Early Life
Philetus Walter Norris was born in Palmyra, New York on August 17, 1821, the son of John Norris, Jr. and Azubah Phelps. His father was a pioneer mill-builder, and had fought in the War of 1812. In the early 1820s, the family moved to Allegheny County in New York. In 1826, they bought 80 acres (320,000 m2) in Michigan, moving there soon thereafter. There, they survived through the Black Hawk War and several cholera plagues. John Norris fell ill, and Philetus was forced to help his mother support their rather large family.
Read more about this topic: Philetus Norris
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“It is not too much to say that next after the passion to learn there is no quality so indispensable to the successful prosecution of science as imagination. Find me a people whose early medicine is not mixed up with magic and incantations, and I will find you a people devoid of all scientific ability.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)
“Only those who know the supremacy of the intellectual life ... can understand the grief of one who falls from that serene activity into the absorbing soul-wasting struggle with worldly annoyances.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)