1792. He lived abroad a greater portion of his art life, and 
 produced some very meritorious pictures. For his " Marius 
 sitting among the Ruins of Carthage," he received the gold 
 medal at the Paris Exhibition of 1809, and was an object of consi- 
 derable attention from the Emperor Napoleon. His " Ariadne," 
 admirably engraved in line by Asher B. Durand, was a very 
 celebrated picture, and was the first successful representation of 
 a mythological subject by an American painter. He also filled 
 one of the panels in the rotunda of the National Capitol, with a 
 picture of " The Landing of Columbus." His last work was a 
 portrait of President Taylor, painted in 1851. Mr. Vanderlyn 
 was a disappointed and soured man during the latter years of his 
 life, which terminated in his native town in September, 1852. 
 
 2 William Dunlap was both painter and author. He was 
 born in Perth-Amboy, N. J., in 1766. He began to paint 
 
ALEXANDER ANDERSON, M.D. 69 
 
 earlier part of this century. 1 In the course of the 
 last conversation I had with Mr. Vanderlyn, a 
 few months before his death in 1852, he, as usual, 
 made sweeping denunciations of American artists, 
 living and dead, as unworthy of his esteem, but 
 excepted three — Dr. Anderson, Thomas S. Cum- 
 mings (for forty years Treasurer of the Academy 
 
 portraits when he was seventeen years of age. He was allowed 
 to paint Washington's from life at that age. At the age of 
 eighteen he was a pupil of Benjamin West. He did not suc- 
 ceed as an artist, so he joined his father in mercantile busi- 
 ness. Then he became a theatrical manager and wrote and 
 painted for a livelihood. He was fifty-one years of age before 
 he made painting a permanent profession. He was one of the 
 founders of the National Academy of Design, established in 
 New York. He wrote a -' History of the American Theatre," 
 " History of the State of New York," a standard work on the 
 " Arts of Design in the United States," and one or two other 
 books. He died in New York in September, 1839. 
 
 1 John Wesley Jarvis was born near the banks of the 
 Tyne, in the north of England, in 1780. He became a resident 
 of Philadelphia at the age of five years. He began portrait 
 painting early, and also engraving, with Edwin. They went to 
 New York together, where Jarvis became an eminent portrait 
 painter, and led an eccentric and not always commendable life. 
 He loved to think that he was like the vagabond artist, George 
 Morland, and assumed a carelessness of dress and sought noto- 
 riety in every form. He earned and spent freely a large income. 
 He was a very facile painter, and with the help of Henry In- 
 man his pupil, he once painted six portraits in one week. He 
 was an attractive convivialist and a man of great wit and 
 humor. He died in New York, in 1854. 
 
70 MEMOIR OF 
 
 of Design), and John G. Chapman, who has heen 
 a resident of Rome for nearly twenty-five years. 
 Anderson was a member of the old Academy of 
 Fine Arts, of which Colonel Trumbull was Presi- 
 dent ; and after the establishment of the Academy 
 of Design, in 1827, of which our illustrious citizen, 
 Professor Samuel F. B. Morse, was the founder 
 and first president, he was elected a member of 
 that association of artists. 
 
 The young engraver, modest and reticent, was a 
 favorite of John Wesley Jarvis, who, in tempera- 
 ment and habits, was ever his opposite. When, in 
 the year 1809, Jarvis accompanied by John Pin- 
 tard, one of the earliest and most active members 
 of this Society, went to the lodgings of dead 
 Thomas Paine, in Grove street in this city, to get 
 the plaster-cast of his head which is now in the 
 art gallery of this institution, he chose Anderson 
 to be his assistant. And when party politics ran 
 high just before and during the War of 1812, An- 
 derson engraved a number of caricatures from 
 Jarvis's designs. Those were especially spirited 
 which related to the Embargo, and were suggested 
 by a satirical poem against it by our distinguished 
 associate, Mr. Bryant, then a lad only thirteen 
 years of age. It was so able and trenchant that 
 the editor of a popular magazine said — " If the 
 

ALEXANDER ANDERSON, M.D. 71 
 
 young bard has met with no assistance in the com- 
 position of this poem, he certainly bids fair, should 
 he continue to cultivate his talent, to gain a 
 respectable station on the Parnassian mount, and 
 to reflect credit on the literature of his country." 
 How well the man has redeemed the promise of 
 the boy, let " Thanatopsis " of his young manhood, 
 " A Forest Hymn " of his later years, and the un- 
 rivalled translation of Homer's grand epic, in his 
 beautiful old age, testify. 
 
 Anderson's professional title of Medical Doctor 
 did not foil the operations of the military draft in 
 the War of 1812, and he was compelled to bear 
 arms as a soldier, leaving his six little children to 
 the care of their invalid mother. After awhile he 
 procured a substitute and returned home, when 
 he was employed by the corporate authorities of 
 this city to engrave the plates for small paper 
 money, issued when specie was scarce and gold 
 was at a premium of thirty per cent., in the winter 
 of 1814-15. 
 
 From that time until he was fifty years of age, 
 Anderson had only two or three competitors as a 
 wood engraver, in this country. The most skil- 
 ful of these was Abel C. Bowen, of Boston, who 
 began the practice of the art in that city, in the 
 year 1812. It had been introduced there toward 
 
72 MEMOIR OE 
 
 the close of 1811, by Nathaniel Dearborn, who was 
 also an engraver on copper. Dearborn projected a 
 little illustrated work on Boston, in 1814, proposing* 
 to give pictures of the public buildings there and in 
 the suburbs, engraved on wood. 1 A small volume 
 was published in 1817, but Dearborn's original idea 
 was not carried out until 1848, when his "Boston 
 Notions " appeared in a volume of 430 pages con- 
 taining his earlier engravings. Bowen became a 
 very superior engraver. His style was more like 
 the English engravings of our day than like Be- 
 wick's, which Anderson followed. Bowen was the 
 tutor in the art of Alonzo Hartwell, who practiced 
 
 1 Dearborn's proposition appeared as an advertisement in the 
 Boston " New England Palladium " of June 24, 1814, headed 
 by a picture of a painter's palette, with a scroll and the words 
 " Picture of Boston." The advertisement was as follows : 
 
 NATHANIEL DEARBORN, 
 Engraver on Wood, School Street, Boston, 
 
 Proposes to publish by subscription, a Picture of Boston and 
 its vicinity : the volume will contain at least two hundred pages, 
 and ornamented with twelve accurate Engravings on wood of 
 the public buildings in the town and suburbs ; — Proposals for 
 which are left in each Book store [only eight in Boston at that 
 time] when those who wish to patronize the new style of engrav- 
 ing in this part of the country, or those who wish for a history 
 of the town of Boston, are referred for a more particular eluci- 
 dation of the Editor's plan." 
 
ALEXANDEK ANDERSON, M.D. 73 
 
 wood engraving in Boston, very skilfully, for many 
 years. He was a native of Littleton, Massachu- 
 setts, where he was born in 1805. He first 
 entered the services of Throop, an engraver on 
 copper in Boston, and when the latter left the city, 
 he engaged with Mr. Bowen. 
 
