Dr. William Watson (d. 1828), a Scot, was physician and
friend of Chancellor Livingston, and one of the early promoters of
scientific agriculture in America. He was founder of the Farmers' Club
of Dutchess and Columbia Counties, the pioneer of Agricultural
Societies in New York. James Renwick (1790-1862), born in Liverpool of
Scottish parents, was Professor of Physics in Columbia University,
author of several scientific works, and one of the Commissioners who
laid out the early boundary line of the Province of New Brunswick. His
mother was the Jeannie Jaffray of several of Burns's poems. James
Renwick, the architect, was his son. Other gifted sons were Edward
Sabine Renwick and Henry Brevoort Renwick. Joseph Henry (1797-1878),
the "Nestor of American Science," and organizer of the American
Academy of Sciences otherwise the Smithsonian Institution in
Washington, was of Scottish' origin. His paternal and maternal
grandparents emigrated from Scotland together and are said to have
landed the day before the Battle of Bunker Hill. The McAllisters of
Philadelphia (father and son) were famous as makers of optical and
mathematical instruments, and the son was the first to study and fit
astigmatic lenses, and was also the introducer of the system of
numbering buildings according to the numbers of the streets, assigning
one hundred numbers to each block. Spencer Fullerton Baird (1823-87),
Naturalist and Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, was also of
Scottish origin.
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