These meetings drew together persons of literary tastes and acquirements in the vicinity.

The late John V.Veeder, Wm.

McKown, and L.L.Van Kleeck, Esqs., Mr.Robert Alsop, the late John Schoolcraft, Esq., G.Batterman, John Sloan, and other well-known gentlemen of the town, all of whom were his seniors in age, attended these meetings.
Mineralogy was at that time an almost unknown science in the United States.

At first the heavy drift stratum of Albany County, as seen in the bed of Norman's Kill; and its deep cuttings in the slate and other rocks, were his field of mineralogical inquiries.

Afterwards, while living at Lake Dunmore, in Addison County, Vermont, he revised and systematized the study under the teaching of Professor Hall, of Middlebury College, to which he added chemistry, natural philosophy and medicine.