 William Mason, a native of Connecticut, intro- 
 duced the art into Philadelphia. He had been 
 apprenticed to Abner Keid, a copper plate en- 
 graver of Hartford. Beid also painted signs, 
 and occasionally engraved type-metal cuts for the 
 newspapers. Mason became acquainted, through 
 Mr. Babcock's books, with the beautiful effects 
 of Dr. Anderson's wood engravings, and made 
 his first essays in that branch of art, in cutting 
 ornaments for toy-books. He had to invent his 
 tools, for he was ignorant of their form. He suc- 
 ceeded well, and hearing that there was no wood 
 engraver in Philadelphia, he went thither in 1810, 
 and found ample employment. During the War 
 of 1812, he entered into other occupations, and 
 relinquished the wood engraving business to his 
 pupil, George Gilbert. 
 
 During his long art life, Anderson had only 
 
 four pupils, namely, Garret Lansing, of the old 
 
 Lansing family of Albany, William Morgan of 
 
 New York, John H. Hall of Albany, and his 
 10 
 
74 MEMOIR OF 
 
 daughter Ann, who became the wife of Andrew 
 Maverick, a copper plate printer. Lansing re- 
 ceived instructions in the year 1804, and was the 
 second wood engraver in America. Until the 
 spring of 1806, he depended upon Anderson almost 
 wholly for employment. The latter sent him 
 box-wood and drawings by "the Albany sloop." 
 In April, 1806, he was married to a young lady 
 of wealth, as fortunes were estimated in those days, 
 and he went to Boston for the purpose of practicing 
 his art there, but was so little encouraged that he 
 returned, and afterward made New York his home. 
 There he practiced the art for many years, and 
 was skillful in the engraving of machinery. His 
 son Alfred, learned the art, and he also became a 
 comic actor, and was employed as such in the 
 first Bowery Theatre built by Hamblin. The 
 younger Lansing was the first person who en- 
 graved the very large pictures for theatre and 
 circus bills such as now, in gaudy colors, attract 
 the attention in all large cities. The elder Lans- 
 ing and Anderson were warmly attached friends, 
 and when the pupil was suffering his last sickness 
 he would have no other physician but his old 
 instructor. 
 
 William Morgan was Anderson's second pupil. 
 He engraved well, but preferring the pencil to 
 
XXI. 
 
ALEXANDER ANDERSON, M.D. 75 
 
 the graver, he employed the greater part of his 
 time in drawing on wood. He was Anderson's 
 favorite draughtsman, for he had caught the spirit 
 
 William Moegan. 
 
 of Bewick's style. Mr. Morgan fell into a melan- 
 choly mood and withdrew almost wholly from 
 society. He made the beautiful little drawings 
 for Bentley's Spelling-Book, as we have observed, 
 when he was more than seventy years of age. 
 
 John H. Hall, the third of Anderson's pupils, 
 was an apprentice, in Albany, when in the autumn 
 of 1825, he applied to Anderson by letter, for the 
 privilege of receiving a few months' instructions 
 
76 MEMOIR OP 
 
 from him in the art of wood engraving. He had 
 already visited the pioneer, and in his letter he 
 said : " Whether you instruct me or not, I shall 
 consider you as my benefactor, for you showed me 
 more about engraving than I ever found out my- 
 self." He became a pupil in 1826, and soon 
 ranked among the best wood engravers of his time. 
 He practiced the art for a long time in Albany, 
 afterward he was engaged in New York, and in 
 1849 he went, among some of the earlier adven- 
 turers, to the gold diggings of California, where he 
 died. 
 
 At about the time when Hall commenced his 
 art labors, as a profession, Joseph A. Adams, a 
 native of New Jersey and a self-taught artist, 
 appeared in New York, and immediately attracted 
 attention by the extreme delicacy and beauty of his 
 work. There are some fine specimens of his skill 
 among the wood engravings with which General 
 Morris adorned the pages of his " New York 
 Mirror." Of these, the large engraving — "The 
 last Arrow — " is a brilliant specimen of the art, 
 and would do honor to the best of the English 
 school. " The Blind Musician," and a " Strawberry 
 Girl and Boy Vending Fruit," are beautiful in exe- 
 cution. A small engraving, " The Burning of Sche- 
 nectady," and a view of the " Church of our Lady of 
 
XXIV. 
 
 XXV. 
 
ALEXANDER ANDERSON, M.D. 77 
 
 Cold Spring " with others, are noticeable for their 
 bright tone. His productions are, however, not nu- 
 merous, for his share in the profits of the sale of 
 " Harper's Bible," (whose illustrations, drawn by 
 John G. Chapman were engraved under Adams's 
 supervision) gave him a competence, and he soon 
 afterward retired from the profession and went 
 abroad. The art is greatly indebted to Mr. Adams 
 for the introduction of a superior style of printing 
 wood engravings which has ever since been prac- 
 ticed. For many years since his return from 
 Europe, Mr. Adams has amused himself with ex- 
 periments in electrotyping and has made important 
 discoveries. He has kindly engraved for this 
 memoir the portrait of Dr. Anderson's father after 
 a miniature by the artist. 
 
 In 1829, a valuable accession to the slowly 
 growing fraternity of wood engravers was made 
 by the arrival, in December, of Abraham John 
 Mason, a native of London, and then in the thirty- 
 sixth year of his age. He had obtained much 
 celebrity in his native city as an engraver on 
 wood. He was for seven years a pupil of Robert 
 Branston, for which privilege he paid one hundred 
 guineas. He remained with Branston, as his chief 
 assistant, five years after the expiration of his 
 apprenticeship. In 1821, he commenced wood- 
 
78 MEMOIR OF 
 
 engraving professionally, on his own account, and 
 took high rank. He was also a poet. In 1822, 
 he printed a volume entitled " Poetical Essays by 
 A. J. Mason." It was embellished by eleven en- 
 gravings on wood by the author, from designs by 
 John Thurston. 1 By invitation he delivered a pub- 
 lic lecture on the History and Practice of Wood- 
 engraving, before the Royal Institution of Great 
 Britain, and the London Institution. 
 
 Mr. Mason brought with him letters of intro- 
 duction to Drs. Hosack, Francis, and other scien- 
 tific and professional men, from Henry (afterward 
 Lord) Brougham, Loudon the horticulturist, J. S. 
 Buckingham, the oriental traveler, and other dis- 
 tinguished men. He was elected an associate of 
 the National Academy of Design, in 1830, and in 
 the spring of 1831, he delivered a course of lectures 
 to that body, and the next year he was elected 
 professor of wood engraving, in that institution. 
 
 1 1 have a copy of this very rare book, which was kindly 
 presented to me by Mr. John B. Moreau, an active member of 
 the New York Historical Society. He purchased it at the sale 
 of the library and collection of curious things that belonged to 
 the late John Allan, of New York. The book appears to have 
 been printed in limited quantity, for private distribution. Spaces 
 for the illustrations were left on the printed pages, and India 
 proof impressions of the engravings, are inserted. They are 
 beautiful specimens of the art. 
 
