Internet Archive's in-browser bookreader "theater" requires JavaScript to be enabled. It appears your browser does not have it turned on. Please see your browser settings for this feature.

Isaac F. Holton and John Torrey correspondence, 1840-1870

by: Holton, Isaac F.(Isaac Farwell)

Publication date: 1840

Topics: Botanical specimens, Carex, Chemistry, Plants, Money, Holton, Isaac F. (Isaac Farwell), Torrey, John, 1796-1873, Grant, S. Hastings (Seth Hastings), 1828-1910, Atwater, Lyman Hotchkiss, 1813-1883, Beck, Lewis C. (Lewis Caleb), 1798-1853, Brackenridge, William D. (William Dunlop), 1810-1893, Browne, D. J. (Daniel Jay), 1804-, Carey, John, 1797-1880, Chapman, A. W. (Alvan Wentworth), 1809-1899, Coleman, Lyman, 1796-1882, Crawe, I. B. (Ithamar Bingham), 1792-1847, Curtis, M. A. (Moses Ashley), 1808-1872, De Kay, James E. (James Ellsworth), 1792-1851, Desabaye-Chegaray, Eloise, 1792-1889, Eaton, Amos, 1776-1842, Ellet, William Henry, 1806-1859, Emmons, Ebenezer, 1799-1863, Engelmann, George, 1809-1884, Foster, J. T. (James T.), Frémont, John Charles, 1813-1890, Gaudichaud, Charles, 1789-1854, Gibbs, Wolcott, 1822-1908, Gray, Asa, 1810-1888, Griffith, R. Eglesfeld (Robert Eglesfeld), 1798-1850, Hadley, George, 1813-1877, Hallock, William A. (William Allen), 1794-1880, Henry, Joseph, 1797-1878, Hitchcock, Edward, 1793-1864, Knieskern, Peter D., 1798-1871, Le Roy, Peter Vincent, 1821-1889, Maclean, George Macintosh, -1886, Mead, Samuel Barnum, 1798-1880, Moffat, James C. (James Clement), 1811-1890, Nelson, David, 1793-1844, Parker, William H. (William Henry), 1809-1889, Peuquet, Hyacinth, active 1849, Schaeffer, F. C. (Frederick C.), Rev., active 1817, Schanck, John Stillwell, 1817-1898, Short, Charles Wilkins, 1794-1863, Sullivant, William Starling, 1803-1873, Tappan, Henry Philip, 1805-1881, Taylor, John S., active 1832-1854, Trécul, Auguste, 1818-1896, Tuckerman, Edward, 1817-1886, Willis, Oliver R. (Oliver Rivington), 1815-1902, Wood, Alphonso, 1810-1881, Lyceum of Natural History (New York, N.Y.), Wiley & Putnam

Collection: nybgtorrey; biodiversity; NY_Botanical_Garden

Contributor: New York Botanical Garden, LuEsther T. Mertz Library

Language: English

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

Correspondence from Isaac F. Holton to John Torrey, dated 1840-1870. In his early letters, the young preacher Holton writes from his first teaching post in Illinois, where he complains of a lack of mental stimulation ("I see absolutely nothing of a scientific nature except at Dr. Mead's ... The last prairie flower is dead & I have not till now seen a Botanical work this year"), not to mention his own books and clothes, held up for months in shipping. Throughout the 1840s Holton leads an almost itinerant existence, cobbling together a meager living from preaching and lecturing on scientific subjects; he reflects often on his uncertain future ("Am I to circulate in an eddy all my life? I hope not.") and asks Torrey for advice. By the latter half of the decade he has moved to New York and found work teaching in girls' and boys' schools and later, at the New York College of Pharmacy. After some years in New York and Princeton, New Jersey, Holton finds his way to New England, and finally again to Illinois, and a late marriage. Surprisingly little mention is made of his journey to South America and the book which came out of that trip, "New Granada: twenty months in the Andes" (1857). The collection also includes letters from Holton to Asa Gray, Samuel Barnum Mead, Charles Wilkins Short, Oliver Rivington Willis, Peter Vincent Le Roy, and Seth Hastings Grant. Obsolete plant names mentioned include Annona triloba, Canchalagua, and Nelumbium. The final letter makes use of the phrase "metric florin" and includes an unidentified annotated newspaper clipping pertaining to systems of currency

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

Abstract: Correspondence from Isaac F. Holton to John Torrey, dated 1840-1870. In his early letters, the young preacher Holton writes from his first teaching post in Illinois, where he complains of a lack of mental stimulation ('I see absolutely nothing of a scientific nature except at Dr. Mead's ... The last prairie flower is dead & I have not till now seen a Botanical work this year'), not to mention his own books and clothes, held up for months in shipping. Throughout the 1840s Holton leads an almost itinerant existence, cobbling together a meager living from preaching and lecturing on scientific subjects; he reflects often on his uncertain future ('Am I to circulate in an eddy all my life? I hope not.') and asks Torrey for advice. By the latter half of the decade he has moved to New York and found work teaching in girls' and boys' schools and later, at the New York College of Pharmacy. After some years in New York and Princeton, New Jersey, Holton finds his way to New England, and finally again to Illinois, and a late marriage. Surprisingly little mention is made of his journey to South America and the book which came out of that trip, 'New Granada: twenty months in the Andes' (1857). The collection also includes letters from Holton to Asa Gray, Samuel Barnum Mead, Charles Wilkins Short, Oliver Rivington Willis, Peter Vincent Le Roy, and Seth Hastings Grant. Obsolete plant names mentioned include Annona triloba, Canchalagua, and Nelumbium. The final letter makes use of the phrase 'metric florin' and includes an unidentified annotated newspaper clipping pertaining to systems of currency.