Fairman was born on 28 December 1856 to parents Prof. and Mrs. Charles E. Fairman in
Yates, New York, both of whom were teachers. He entered the senior class of the
University of Rochester at the age of 16, and was at the time the youngest graduate the university produced. He graduated from that institution in 1873 with an A.M. degree and received his M.D. degree when he graduated from
Shurtleff College in
Alton, Illinois, in 1877. On 5 February 1878, he married Lois Warren, who died on 23 August 1912. Fairman had returned to
Lyndonville to practice medicine before his 21st birthday. He was a member of several medical societies and wrote for a number of medical periodicals. The fraternity journal
Delta Upsilon Quarterly, in their 1890 alumni report, reports him as being employed as the Examining Surgeon for the United States Pension Department in
Medina, New York. In July 1927, the Orleans County Medical Association gave him a testimonial dinner in celebration of his 50th year in the practice of medicine. Fairman achieved worldwide renown as a mycologist. He began studying the fungi at about age 30, when his interest was piqued when he and his father-in-law (Dr. John D. Warren) undertook to cultivate mushrooms. He corresponded with various noted authorities in mycology, including
Job Bicknell Ellis,
Charles Horton Peck,
Pier Andrea Saccardo,
Heinrich Rehm, and
Joseph Charles Arthur. Fairman accumulated a large personal collection of mycological books, as well as a personal
herbarium of 23,000 various fungi, some of which has been incorporated in the Plant Pathology Herbarium at
Cornell University. Fairman also collected specimens for the
New York Botanical Garden Herbarium. Fairman was also noted as an authority on many plants. ==Career==