[1] This colony was composed of rigid Presbyterians, who desired to leave Ireland to escape various persecutions. They sent out the Rev. Mr. Boyd, early in 1718, with an address to the Governor of Massachusetts. The address, now in the Archives of the New Hampshire Historical Society, was signed by three hundred and nineteen persons, nine of whom were clergymen. The report brought back by Mr. Boyd of his reception by the governor and of the prospects of the country was so favorable that the addressors converted their property into money, and embarked in five ships for Boston, which they reached August 4, 1718. In Boston they separated for different places, but the larger part were sent to Worcester, then a frontier settlement of fifty-eight dwellings and two hundred inhabitants, but needing a larger population as protection from the Indians. John Gray—there were two of his name in the original party—went to Worcester, where he owned considerable land, and was evidently a man of influence in the colony, to judge from the various public offices held by him.

[2] Robert Gray, one of John Gray’s sons, was twenty years old when he came to America. There is a tradition in the family that the acquaintance and courtship began on the voyage.

[3] Sauquoit was a settlement in the eastern part of the town of Paris, the township so named in grateful recognition of a supply of food, sent by a Mr. Paris, of Oswego, at a time when the early settlers were near starving.—A. G.

[4] Moses Gray was the eighth child,—a boy and a girl were born later,—and one step-brother, Watson, survived Moses Gray. Moses Wiley Gray made the journey to Sauquoit, on horseback, taking before him his son Moses, then a boy of eight. The Mohawk Valley at this time was the far West, with only slow and tedious communication beyond Schenectady, but opening, in its lovely tributary valleys, tempting regions of hill and valley, well wooded, with clear, sparkling streams. The land offered good farming opportunities when cleared of trees, and the rapid streams gave good promise of water power. Here Moses Wiley Gray took a farm on the top of a hill, and cultivated the land for ten years. He was injured by the fall of a tree, and his leg was amputated. He died the next day, May 8, 1803, leaving his son Moses, with his stepmother and her children largely dependent on his assistance.

[5] She was married in 1788.

[6] The house is still standing which, built in 1648 by an ancestor of Ralph Waldo Emerson, was bought by William Howard, in 1669.

[7] Asa’s mother was but four years old, when the family moved to Sauquoit, and well remembered her mother’s crying at the crossing of the Hudson River, which must have seemed formidable in the small boats of that time. Joseph Howard was a man of a very lovable character, as shown from the affectionate remembrances of him by his grandchildren, the eldest of whom, Asa, was much with him. He was a deacon of the First Church in Sauquoit for forty years, and one of the leading men in the town. He died in 1849.

[8] Moses Gray was a man of great activity and energy. He soon added a shoe-shop to his tannery, where he hired a few hands to make shoes from the hides he tanned, taking these again by wagon to Albany, a journey of many days, where he bought his skins and some necessary supplies. Money was scarce in the newly settled country, and the things needed were mostly got by exchange. Meantime, as the chance came, he was buying land on the hills around. Clayville is where the valley narrows towards the source of the Sauquoit Creek, as “rivers” are called in that neighborhood in old Dutch fashion, and the hills are sharper and rougher. The scenery, however, is still beautiful, and the house which Moses Gray built two or three years later yet stands, with a lovely near view of stream and hill and wood. Asa Gray remembered his father building it. Busy as the father was out of doors, the mother was perhaps busier still. Asa, the younger brother by the first wife, was dying of consumption; he was moved on a bed from Sauquoit to Paris Furnace, and died very soon after, in May, 1811, aged twenty-three. When the child was born, November 18, 1810, it was carried to him to see, and he said he wished they would call it Asa, if it had had no name as yet decided on. He was of a singularly sweet and gentle character. The step-brothers were taken in turn to be taught and trained. The hands employed on farm or in trade were generally lodged and boarded. Often their clothes were mended or made. The wheat and grain were home-raised, as were all the vegetables. There was little fresh meat, except when a sheep or beef was killed, and that meant salting and curing. Butter and cheese were all homemade, and could be taken to Albany for sale, as was also grain; as the farm grew, more cows were added. Then the clothing was homemade. The wool for flannel sheets and underclothing and for the men’s clothes was home-spun, the nicer portions taken off and carded separately, and spun as worsted for the children’s and women’s dresses; also the yarn for socks for the whole family. A spinning-girl was hired for part of the year, for flax was also spun for the house linen and for wearing-apparel. The weaving was hired out. The tailor came by the week to make up the clothing with the mother’s help, and after the tannery was given up, the shoe-maker came at intervals to make the shoes. As the girls grew older they took their share at the wool and flax wheels. It is said that the first spinning of flax on the small wheel was introduced by the party of Scotch-Irish emigrants of 1718; that the women gave lessons to the women of Boston on Boston Common, and the fashion was so set for that spinning. It is also said that the Irish potato was first introduced into New England by these same colonists.