ALEXANDER ANDERSON, M.D. 79 
 
 This is the first and last time that the beautiful 
 art has received such recognition from any public 
 institution. Mason remained in this country but 
 a few years, for there was not sufficient employ- 
 ment for him to give him a livelihood for himself 
 and family. So he returned to London. 1 
 
 So limited was the demand for wood engravings 
 in this country down to the time when Mr. Mason 
 returned to England, that when, late in the year 
 1838, I engaged in the vocation in this city, Dr. 
 
 1 Mr. Mason became warmly attached to Dr. Anderson, and 
 on the day before his departure from this country, he wrote the 
 following letter to his friend : 
 
 '■'■Dear Sir : 
 
 " I intended to have had the pleasure of calling on you before 
 my departure for England, but now find it impossible, as I shall 
 sail to-morrow morning in the Westminster. I cannot leave 
 without expressing my kindest and best wishes for the happiness 
 of yourself and family, and to return you my sincere acknow- 
 ledgments for your friendly reception and uniform kindness. I 
 beg you to be assured that I shall ever hold the above in re- 
 membrance, and that you will live high in my memory, as the 
 founder of American wood-engraving. I trust my visit to this 
 country has not been without its uses; though I must now 
 return home to begin the world again. 
 
 " Mrs. M. begs to be remembered to yourself and family, 
 and repeating my best wishes," 
 
 I remain, 
 
 Dear Sir, 
 Yours very Sincerely, 
 
 Dr. Anderson. A. J. Mason." 
 
80 MEMOIR OF 
 
 Anderson, Mr. Lansing and his son, Mr. Adams, 
 B. F. Childs and K. N. White (who was also a 
 good draughtsman) were the only engravers here. 
 Mr. Bowen and his pupil, Hartwell, were yet prac- 
 tising the art in Boston, and Gilbert was engraving 
 in Philadelphia. Linton Thorne and William D. 
 Bedfield, young engravers in New York, had lately 
 died, and the elder Lansing, and also Morgan, 
 were just withdrawing from the business. The 
 younger Lansing then engraved only the large, 
 coarse, theatre bills, using mahogany for the pur- 
 pose. Young Bedfield was a brother of the well- 
 known New York publisher, Justus S. Bedfield, 
 and was one of the most promising artists of his 
 time. 
 
 There were not then (thirty-two years ago), 
 twenty professional wood engravers in the United 
 States. When our venerable friend — the Father of 
 Wood Engraving in this country — died, last Janu- 
 ary, they numbered about four hundred. Where 
 twenty engravings were done in a given time 
 thirty years ago, twice twenty thousand were 
 made when the Pioneer laid aside his implements 
 of labor. Equally marvellous has been the in- 
 crease in the demand for this branch of art in 
 Europe. It was at about that time that American 
 publishers, taught by English books, and especially 
 
XXVI. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
ALEXANDER ANDERSON, M.D. 81 
 
 by the " Penny Magazine " and " Penny Cyclo- 
 pedia," the marvellous capabilities and great use- 
 fulness of wood-engraving, began to employ itmore 
 freely, and very soon the increased demand brought 
 forward several meritorious young engravers. To 
 speak of the comparative merit of these, our cotem- 
 poraries, would be a delicate task, and I forbear. 
 
 Prom this city a large majority of the wood-cut 
 illustrations are issued. Two publishing houses, 
 alone (Harper & Brothers and Prank Leslie), em- 
 ploy one-fourth of the four hundred engravers of 
 this country. The former gave steady employ- 
 ment last year, on an average, to thirty-five 
 engravers, and the latter (the most extensive 
 publishing house of illustrated periodicals in 
 the world) employed, on an average, sixty en- 
 gravers. Last year 18,000 wood engravings for 
 Leslie's publications passed through the hands of 
 Mr. Holcomb, the able chief of his art department, 
 for which the sum of nearly $180,000 was paid. 
 The enormous increase in the business of wood- 
 engraving in this country is due, mainly, to the 
 influence of illustrated periodicals, which have dif- 
 fused a taste and created so great a demand for 
 such helps to popular education in all branches of 
 learning, that very few books are now published 
 
 without the attractions of the wood engraver's art. 
 11 
 
82 MEMOIK OF 
 
 The publication of illustrated periodicals was 
 begun in this country nearly forty years ago, in 
 this city. The " Family Magazine," first issued 
 as a weekly illustrated sheet in April, 1833, by 
 Justus S. Redfield, was the pioneer. Like the 
 London " Penny Magazine " and the Paris " Maga- 
 zin Pittoresque," it was wholly and profusely illus- 
 trated by engravings on wood. It held the field, 
 almost without a competitor, through eight annual 
 volumes, issued in monthly parts. In June, 1850, 
 " Harper's New Monthly Magazine " appeared, 
 and was soon followed by the " International 
 Magazine," published by Stringer & Townsend. 
 "Godey's Lady's Book," and "Graham's Magazine" 
 now published wood-cuts occasionally. In June, 
 1851, T. W. Strong, a wood-engraver, started the 
 first regular weekly Illustrated paper ever at- 
 tempted in this city. Its title was the " American 
 Illustrated News," and was suggested by similar 
 publications in London, Paris, and Berlin. It 
 lived eight months, and died for lack of suste- 
 nance. In January, 1853, Barnum & Beach com- 
 menced the publication of the " New York Illus- 
 trated News," which lived only one year. Frank 
 Leslie issued the first number of his " Illustrated 
 News" in December, 1855, and " Harper's Weekly" 
 began its career with January, 1857. In Novem- 
 
ALEXANDER ANDERSON, M.D. 83 
 
 ber, 18-59, the '• Xew York Illustrated News " was 
 commenced by J. Warner Campbell. With these, 
 " Gleason's Pictorial " in Boston was in competi- 
 tion, and was followed by Ballou's illustrated pub- 
 lications. 
 
 Several illustrated comic papers, one or two in 
 ambitious imitation of the London •■' Punch," were 
 started, but were short-lived. The most artistic of 
 these was " Vanity Fair," began a while before the 
 breaking out of the late Civil War. and continued 
 during the earlier months of that conflict. Some 
 of its best cartoons were designed by the late 
 Captain Louis McLane Hamilton, of the Seventh 
 Cavalry (grandson of General Alexander Hamilton 
 and son of the Hon. Philip Hamilton of Pough- 
 keepsie). who fell at the head of his command in 
 the battle of the Washita, almost two years ago. 
 They were made by him (then a lad sixteen or 
 seventeen years old) for his own amusement, 
 and the credit was claimed by another for his own 
 profit. 
 
