Frederick Goddard Tuckerman was born on February 4, 1821, in Boston, Massachusetts, to Edward Francis Tuckerman (1775–1843) and Sophia May (1784–1870), a prosperous and distinguished Boston family.[2] His siblings included: Hannah Parkman Tuckerman (1805–1859), Edward Tuckerman (1817–1886), the botanist, Samuel Parkman Tuckerman (1819–1890), the composer, and Sophie Mary Eckley (1823–1874). His first cousin was Henry Theodore Tuckerman (1813–1871), an American writer, essayist and critic.
He entered Harvard University in 1841, but did not remain long, due to an eye problem, as recalled in a family genealogy, privately printed in 1917 by a relative, Bayard Tuckerman.[3] After Harvard, he entered the law school, graduating in 1842, and was admitted to the Suffolk Bar, reading with Edward D. Sohier (1810–1888). He later abandoned the practice of law, saying that it was distasteful. He then devoted himself to the pursuit of his favorite studies, literature, botany and astronomy.[3]
In 1847, he moved to Greenfield, in western Massachusetts due to his love of nature and began living a life of relative seclusion and retirement, which was considered strange one for a man in his middle twenties.[3]
