[1] He was educated at Jamaica Academy, Long Island, and at Boucherville, Canada.
He imported the first merino sheep into the United States in 1816, continued the “Linnaean nurseries” of his father, and was the first to introduce silk culture and the Morus multicaulis for silk worms in 1837, but lost a large fortune by this enterprise, owing to the change in the tariff, which destroyed this industry for several years.
The troubles of the business obligated him to mortgage the Linnaean nurseries, and for a time control of them passed to Gabriel Winter, his brother-in-law.
Spiritualism and the preparation of patent medicines were major occupations of his after he retired from the nursery business.
[1] He wrote numerous pamphlets on the mulberry, the strawberry, Dioscorea, medical botany, etc., and about two hundred descriptive catalogues of trees, shrubs, vines, plants, bulbs, etc.