The St. Johns herald., 1890-09-11
A NUMERICAL NUMAD.
Maine's Human Algebra and Arith-
 metic Wonder.
A Oueer Genius Who for Many Years Has Lived on a Steady Diet Cf Iiyures-His Remarkable Inroads on the Sci
 ence of Mathematics.

n year out, for the past quarter of cent ury. He is ''Prof." George s. McIntire, and no one is better known to the citi- zens of Southwestern Maine than this oft-encountered person, with his little
 tin pail and his armful of books. AL
 most any day, be the weather what it
 may, he may be seen sauntering leisurely along the main thoroughfares or crouched in some hallway upon a door step absorbed in the one great work of his life, mathematics. He is not exactly an intellectual tramp, but, perhaps, more strictly, numerical nonad. His is a life wrapt up in figures-those dry, abstract things, so cold, palpable and undeniabie. Only whom delving in them is his cup of happiness filled to the brim.
 ''Prof." George s. McIrtire was born in the little settlement of North Ken nebunkport, Me, On January 31, 1926. He sprang from good, hardy, Anglo Saxon stock, and had he not inherited constitution of iron he would never have been able to withstand the ordeal through which he has passed; for in his aimless rambles he has undergone enough exposures and privations to knock the underpinning out of dozen human frames. When quite young Me Intire was put at work upon the farm, and at tho age of sixteen was sent to the village school. The curriculum of the school, which was kept open only d,,r rcix in iyofn q ,o%o higher than the rudimentary elements of mental arithmetic, and the teacher was Moses Wilson, long since passed to the other shore.
 PedGgogue Wilson determined to be- come a physician, and on the last day of his administration as teacher presented young McIntire with an old leather covered algebra. The presentation of the old algebra, yellow with age, yet glowing with truths, marked the turn ing point in McIntire's life. It became the key to all the man s future idiosyn- crasics. Never before had George seen a book called an algebra, and when ho took it home he found his parents in equal ignorance. It was beyond them.
 Nevertheless, yourg McIltire was soon knee deep among the KS, y's and z's. It seemed strange to him that any thing tangible coulu be resolved out of thoso fragmcntary characters, but the more he thought Of it the more it inter csted aim, and ere long he became deeply infatuated with the study. His parents tried to dissuade him from his task, but, u2:lindful of their sugges- tions, he absorbed chapter after chapter of the wonderful book, and neglected farm work as often as he could steal away into the more sequestered hooks of the forest.
 OAcIntire remained on the farm, doing little else shan figuring, until he was well along in years. Once he ran away from homo and secured 2 job in mill in Saco, but he did not earn much, and soon gave up the undertaking in order to accept job at painting in big machine shop in Biddeford. The paint had an ill-effect upon his system, and he wandered up to Buxton, where he pushed tho shovel and hoe for one Bcnja- min Grant. After a month of this drudgery-for any thing was drudgery outside of mathematics for him he re- turned to the old homestead, where he remained series of years until his par ents died. Then he removed to Bidde- ford, some time in the early sixties"
 Soon after McIntire came to Bidde- ford he went to New York and took steerage passage by the Nicaragua route to San Francisco, On the passage out he fell in with French General who happened to be on board, and was a col lege graduate. The man of Mars ex- pressed much surprise at Georges re- markable inroads upon the science of mathematics, and on one occasion dur ing protracted discussion of the sub ject, many of the ships passengers and crew gathered about the pair with mingled feelings of pity and awe.
 While in San Francisco McIntire sawed wood and did other odd jobs, but he found it difficult to obtain liveli- hood. Nevertheless, on every pleasant Sabbath he went to the Lone Mountain battle-ground to decipher the characters on the grave-stones there, and, by way of diversion, to rehearse his mathe- nautical studies. McIntire returned from California by way of the isthmus in 1866.
 "ProfesSor" was tho title he now went by in Maine. So thoroughly absorbed had he become in tho one study of his life that it had taken on form of mon- omania. And to-day, outside the realm of figures, sn the world is blank to him. He declares that he likes the study well enough to go without his natural food, and this he has frequently doro. He has seldom eaten 6 warm meal or slept in bod during many years past. Much of tho time he has slept in barns, some times in old carts and not infrequent- ly he has remained out of doors ali night. At the present timo he is occu- pying small room over a store in this city, b'1 nothing in the shape of bed stead adorns the room, the occupant se- curing repose upon an old blanket