 Other illustrated papers have followed those 
 just mentioned, and books of every description 
 now teem with wood-engravings. Books for the 
 young especially, are filled with these educators 
 of the eye, which seldom forgets, and the best 
 talent is employed (as it should be) in making 
 
84 MEMOIR OP 
 
 pictures for such books, scrupulously correct in 
 drawing and beautiful in execution. If any pic- 
 tures should be preeminently truthful, those for 
 the education of the young should be so. The 
 contrast in this respect, of the "New England 
 Primer" and of many juvenile books a few years 
 ago, with the publications of the American Tract 
 Society now, is almost as great as that of light and 
 darkness. And I believe it not unreasonable to 
 claim for the Art of Wood Engraving in our day, 
 as an element of power, a place in the grand pro- 
 cession of civilization next to that of printing. 
 And in the records of that noble work — the eleva- 
 tion of the race — the name of Alexander Anderson 
 will appear luminous. 
 
 A few words in relation to Dr. Anderson's per- 
 son and character will close this paper. 
 
 He was of less than medium height, compactly 
 built, with mild and beautiful dark grey eyes, and 
 a face ever beaming with indices of kindly feeling 
 and serenity of spirit ; and for many years that 
 venerable head was surrounded as by a halo, with 
 white locks and beard. His voice was soft and 
 low. He was genial in thought and conversation, 
 and had a quick perception of genuine humor. 
 To him this world was a delightful place to live 
 in, because it was a reflex of his own sweet spirit. 
 
^TA-T. 44, 
 
 JJ/'atf/fJ'J' $y<HY-ef<- 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
ALEXANDER ANDERSON, M.D. 85 
 
 He was extremely regular and temperate in all 
 his habits. He once said to a friend : " I would 
 not sit up after ten o'clock at night to see an angel." 
 I have alluded to his excessive modesty. Foi 
 many years after he had passed his allotted " three 
 score and ten," his family and friends vainly urged 
 him to sit for his portrait. " What do others care 
 for a picture of my old face ? " was his usual 
 remark. 1 But it was obtained, and under circum- 
 stances quite trying to his modesty. Many years 
 ago, Colonel Andrew Warner, now the Record- 
 ing Secretary of this Society, had charge of the 
 " Art Union Bulletin," a publication similar to 
 the London "Art Journal." He asked me to 
 prepare for it an illustrated outline history of 
 wood-engraving. For such a paper Dr. Anderson's 
 portrait would -be essential. The daguerreotype 
 art was then in its infancy, and Plumbe, on the 
 corner of Broadway and Murray street, was the 
 only eminent public practitioner of it in this city. 
 
 1 Mrs. Lewis, Dr. Anderson's youngest daughter, has a fine 
 portrait of her father painted at his middle age by his friend 
 John Wesley Jarvis. She has also a bust of him, in plaster-of- 
 Paris, life size, made by Browere. The features were cast from 
 the living face. She has also a pen and ink profile of him at 
 his engraving table, drawn by Browere. A fac-simile of this 
 has been kindly engraved by Mr. Thomas Sugden to illustrate 
 this Memoir. 
 
86 MEMOIR, OP 
 
 I asked Dr. Anderson to sit to him for his likeness, 
 and frankly told him my object. He was dis- 
 turbed. He wished to oblige me, but endeavored 
 to evade the affliction by procrastination. I was 
 persistent in the good cause. The daguerreotype 
 was taken in duplicate the next day, for the pho- 
 tographic process had not then been discovered. 
 That projected history of wood-engraving was not 
 written, and the martyr felt relief. 
 
 The persecutor reappeared a few years later. 
 That daguerreotype was carefully copied on wood, 
 and I asked Dr. Anderson to engrave it for pub- 
 lication in the London Art Journal. He was 
 shocked. He refused, because the act would be 
 sheer egotism. Engrave his own portrait ! But 
 his scruples were overcome, and among my auto- 
 graphs of distinguished men, there are very few 
 so highly valued as his in his moderate bill for 
 engraving that portrait, with his proof-impression 
 attached. The portrait was published in the 
 "Art Journal" in September, 1858, with other 
 engravings cut by him sixty-four years before. 1 
 
 1 About fifteen years ago, while conversing with the late 
 General George P. Morris, the name of Dr. Anderson was 
 mentioned by me, as one among the living artists of another 
 generation. The general was surprised ; he supposed he had 
 been dead several years. He had engraved for Morris's old 
 
JSK. \ 
 
 XXIX. 
 
.„ jMl- 
 
 XXXI. 
 
ALEXANDEE ANDERSON, M.D. 87 
 
 Dr. Anderson was then in the eighty-fourth 
 year of his age. He was yet uncommonly vigo- 
 rous in body and mind. His only serious infirmity 
 was deafness, which varied in intensity at different 
 times. The following year he moved from his 
 place of long residence at 279 Broome Street, to 
 another at 157 Orchard Street, where at the age of 
 almost eighty-five, he drew, engraved, and issued 
 a new business card, bearing upon a ribbon of the 
 design the appropriate words, " Flectus non Frac- 
 tus" — " Bent, not broken." 
 
 For almost ten years after issuing that card, 
 Dr. Anderson was daily employed in the practice 
 of his profession, and at the age of ninety-three he 
 engraved some illustrations for a new edition of 
 Barber's " Historical Collections of New Jersey." 
 The last of these series engraved by him, was a 
 view in Bahway, New Jersey, drawn by Barber 
 then over seventy years of age. That was the 
 last cut that Dr. Anderson engraved for a pub- 
 lisher. It was finished in May, 1868, when he was 
 
 " Mirror " twenty years before. " Give me a little sketch of him 
 for the 'Home Journal,'" said Morris. I did so. A copy of 
 the paper in which it was published was sent to Dr. Anderson. 
 He allowed no one of his family to see it. Some time after- 
 ward it was found concealed in his bed. Such was his 
 aversion to personal notoriety. 
 
88 MEMOIR OF 
 
 a little more than ninety-three years of age. He 
 had then -lately left this city, after a residence here 
 of more than ninety years, and taken up his 
 abode at 135 Wayne Street, in Jersey City, with 
 his son-in-law, Doctor Edwin Lewis, whose wife — 
 one of the most devoted of daughters — is the 
 youngest of the three surviving children of the 
 venerated Nestor of Art. 1 There he died on the 
 17th of January, 1870, a few weeks before his 
 ninety-fifth birth-day. The funeral services were 
 held in Trinity Church in New York City, and 
 his remains were laid in Greenwood Cemetery. 
 He had been compelled, by weakness, to give up 
 labor more than a year before; but only six 
 months before his death he drew a picture neatly 
 
 1 Dr. Anderson had one son and five daughters. His son 
 bore the name of Anderson's brother John whom he loved so 
 well. That son, who was a physician, died in 1836. Two of the 
 artist's daughters inherited his taste and genius. Emmeline 
 (Mrs. Maybe), was skillful with the pencil, and for several years 
 earned a competence for herself and children. She was an- 
 nually employed by the late John Allan, to design the ball cards 
 of the New York Caledonian Society. Ann (Mrs. Maverick), 
 already mentioned, was a skillful engraver. The surviving 
 daughters are Mrs. Julia Halsey, Mrs. Mary Skillman, and 
 Mrs. Jane Lewis. The latter was his youngest and greatly 
 beloved child. She never left him; and for thirty-five years 
 she was his loving house-keeper. Her son now approaching 
 manhood, inherits his grandfather's taste, and promises to be 
 an accomplished artist. 
 
