John Torrey Papers (PP), Archives, The New York Botanical Garden

Correspondence from Amos Eaton to John Torrey, dated 1816-1840. The correspondence begins the year after Eaton's release from prison, while he is living in New Haven, Connecticut, studying natural science ("I intend to know all that can be known of mineralogy and botany in this country"), and working on a book with Yale professor Eli Ives. Shortly after the death of his second wife in late 1816 Eaton relocates to Massachusetts, and begins a period he calls "this wandering life," travelling to deliver limited series' of popular lectures in botany, chemistry, and geology throughout New York State and New England. His letters are tart, opinionated, affectionate, and a touch paranoid. His fondness for Torrey is clearly and continually evident, even when, alarmed by Torrey's suggestion that he too embark on a series of popular lectures, he pragmatically lists the younger man's strengths and weaknesses: "I will tell you what you are and are not, in a few words ... Your personal presence is not commanding--Your language and manner are not prepossessing--Your literature has not a classical polish. Then what has raised you above every individual of your years in North America? It is your discriminating powers, your indefatigable research, set off to the best advantage by that modest confidence for which you are distinguished." Clearly stung by what he sees as an ongoing conspiracy by the same "enemies" who contributed to his earlier incarceration, Eaton often requests Torrey's discretion when discussing a new project, and wonders aloud what their reaction will be to his successes. His modest accounting of his own talent ("I can bring down the labors of the learned to the capacities of illiterate boys and girls as well as anyone") doesn't dim his enthusiasm for geology and botany, or for teaching his students, both male and female. He writes with great enthusiasm of new acquaintances he esteems, like Chester Dewey and Charles Upham Shepard; conversely, when his gimlet eye lands on those he finds wanting ("What is the matter with Rafinesque?"), like William Cooper ("an obsolete blackguard"), his pronouncements are scathing. Later years see a slowing in the frequency of the letters, particularly after Torrey's marriage and the end of Eaton's "wandering" in Troy, New York, where he founds the Rensselaer School. In later years too, there are painful episodes of friction between Eaton and Torrey's protégé, Asa Gray. In the midst of a long tirade, however, Eaton pauses to reassure Torrey of his undying affection: "We are like some old husband and wife," he write in 1831, "who scold each other, fret, snark, &c., but when either is in distress the other feels it to the heart." Obsolete and unresolved plant and mineral names mentioned include Cardamine spathulata, Cimicifuga serpentaria, Convallaria umbellata, Draba arabiformis, Hydroglossum, Hydrophyllum virginicum, Kalmis galuca, Monotropa procera, Orchis blephariglottis, Polygonum natans, Veronica virginica, and Schoharite

Digitized under grant #PW-234827-16 from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)

Finding aid for the John Torrey papers available from the LuEsther T. Mertz Library, New York Botanical Garden and online

Finding aid for the John Torrey papers available from the LuEsther T. Mertz Library, New York Botanical Garden and online

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