He spent his early youth at the homestead, gaining his rudimentary education at the schools and academies of the neighborhood.

At the age of seventeen he matriculated at Franklin & Marshall College, where he spent four years in the pursuit of a scientific course of study, giving special attention to the natural sciences.

After his graduation he studied medicine, and, at the outbreak of the Civil War, entered the Satterlee General Hospital, then with 4,000 patients under the charge of Isaac Israel Hayes of Arctic exploration fame.

On his return from an extended tour through Europe in 1867, he settled at Scranton, Pennsylvania, where he successfully practiced his profession.

In 1898 he returned from an extended tour through Mexico, the Pacific coast and Alaska, adding largely to his stock of specimens.