XXXII. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
ALEXANDER ANDERSON, M.D. 89 
 
 on a block, and had partly engraved it when he 
 laid aside the implements of his art forever. That 
 unfinished block his daughter kindly presented to 
 the writer. 
 
 Dr. Anderson was a good miniature painter, and 
 it appears from records in his Diary, that he was 
 frequently employed as such in his earlier art life. 
 The likenesses of his father, mother, and uncle in 
 the West Indies ; of Dr. Young, his medical pre- 
 ceptor; and of Lansing and Morgan, his pupils, 
 which he drew on paper, have been engraved to 
 illustrate this Memoir, the exact size and style of 
 the original. He also made a fine miniature of his 
 second wife, Jane Van Vleck, on paper. 
 
 He also painted miniatures on ivory. In this 
 
 way he preserved the features of all his daughters 
 
 when they were young women. That of Mrs. 
 
 Lewis, the only one I have seen, is a specimen of 
 
 the art that would have been creditable to a 
 
 Shumway or Cummings. In a Common Place 
 
 Book, in which he had jotted down his own 
 
 thoughts, Scotch maxims of his father, and other 
 
 things to be remembered, he made many sketches, 
 
 especially of cats that had been his pets. One of 
 
 these, a foundling, whose portrait appears in the 
 
 collection, survives him. She always followed 
 
 him about, and would not leave his room for 
 12 
 
90 MEMOIR OF 
 
 several days after his death. Among his early 
 drawings is one of what he had seen in the fire. 
 It is a curious and confused collection of grotesque 
 faces, forms and groups. During the present year 
 (1870) a curious book with colored illustrations, 
 written by M. Arsene Houssaye, called "Coals," 
 has been published in London. The pictures, 
 showing what the writer saw in the fire, have a 
 general character precisely like that drawn by Dr. 
 Anderson probably sixty years before. 
 
 I cannot close this paper more acceptably than 
 by reading the following letter, written to me a 
 few days ago by a member of the Executive Com- 
 mittee of this Society, whose father was one of the 
 earliest employers of Dr. Anderson as an illus- 
 trator of books : 
 
 20 Clinton Place, 
 New York, Sept. 22, 1870. 
 
 My Dear Mr. Lossing : 
 
 You ask me to recall the incidents of our visit 
 to Dr. Anderson, in December, 1867. It is a 
 pleasure to do so, so agreeable was the impression 
 made at the time, and so satisfactory is now the 
 recollection. He was then in his ninety-third 
 year, as may be supposed somewhat cramped by 
 age in the enjoyment of his physical powers; but 
 with the exception of a partial loss of hearing 
 
y 
 y 
 
ALEXANDER ANDEKSON, M.D. 91 
 
 apparently suffering little from the inconvenience; 
 his mental faculties were still vigorous, his 
 memory clear, his judgment sound. He con- 
 versed freely, and talked like one who had thought 
 much in retirement — who had concentrated his 
 thoughts and made himself master of his reading. 
 He had, as you may remember, a copy of the Ora- 
 tions of Cicero in the original, the octavo Delphin 
 edition, published by my father in 1814. It was 
 a well-battered school book, which he said he had 
 recently been engaged in reading without the aid of 
 a translation, with occasional resort to a dictionary. 
 His comments showed discrimination and judg- 
 ment of his own. I remember his quotation of 
 scraps of old Scottish songs and proverbs, and his 
 remark on old age as a thing hard to be under- 
 stood. He spoke of the schoolmaster who taught 
 him Latin in his boyhood, one John Meanie, who 
 kept school at the corner of Beekman and Gold 
 streets ; and of the early publishers who had given 
 him employment. 
 
 His hand was still active at the bench at which 
 he had worked so many years. He was, as he had 
 been for some time, out of the current of his old 
 engagements by the booksellers ; but it was not in 
 his nature to remain idle. He had just produced 
 an engraving or two after designs of his own, of 
 
92 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 an emblematical character, for a card-plate. On 
 one of these he wrote his name for us. The 
 figures were significant, reminding one of Hogarth's 
 " Finis." Time was blowing his bubbles, and airy 
 Cupids catching them ; at his feet, crossed by his 
 scythe, lay the emblems of ambition and vanity — 
 the overthrown crown and a peacock's feather. 
 
 This, I think, was my last interview with the 
 good Doctor. Though I called afterward, on 
 
 j*f-[£/ "jvntfeivcm^ 
 
 one occasion carrying with me the diploma of 
 honorary membership of the New York Historical 
 Society, he was unable to see me. Since his death 
 I have been admitted by his faithful daughter, 
 who, with the members of the family, contributed 
 so much of strength and cheerfulness to his de- 
 
ALEXANDEK ANDEKSON, M.D. 93 
 
 clining years, to the sight of many specimens of 
 his early and later work, of his portfolios of en- 
 gravings, of his own drawing-book, and of some 
 private journals — all of which have greatly con- 
 firmed and heightened my impressions of this 
 remarkable man ; for such he was, not only in the 
 great length of healthy existence which he enjoyed, 
 but in the singular tenacity of purpose of his 
 devotion to his art, the formation in early youth 
 of his manly character, his patience through long 
 years of toil, often better rewarded by his love of 
 the beautiful and pursuit of excellence than by 
 the scant pecuniary returns offered in his day to 
 the genuine artist. 
 
 His life was extended through a grand historic 
 period, which your own works devoted to our 
 American annals witness to in occasional anec- 
 dotes of the Revolutionary and other times, 
 drawn from his retentive memory. No one can 
 speak of this phase of his career with more pro- 
 priety than yourself; nor of the finer qualities of 
 his art, which is also your own. 
 
 Let me, in conclusion, add an incident illustra- 
 tive of his remarkable conscientiousness, as it was 
 related to me by the late James Harper, shortly 
 before his sudden death. The Messrs. Harper 
 had engaged Dr. Anderson to execute some map- 
 
94 MEMOIK OF ALEX. ANDERSON, M.D. 
 
 work at a stipulated price. When it was finished 
 the Doctor insisted upon taking less than the sum 
 agreed upon, as he said he had found the work 
 not so laborious as he expected it to be. 
 
 Such was Doctor Anderson. From one trait 
 learn all. The history of American Art has much 
 of personal interest and worth. I congratulate 
 you on the opportunity, in your memoir of Dr. 
 Anderson, of adding another profitable and attrac- 
 tive chapter to the record. 
 
 With great regard, 
 
 Tours truly, 
 Evert A. Duyckinck. 
 To Benson J. Lossing, Esq., 
 
 I will only add to Mr. Duyckinck's remark, 
 that Dr. Anderson was eminently a son of wisdom, 
 in whose hand is " length of days." He was a 
 son of wisdom because he was always loyal to 
 truth; never took the name of God in vain; 
 shunned anger and strong drink which burn men 
 like fire ; loved God and kept his commandments 
 with sweetness of temper ; ate and slept at proper 
 times and in a proper manner; was just and hum- 
 ble : worked industriously with an ever-cheerful 
 spirit ; was kind, and loving, and generous to all 
 around — in a word, he lived a pure, simple, 
 blameless, and useful life. 
 
