Conrad was a strict Quaker and an approved minister of that faith. His father was John Conrad, a blacksmith, and Solomon was born July 31, 1779, and died October 2, 1831. Of his early life nothing is positively known, but it is probable that he was apprenticed to a printer or bookseller. It is known that a strong fancy for scientific study was early developed, and the fears of his friends were realized that he would not be successful in business, because of attention divided between his shop and his cherished specimens at home. His partner ruined him financially. His herbarium is now in the possession of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences. As evidence that the country was more attractive than the shop on Market Street, I quote the following from the manuscript journal of a nephew: “My father, . . . with Solomon Conrad, would take long walks in search of new specimens. I went with them once on a stroll along the banks of the Schuylkill, when they saw at the same time, in the shallow bed of the river, a fine lot of mussels. Both rushed to the spot, regardless of the rough stones and splashing of the muddy water, the broad tails of their plain coats standing out behind and their arms reaching out in front, eager to secure the prize.” In the spring of 1829 Solomon Conrad, who at that time had acquired a wide reputation as a mineralogist and botanist, was elected Professor of Botany in the University of Pennsylvania, and delivered, May 1st, his introductory address. In The Friend of fifth month, 9, 1829, the late Roberts Vaux, of Philadelphia, gives the following estimate of the lecture: “With a succinct review of the history of botany he very happily blended some biographical notices of the distinguished men to whom the science owed its origin and illustration. He traced with great acuteness and perspicuity the analogy of vegetable and animal life, admitting the limit of human knowledge. Every view that he furnished of the subject, upon which he is so well qualified to impart instruction in all its details, was just and forcible, while the simplicity of his manner and chasteness of his style were by no means the least interesting traits of the lecturer.” The venerable Frederick Fraley, Esq., of Philadelphia, recently informed me that he was present at the introductory lecture referred to, and that Mr. Vaux had in no wise allowed his enthusiasm to outrun his discretion.
On June 21, 1803, when his father was but twenty-four years old, Timothy Abbott Conrad was born. His mother was then staying at the home of her father, four miles from Trenton, N. J., in Burlington County, New Jersey. To this birthplace young Conrad became so strongly attached that he yearly made pilgrimage thereto, even when no representative of the family lived there. In his purely literary writings he so frequently refers to the place that he was once twitted about it, but without effect.
