Tappan, New York
As a young man, Austin worked as a school teacher in Tappan, New York, where he met and married Hannah Campbell, the daughter of a New Jersey farmer. But it was through his acquaintance with John Torrey that he secured a position as curator of the Columbia College Herbarium from 1859 thru 1863. In 1870, he published his most well-known work, "Musci appalachiani", which dealt with the mosses of the Eastern United States.