XXXVI. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 The following is the sketch of Dr. Anderson's life, 
 written by himself in 1848, when in the seventy-third 
 year of his age, to which allusion has been made in the 
 Memoir: 
 
 In order to account for my neglect of the ordinary 
 means of advancement in life, it may be necessary to 
 say something of my parentage and incidents of my 
 early days. 
 
 I was born in the city of New York in the year 
 1775. My father, although a native of Scotland, had 
 become a thorough republican ; and entering into the 
 printingbusinesspublishedapaper " The Constitutional 
 Gazette" in opposition to Rivington's "Royal Gazette," 
 and soon became conspicuous as John Anderson, the 
 rebel printer. His business was prosperous till the 
 British army approached the city which obliged him 
 to pack up and fly. On his way to Connecticut by 
 the Kingsbridge road, his wagons were seized for the 
 use of the American garrison at Fort Washington, 
 and his books and papers converted into cartridges. 
 His paper money depreciated and soon became worth- 
 less and the consequences may be imagined. He, 
 however, found a refuge for his family among some 
 friends of my mother (who was of the New England 
 stock) at Greenwich, Conn., while he made himself 
 
96 APPENDIX. 
 
 useful as captain of the alarm list on the debateahle 
 ground. My first recollections are those of playing 
 on the shores of the Sound, building little huts among 
 the rocks and roofing them with sea weed, delighted 
 with everything around me. My brother and myself, 
 however, were under the rigid government of my 
 mother whose talents enabled her to give us some in- 
 structions. For want of ink she would dissolve 
 indigo in water and the drawings of faces and flowers 
 made their appearance and amused us 'during the 
 evenings. Some pieces of type-metal ornaments which 
 had escaped the wreck of the printing office became 
 interesting objects to me. The grotesque vignettes in 
 old editions of books done when the artist had not the 
 fear of criticism before his eyes had charms for me, 
 and I am not ashamed to say something of that taste 
 still remains with me. The old Dutch tiles around 
 the fire place were so execrable that I remember look- 
 ing at them with a mixture of curiosity and disgust. 
 At times we were indulged with the sight of a large 
 pile of pictures such as issued from the Loudon print 
 shops of that day. Among the rest Hogarth's Indus- 
 trious and Idle Apprentice made a strong impression 
 on my mind. 
 
 As soon as peace was declared, the scene was 
 changed to New York. I was put to school and 
 drilled into the study of Latin and a little Greek. I 
 became a great reader. After devouring all the toy 
 books of Newbury, the first book of any consequence 
 was ^Esop's Fables and the next Dryden's Virgil, the. 
 engravings in which formed no small share of the 
 entertainment. I was full of business, carving little 
 figures, making boats and fitting up a little cellar as a 
 
XXXVIII. 
 
APPENDIX. 97 
 
 theatre ; for I had heen favored with the sight of one 
 play and it was an event not to be forgotten. I had my 
 drawing books and my drawings were made by wet- 
 ting a hair pencil in my mouth, rubbing it on a bit of 
 Indian ink and then imitating prints in line work. 
 One of my schoolfellows had access to an Encyclo- 
 pedia and there we found some instructions for en- 
 graving. Small pieces of copper were procured and 
 pennies rolled out in the mill of a friendly silversmith, 
 and when copper was scarce pewter was used. I did 
 a head of Paul Jones and pleased was I when I got 
 an impression with red oil paint in a rude rolling 
 press which I had constructed. The first graver I 
 used was the back spring of a pocket knife ground to 
 a point. An obliging blacksmith afterwards made 
 some tools for me and I began to work in type metal. 
 
 I engraved some small ships and sold them at the 
 newspaper offices. Other little jobs followed and I 
 produced some spare cash. As there was but one 
 other person working in the same line I began to feel 
 of some consequence. 
 
 At length it was determined that I should become a 
 physician, and at fourteen years of age, I left my work- 
 shop in the garret and entered with Dr. Joseph Young, 
 a man whose goodness of heart and amiable manners 
 I shall never forget. He had been a surgeon in the 
 Revolutionary army and had that talent of observation 
 which is sometimes deficient in men of greater cele- 
 brity, and was very successful in his practice. The 
 study of physic in those days was different from what 
 it is at present. The students compounded all the 
 medicines ; delivered them to the patients and some- 
 times administered them. 
 13 
 
98 APPENDIX. 
 
 No small share of fatigue attended this as our busi- 
 ness was extensive. 
 
 I continued this mode of life for five years, reading 
 all the medical books within reach, and yet found 
 time for engraving for letter press and some on 
 copper, the products of which partly clothed me and 
 paid for four courses of all the medical lectures, besides 
 of Natural Philosophy and a smattering of French at 
 evening school. One of my earliest employers was 
 "William Durell who began with toy books and pro- 
 ceeded to larger works such as a folio edition of 
 Josephus and above a hundred volumes of British 
 Classics. It was while engraving for him that I met 
 with Bewick's works, and having with difficulty pro- 
 cured some box wood, found the advantage of that 
 material over type metal. 
 
 Before I was of age I underwent an examination 
 according to law and received a license to practice 
 physic. My wayward fate induced me to refuse the 
 offer of a partnership with my old teacher Dr. Young. 
 In 1795, 1 was employed by the Health Committee as 
 Resident Physician at Bellevue Hospital where I passed 
 three months among yellow fever patients (most of 
 them sent up in the last stage of disease) and wit- 
 nessed above a hundred deaths. Although I was em- 
 ployed day and night and even assisted in opening 
 four dead bodies, I escaped the infection, but suffered 
 from depression of spirits. 
 
 In 1796, I graduated in Columbia College as M.D., 
 became a married man, hired a house and commenced 
 practice, occasionally engraving a little, among the 
 rest a skeleton from Albinus enlarged to near three 
 feet. I contrived to get two or three impressions by 
 
APPENDIX. 99 
 
 means of a long lever, but my work became disjointed 
 and went to pieces. 
 
 I soon discovered that the practice was a different 
 thing from the study of physic. The responsibility 
 appeared too great for the state of my mind. However, 
 I labored on till the fatal yellow fever of 1798, when 
 I was again employed in the Hospital ; but after a 
 few days bade adieu to it as I had lost my wife and 
 child. In a short time followed the loss of my brother, 
 father, mother and almost all my friends whom I 
 visited in their illness — all within three months. 
 This succession of calamities seemed rather too severe ; 
 I sought consolation in change of scene and made a 
 voyage to the West Indies to visit an uncle Dr. Alex- 
 ander Anderson, King's Botanist in the island of St. 
 Vincent. I remained at the Botanic Garden (a perfect 
 paradise at that time) about three months ; and, after 
 rejecting an offer that would have made me independ- 
 ent returned to my native place. 
 
