After working at various trades, sometimes as a copperplate printer under Alexander Lawson, in which he showed both ambition and talent, he went through New Jersey as a peddler and during this journey seems to have first paid minute attention to the habits and appearance of birds.
He afterward taught school at various places in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, finally settling in 1802 at Kingsessing on the Schuylkill.
One of the schools he taught was situated on the Darby Road, a short distance west of the intersection with Gray’s Ferry Road. His home was near the celebrated botanical garden of William Bartram, and he became acquainted with the famous naturalist, who, by his own love of birds, deeply interested young Wilson in that branch of nature. It was at this time that Alexander Wilson resolved to form a collection of all the birds of America.
His first excursion, October, 1804, was to Niagara Falls. He walked from Philadelphia through the unopened wilderness of western New York, and wrote a metrical description of his journey in the “Port Folio” under the title of “The Foresters, a Poem.”
Elsewhere Wilson wrote:
“Sweet flows the Schuylkill’s winding tide,
By Bartram’s green emblossomed bowers,
Where nature sports in all her pride,
Of choicest plants and fruits and flowers.”
Wilson learned drawing, coloring, and etching from Alexander Lawson, the celebrated engraver, whose tastes and instructions stimulated his own talents.