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William Jackson Hooker and John Torrey correspondence, 1821-1857

by: Hooker, William Jackson,Sir,1785-1865

Publication date: 1821

Topics: Botanical specimens, Carex, Plants, Hooker, William Jackson, Sir, 1785-1865, Torrey, John, 1796-1873, Trinius, Carl Bernhard, 1778-1844, Agardh, C. A. (Carl Adolf), 1785-1859, Walker-Arnott, George Arnott, 1799-1868, Bachman, John, 1790-1874, Balfour, John Hutton, 1808-1884, Barratt, Joseph, 1796-1882, Barton, William P. C. (William Paul Crillon), 1786-1856, Beck, Lewis C. (Lewis Caleb), 1798-1853, Bedford, John Russell, Duke of, 1766-1839, Beechey, Frederick William, 1796-1856, Bentham, George, 1800-1884, Bigelow, Jacob, 1786-1879, Boott, Francis, 1792-1863, Brackenridge, William D. (William Dunlop), 1810-1893, Bromfield, William Arnold, 1801-1851, Brown, Robert, 1773-1858, Candolle, Augustin Pyramus de, 1778-1841, Crawe, I. B. (Ithamar Bingham), 1792-1847, Don, George, 1798-1856, Douglas, David, 1799-1834, Drummond, Thomas, -1835, Eaton, Amos, 1776-1842, Elliott, Stephen, 1771-1830, Fielding, H. B. (Henry Barron), 1805-1851, Franklin, John, 1786-1847, Frémont, John Charles, 1813-1890, Gardner, George, 1812-1849, Geyer, Karl Andreas, 1809-1853, Gillies, John, 1792-1834, Goldie, John, 1793-1886, Gordon, Alexander, 1813-1873, Graham, Robert, 1786-1845, Gray, Asa, 1810-1888, Greene, B. D. (Benjamin Daniel), 1793-1862, Harvey, William H. (William Henry), 1811-1866, Hooker, Joseph Dalton, 1817-1911, Hooker, William Dawson, Knieskern, Peter D., 1798-1871, Kunze, Gustav, 1793-1851, Lambert, Aylmer Bourke, 1761-1842, Lindheimer, Ferdinand, 1802-1879, Lindley, John, 1799-1865, McNab, William, 1780-1848, Nees von Esenbeck, C. G. (Christian Gottfried), 1776-1858, Nuttall, Thomas, 1786-1859, Parker, Charles Sandbach, -1869, Parry, William Edward, Sir, 1790-1855, Pickering, Charles, 1805-1878, Prior, R. C. Alexander (Richard Chandler Alexander), 1809-1902, Richardson, John, Sir, 1787-1865, Schweinitz, Lewis David von, 1780-1834, Shaw, Henry, 1800-1889, Silliman, Benjamin, 1779-1864, Sprengel, Kurt Polycarp Joachim, 1766-1833, Sullivant, William Starling, 1803-1873, Thomson, Thomas, 1817-1878, Trevelyan, Walter Calverley, Sir, 1797-1879, Van Rensselaer, Stephen, 1764-1839, Vogel, Theodore, 1812-1841, Ward, N. B. (Nathaniel Bagshaw), 1791-1868, Webb, Philip Barker, 1793-1854, Wyeth, Nathaniel J. (Nathaniel Jarvis), 1802-1856, Crystal Palace (Sydenham, London, England), Linnean Society of London, Lyceum of Natural History (New York, N.Y.), Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, United States and Mexican Boundary Survey, United States Pacific Railroad Expeditions and Surveys, Wiley & Putnam, Exposition universelle de Paris en 1855, United States Exploring Expedition (1838-1842)

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 Sir William Jackson Hooker to John Torrey, dated 1821-1857. Hooker's early letters to Torrey, nearly all written from Glasgow, Scotland, are full of encouragement and professional discussion. Specimens and books are sent regularly back and forth across the Atlantic, and Hooker frequently comments on the schedules of ships coming up the Clyde. After Torrey's 1833 trip to Europe and their first meeting in person, Hooker takes to addressing Torrey as "My dear friend." He refers often to his sons William and Joseph, telling Torrey of their activities and his hopes for their future. "Should insects be collected," he writes in 1836, "I shall not be unwilling to take a portion of them (for Joseph) particularly Beetles." In several instances Hooker refers Torrey to acquaintances who are visiting or emigrating to the States, including a man named George MacDonald who is involved with the colony in Liberia. Hooker notes the deaths of colleagues (Croom off the coast of North Carolina, Douglas in the Sandwich Islands, and Gardner in Ceylon, among others), of his eldest son William in Jamaica, and later his daughter Mary and his own father. (Several letters are written on mourning stationary.) Hooker keeps Torrey up to date on the professional accomplishments of his remaining son Joseph Dalton Hooker, who he refers to respectfully in later years as "Dr. Hooker." Now living at Kew and overseeing the new Botanic Garden there ("It is really a noble place & boasts some noble Houses & very very many fine plants..."), Hooker writes more personally-- marriages, family trips, the births of grandchildren. Twice Hooker mentions Torrey's brother Lewis, who visits the Hookers on Christmas Day, 1843. Toward the end of the collection he describes in detail the new incarnation of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham in London, and the 1855 Exposition Universelle des produits de l'Agriculture, de l'Industrie et des Beaux-Arts in Paris. The collection also includes a fragment of a letter from Hooker to Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward, and another full letter to Carl Bernhard von Trinius. One letter to Torrey is written on a flyer for the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. Obsolete plant names mentioned include Alsophila, Hippocastanum, Nelumbium, and Wellingtonia

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 Sir William Jackson Hooker to John Torrey, dated 1821-1857. Hooker's early letters to Torrey, nearly all written from Glasgow, Scotland, are full of encouragement and professional discussion. Specimens and books are sent regularly back and forth across the Atlantic, and Hooker frequently comments on the schedules of ships coming up the Clyde. After Torrey's 1833 trip to Europe and their first meeting in person, Hooker takes to addressing Torrey as 'My dear friend.' He refers often to his sons William and Joseph, telling Torrey of their activities and his hopes for their future. 'Should insects be collected,' he writes in 1836, 'I shall not be unwilling to take a portion of them (for Joseph) particularly Beetles.' In several instances Hooker refers Torrey to acquaintances who are visiting or emigrating to the States, including a man named George MacDonald who is involved with the colony in Liberia. Hooker notes the deaths of colleagues (Croom off the coast of North Carolina, Douglas in the Sandwich Islands, and Gardner in Ceylon, among others), of his eldest son William in Jamaica, and later his daughter Mary and his own father. (Several letters are written on mourning stationary.) Hooker keeps Torrey up to date on the professional accomplishments of his remaining son Joseph Dalton Hooker, who he refers to respectfully in later years as 'Dr. Hooker.' Now living at Kew and overseeing the new Botanic Garden there ('It is really a noble place & boasts some noble Houses & very very many fine plants...'), Hooker writes more personally-- marriages, family trips, the births of grandchildren. Twice Hooker mentions Torrey's brother Lewis, who visits the Hookers on Christmas Day, 1843. Toward the end of the collection he describes in detail the new incarnation of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham in London, and the 1855 Exposition Universelle des produits de l'Agriculture, de l'Industrie et des Beaux-Arts in Paris. The collection also includes a fragment of a letter from Hooker to Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward, and another full letter to Carl Bernhard von Trinius. One letter to Torrey is written on a flyer for the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. Obsolete plant names mentioned include Alsophila, Hippocastanum, Nelumbium, and Wellingtonia.