 I had a craving for quiet and retirement, with the 
 hopes of supporting myself by my favorite employ- 
 ment. But my solitaiy life led me to indulge strange 
 whims, such as living on vegetable food, mostly bread 
 and water, for eight months, and then launching out 
 into opposite extremes till a second marriage produced 
 new scenes and new cares. I applied myself closely, 
 rather too closely to the arts and lost no time in 
 amusements except some rambles out of town and 
 even then I was attempting sketches. 
 
 In 1802, I undertook the engraving of three hun- 
 dred cuts for Bewick's Quadrupeds, a laborious under- 
 taking and poorly paid. 
 
100 APPENDIX. 
 
 I did a number of engravings for the late David 
 Longworth, among the rest a set for the Fables of 
 Flora, the head vignettes on copper and the tail pieces 
 on wood. The late Samuel "Wood was one of my 
 most constant employers. I did an infinity of cuts 
 for his excellent set of small books. 
 
 Among my acquaintances was John Roberts from 
 Dumfries, the person mentioned by Burns as being 
 good at the burin. I sought his employ in hopes of 
 gaining some improvement from that almost universal 
 genius and assisted in finishing several plates; but 
 there was a downward tendency about the man, and 
 our intimacy was dropped. His end was rather melan- 
 choly. 
 
 During the last war with Great Britain my title of 
 M.D. would not preserve me from being drafted as a 
 soldier while my six children were thrown upon the 
 care of a mother already showing symptoms of the 
 consumption which afterwards terminated her life. 
 I was fortunate enough in finding a substitute in a short 
 time. I returned to my pursuits and was employed 
 by the corporation to engrave the small money bills 
 issued during the scarcity of specie. 
 
 Constant employment has caused time to slip away, 
 till I find myself in my seventy-third year. I have 
 raised and supported a large family under rather dis- 
 couraging circumstances, and what comes next is in 
 the book of fate. A. A. 
 
APPENDIX. 101 
 
 II. 
 
 List of Engravings accompanying this Memoir. 
 
 Page. 
 
 Frontispiece. Portrait of Dr. Anderson engraved 
 for Frank Leslie's Illustrated News by A. G. 
 Holcomb 
 
 II Dr. Anderson's Father, John Anderson, from a 
 
 drawing by Dr. Anderson, engraved for this 
 work by Joseph A. Adams 16 
 
 III. . . . Dr. Anderson's Mother, from a drawing by him- 
 self. Engraved for this work by H. E. Can- 
 field - 18 
 
 IV . . Joseph Young, M.D., from a drawing by Dr. An- 
 derson. Engraved for this work by K. Garraty 24 
 
 V. ... Portrait of Dr. Samuel L. Mitchill, engraved by 
 
 Weaver with a vignette " Uupid wrestling with 
 Pan," designed by Dr. Anderson 25 
 
 VI. . Fao Simile Ticket of Admission to Dr. Mitchill's 
 
 Lectures, engraved for this work by J. H. 
 Kichardson - 26 
 
 VII. VIII. Two cuts engraved by Dr. Anderson, for "Look- 
 ing Glass for the Mind" 32 
 
 IX. . . . Illustration of " Two Gentlemen of Verona,'' 
 drawn and engraved by Dr. Anderson after 
 Thurston for an edition of Shakespeare pub- 
 lished in 1812, by Messrs. Monroe & Francis 38 
 
102 APPENDIX. 
 
 Page. 
 
 X. XI. . Illustrations of " King Lear," and " Twelfth 
 Night" after designs by T. H. Matteson, en- 
 graved by Dr. Anderson for editions of Shakes- 
 peare, published by Messrs. Cooledge & 
 Brother 38 
 
 XII. . . . The wharf at Bellevue drawn by Charles Parsons 
 
 from an original design by Dr. Anderson, and 
 engraved for this work by C. B. Dolge 43 
 
 XIII. . Portrait of Dr. Alexander Anderson, King's Bo- 
 
 tanist, engraved for this work by Stephen H. 
 Brelett after a drawing by Dr. Anderson 50 
 
 XIV. . . Death's Pulpit, drawn and engraved by Dr. An- 
 
 derson, after a print by Van Venne 62 
 
 XV. XVI. XVII. Three Illustrations of Pilpay's Fables, 
 
 drawn and engraved by Dr. Anderson 63 
 
 XVIII. . Frontispiece to " O'Reilly's Sketches of Roches- 
 
 ter,'' engraved by Dr. Anderson - 64 
 
 XIX. . . Holy Family, drawn and engraved by Dr. An- 
 
 derson - 65 
 
 XX. . . The Embargo, drawn and engraved by Dr. An- 
 
 derson after a design by Jarvis 70 
 
 XXI. . . Portrait of Garret Lansing, engraved for this 
 
 work by J. H. Richardson, after a drawing by 
 Dr. Anderson 74 
 
 XXII. . Portrait of William Morgan engraved for this 
 work by A. G. Holcomb after a drawing by Dr. 
 Anderson . 75 
 
 XXIII. XXIV. XXV. Three cuts drawn and engraved 
 after Bewick, by Dr. Anderson after his 90th 
 year 77 
 
APPENDIX. 103 
 
 Page. 
 XXVI. XXVII. Two cuts drawn and engraved after Bewick 
 
 by Dr. Anderson after his 90th year SO 
 
 XXVIII. Portrait of Dr. Anderson drawn by Browere, en- 
 
 graved for this work by Thomas Sugden 85 
 
 XXIX. . Portrait of Dr. Anderson engraved by himself 
 
 after a daguerreotype by Plumbe 86 
 
 XXX. . . Dr. Anderson's Business Card issued in his 84th 
 
 year, engraved by himself 87 
 
 XXXI. . Cottage Scene, an early engraving by Dr. An- 
 
 derson - - - 87 
 
 XXXII. XXXIII. Engravings by Dr. Anderson after 
 
 George Cruikshank, executed for Messrs. 
 Francis - 88 
 
 XXXIV. Grotesque design "What he saw in the fire" by 
 
 Dr. Anderson, engraved by himself 90 
 
 XXXV. . Dr. Andersou's card designed and engraved by 
 
 himself - - 92 
 
 XXXVI. XXXVII. Two cuts drawn and engraved after 
 
 Bewick by Dr. Anderson after his 90th year - 94 
 
 XXXVIII. Illustration of Scott's Lay of the Last Min- 
 strel, Dr. Anderson's last finished engraving 96 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Anderson, Dr. Alex., passim. 
 Anderson, John, 16, 17, 18, 20, 77, 
 
 95. 
 Anderson (Dr. of St. Vincent), 50, 
 
 99. 
 Adams, Jos. A., 76, 77, 80. 
 Allan, John, 63, 78, 88. 
 Allen, John, 36, 38. 
 Alsop, Rich., 37. 
 Amman, Jost, 11. 
 
