About this record
Utterly lacking in ambition and confidence, Percival was an outcast and scholar who mastered a dozen languages and the emerging science of geology while huddled in seclusion among his books. After helping publish Noah Webster's first dictionary and researching the geology of Connecticut, he moved to Wisconsin after being named our state geologist. Already well into middle age, he spent his days crouched in holes and caves and returned home with weary knees to a supperless cottage to feast on moonshine.Citation
"The Poet Percival." St. Paul Pioneer, Aug. 9, 1854;