His scholastic training in youth seems to have been largely private, though it is certain that he did attend one school outside his home. To his grandmother was this distinguished man indebted for the first scientific taste inculcated, for this remarkable woman led the promising grandson to study with diligence and with accuracy the science of botany, with which study it seems there was ever afterward associated, on the part of Mr. Tuomey, a cherished memory by a grateful grandson for timely inspiration given in his boyhood days on the Emerald Isle. Along with this was borne the sacred recollection of a fond mother for the careful cultivation of the beautiful as displayed in the dreamy regions of his native isle, and in the magnificent landscapes which there abound. Throughout his life Professor Tuomey bore the impress of the culture imbibed in those early days, and the earnestness of the instruction given by loved ones was a perpetual propelling force in all his subsequent studies and investigations. His precocity was evidently taken advantage of by these affectionate instructors, for at the early age of seventeen we find him associated with a friend in teaching at Yorkshire, England. The young genius, for such he was, girded by the panoply of a sacred association and thorough drill of mind, marked out for himself a course of scientific study into which his natural bent bore him, and his early training, as well. We are left largely to conjecture as to the time of his emigration to America, but it must have been in the early twenties. A youthful immigrant, he appears in Philadelphia, a stranger among strangers, scarcely knowing whither to turn, till he buys a piece of ground to till, then ventures in connection with a partner on the purchase of an estate, finds agriculture ill-suited to his taste and ill-productive of results, disposes of his interest, and wends his way southward, often trudging weary and footsore for days together. He reaches the eastern shore of Virginia, and with a knack of friend-making and possessing a charming cultured manner, he procures a rural school, rallies about him a host of friends, later becomes a private tutor in the home of John H. Dennis, of Maryland, studying while he taught, but always winning the hearts of others, and supremely that of Miss Sarah E. Handy, a kinswoman of his private patron, which gifted young woman became Mrs. Tuomey.