 Babcock, John, 34, 35, 61, 73. 
 Babcock, Sidney, 34, 61. 
 Balmanno, Bobt., 63. 
 Balmanno, Mrs., 64. 
 Bard, Dr., 25, 43, 45, 66. 
 Barber, J. W., 87. 
 Bayley, Dr., 26. 
 Bewick, John, 61. 
 Bewick, Thos., 13, 14, 15, 32, 33, 
 34,38,39,57,61,72,75,98,99. 
 Binney, Horace, Jr , 1. 
 Bonner, 13. 
 
 Bo wen, A. C, 71, 72, 73, 80. 
 Barnum & Beach, 82. 
 Bissett, 34. 
 Brougham, 78. 
 Browere, 85. 
 Bunce & Co., 34, 35. 
 Branston, Robt., 77. 
 Buckingham, J. S., 78. 
 Buel, 34 
 Burger, 22. 
 Burgmaier, 10. 
 Bushnell, Chas. I., 65. 
 
 14 
 
 Burr, Aaron, 68. 
 Bryant, Win. C, 
 
 0. 
 
 Campbell, J. W., 83. 
 Campbell, Samuel, 32, 34, 35. 
 Carey, Matthew, 37, 57. 
 Carpi, 10. 
 
 Chapman, J. G-., 70, 77. 
 Childs, B. F., 80. 
 Coleman, Wm., 67. 
 Collins, I., 59. 
 Cheetham, Jas., 67. 
 Corre, 29. 
 
 Cunio, Alex. Alberic, 5. 
 Cunio, Isabella, 5. 
 
 Davis, Alex. J., 63. 
 
 Davis (printer), 34. 
 
 Dearborn, Nalh., 72. 
 
 Dolge, C. B., 43. 
 
 Doolittle, Amos, 36, 38. 
 
 Dore, Gustave, 14, 39. 
 
 Douce, 12. 
 
 Downing, A. J., 64. 
 
 Duplessis, 9. 
 
 Dunlap, Wm., 37, 61, 68. 
 
 Durand, A B., 68. 
 
 Durell, Wm., 31, 32, 33, 34, 36, 39, 
 
 55, 98. 
 Diirer, Albert, 9, 10, 11, 13. 
 Duyckinck, Evert, 34, 55. 
 Duyckinck, Evert A., 94. 
 Dwight, Theo., 37. 
 
 Eckman, 13. 
 
106 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Earle, 38. 
 Edwin, David, 69. 
 
 Faust, John, 9. 
 
 Francis, J. W., 44, 51 , 59, 66, 67, 68. 
 
 Freneau, Philip, 17, 34, 35. 
 
 Gaine, Hugh, 34, 35. 
 Gilbert, George, 73, 80. 
 Greenleaf, Thos., 37. 
 Giittenberg, John, 9. 
 
 Hall, John H, 73, 75. 
 
 Hamblin, T. S., 74. 
 
 Hamersley, Dr., 26, 44, 46. 
 
 Hamilton, Louis M., 83. 
 
 Hartwell, Alonzo, 72, 80. 
 
 Harper, Jas., 93. 
 
 Harper & Bros., 43, 81, 93. 
 
 Harrison & Brower, 34, 35. 
 
 Heincken, 6. 
 
 Holbein, 11, 12, 58, 61. 
 
 Holcomb, 81. 
 
 Holt, H. F., 8. 
 
 Hosack, David, 25, 26, 44, 45, 46, 
 
 48, 50, 51, 66, 67, 68. 
 Houssaye (Arsene), 90. 
 Hurd & Houghton, 63. 
 
 Inman, Henry, 69. 
 
 Irving, Washington, 55,56, 57. 
 
 Jarvis, John W., 68, 69, 70, 85. 
 Jergher, 13. 
 Johnson, Dr., 44. 
 
 Kemp, Dr., 26. 
 Kent, Jas., 26. 
 Kissam, Dr., 48. 
 
 Lansing, Alfred, 74, 80. 
 Lansing, Garret, 73, 80, 89. 
 Leslie, Frank, 81,82. 
 Leney, W. 8., 60, 61. 
 Lewis, Dr. Edwin, 88. 
 
 Lewis, Mrs., 85, 89. 
 Livingston, Brockholst, 24. 
 Longworth, David, 33,55, 57, 100. 
 Liitzelberger, Hans, 12, 13. 
 
 Mason, A. J., 77, 78, 79. 
 
 Mason, Wrn., 73. 
 
 Matteson, T. H., 38. 
 
 McFarlane, Dr., 44. 
 
 Maverick, Mrs. Ann, 74, 88. 
 
 Meanie, John, 91. 
 
 Mitchill, Dr. S. L., 24, 25, 27, 30, 44, 
 
 45, 46, 66. 
 Monroe & Francis, 64. 
 Moreau, Chas. C, 34. 
 Moreau, John B., 78. 
 Morgan, Win., 65, 73, 74, 89. 
 Morland, Geo., 69. 
 Moore, Dr. Benjn.,47. 
 Morris, Geo. P., 63, 76, 86. 
 Morse, 8. F. B., 70. 
 
 Noah,M. M., 29. 
 
 O'Reilly, Henry, 64. 
 
 Paine, Thos., 17, 70. 
 Papillon, 5, 13. 
 Parsons, C, 43. 
 Pintard, John, 70. 
 
 Redfield, Wm. D., 80. 
 Redfield, J. S., 80, 82. 
 Reid, Abner, 35, 73. 
 Riedenger, 59. 
 Rivington, Jas., 16, 95. 
 Roberts, John, 54, 55, 56, 100. 
 Rogers, Dr., 44, 46, 48. 
 Rollinson, Wm., 36, 37. 
 
 Saltonstall, Dr., 44, 45, 46. 
 
 Schoffer, Peter, 9. 
 
 Scoles, 25, 31, 61. 
 
 Shumway, H. C, 89. 
 
 Smith, Dr. Wm., 25, 31, 42, 49, 66. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 107 
 
 Spencer, Earl, 7, 8. 
 Stansbury, 57. 
 Slimmer, 11. 
 Strong, T. W., 82. 
 Stuart, Gilbert, 56, 68. 
 Sugden, Thos., 85. 
 Swords, 55. 
 
 Tanner, Benjn., 37, 38. 
 Taylor, Gen., 68. 
 Thornton, Linton, 80. 
 Thurston, John, 78. 
 Throop, 73. 
 Tiebout. C.,36, 37, 38. 
 Tisdale, E., 36, 37, 61. 
 Trott, Benjn., 56. 
 Tucker, Luther & Co , 64. 
 Trumbull, Jonathan, 67. 
 Trumbull, John, 67, 70. 
 
 Vanderlyn, John, 68, 69. 
 Van Vleck, Jane, 89. 
 Van Vleck, Nancy, 45. 
 Van Sichern, 13. 
 Van Venne, Adrian, 62. 
 Vecellio (Cesare), 11. 
 Verplanck, G. C, 67. 
 
 Warner, Andw., 85. 
 Weaver, 25. 
 West, Benjn., 68. 
 White, R. N., 80. 
 Wolgemilth, Michael, 10, 11. 
 Wood, Samuel, 34, 35, 58, 100. 
 
 Young, Dr. Joseph, 23, 24, 28, 39, 
 89, 97. 
 

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