Kingsley, Norman William (26 October 1829–20 February 1913), dental surgeon and sculptor, was born in Stockholm, New York, the son of Nathaniel Kingsley and Eliza Williams, farmers. At age four he moved with his family to Poultney, Vermont, and about five years later to Bradford County, Pennsylvania, where he helped with the farm during growing season and attended an academy in Troy, New York, during the winter. At age fifteen he moved to Elmira, New York, and worked as a clerk and bookkeeper in several business establishments. He also began developing his considerable ability as an artist by dabbling in the engraving of copper and wood, and in the process earned a considerable local reputation. In 1847 he returned to Troy, where he clerked in a general store for a year before moving to Elizabeth, New Jersey, to study dentistry with his uncle A. W. Kingsley. Although the elder Kingsley refused to teach him how to make false teeth from porcelain, a secret that the dental profession guarded jealously, he soon learned to do so on his own by carefully observing his uncle and then conducting experiments in the laboratory and kiln while his mentor was on holiday....