A widowed sister came with her children to make her home under the same roof when the Grays moved later to a larger farm, and there seemed always some boy to be housed and taught and trained. Though his aid might tell out of doors, the home care came upon the mother. But Mrs. Gray was a woman of singularly quiet and gentle character, with great strength and decision, and possessed a wonderful power of accomplishing and turning off work; a woman of thoughtful, earnest ways, conscientious and self-forgetting.

The father was quick, decided, and an immense worker; from him the son took his lively movements and his quick eagerness of character, perhaps also his ready appreciation of fun.

[9] His mother, having another child, was probably glad to have the active boy safe for a few hours. Her young sisters lived not far away, and the youngest aunt, a girl of ten, was proud to take him to school; she had already taught him his letters. His father promised him a spelling-book of his own as soon as he reached baker, which was a marked spot of advance in the spelling-book. A few weeks saw him far enough on, and the coveted prize was given. He went proudly to school the next day, and as he could not speak to the teacher to proclaim his triumph, he walked in front of her desk to his seat, waving the book with a great flourish before her! It was just before he was three years old.

[10] Of one of these, his friend, now over eighty years old, gives an account in the succeeding letter:—

Sauquoit, February 19, 1888.

Dear A.—I would like to give you some information of your uncle’s early life if I were well informed, but, I have only one little incident, and perhaps that would be of small account at the present era, though at the time it took place it was of great moment to us both as children. Asa lived with his parents at Paris Furnace, now Clayville. I lived where Mr. Bragg afterward built his new house. Well, we had a lovely teacher that summer by the name of Sally Stickney, living at Colonel Avery’s. She ruled by gentleness. For our class she had an old-fashioned two-shilling piece, with a hole through to insert a yard of blue ribbon. She put this over the head of the one that stood first in our class. So it traveled every night, all that summer, with some one of us, until the ribbon was worn and faded. But more than all that, the one that stood at the head on the last day of school was to be the owner of that two-shilling piece that we had watched with jealous eyes so many weeks, and studied Webster’s old spelling-book so hard to gain. I think our eyes must have magnified it, for I have never seen a coin since that seemed so large. I think it was the same in Asa’s eyes. Well, with hearts beating fast, and eyes on the coveted prize, we were called on the last day of school to spell; we took our places; I was at the head, Asa next. I missed and he went above me; my all was gone, but it was worse to have him point his finger at me and say out loud “kee-e-e.” I braved it without a tear; a few more words would end the strife. It came around to him, and he missed; how quick I went above him; but in an instant he dropped his head on the desk before him and wept as though his heart would break. School was dismissed, scholars were leaving; still he did not move, until our kind teacher came to him, whispered to him, soothed and petted him; then he jumped up and ran, I suppose wishing me in Halifax. I felt sorry for him and would have been willing to divide with him if he had not crowed over me so. I ran nearly all the way home—a good mile—with my treasure, in great haste to have some one tell me the best way to invest my money. I was told to go another three quarters of a mile to Stephen Savage’s store, spend it for calico, piece it up, to keep forever. I could get only one yard for my two-shilling piece, not nearly as good as can be bought now for three cents a yard. Not a trace of the quilt is left, nor of the old schoolhouse, or of those merry children; perhaps a few have wandered on to fourscore years. So it is little I can relate of his childhood, as the next year we moved from that district, but as years passed on I often heard of his rising fame with pleasure. If Eli Avery were living he would have been his best biographer in this place.

The time has flown so fast since all this transpired, it seems as if his tears had hardly dried before my grandchildren were studying his Botanies.

Two years ago the 9th day of September, when the doctor was visiting in Sauquoit, he called here and remarked, in his smiling way, “that he had got all over feeling badly about that.” I said, “And well you may when you have received so many honors since then.”

Your loving friend,
Harriet Rogers.

A neighbor who survived to a great age also told a story of Dr. Gray’s boyhood, which he said he had from Dr. Gray’s father:—

One day he had been set to hoe a certain amount of corn, and his father found him reading instead of at his work. He gave him his choice, to finish his task and then read comfortably, or to sit there in the field all day in the hot sun, which one knows is no pleasant thing in August, and read. He chose the reading, and his father said then, “I made up my mind he might make something of a scholar, but he would never make a farmer!” And so his farther education was decided.

[11] Asa Gray was the eldest of eight children, three sisters and four brothers, of whom there survive two sisters and two brothers.

[12] Dr. Gray visited Fairfield again in the summer of 1860 or 1861. He pointed out his old room, and told about some of the pranks he and his room-mate Eli Avery had played there as boys, especially once when they barred their room, escaped through the window by clambering down a rope, and then enjoyed the efforts of the master to break the door down. Oddly enough there was then a fresh panel in the door, as if a later generation had tried the same trick. There were a great many stories told of his exploits as a boy. But he said everything had been fathered upon him, and that few were really true. He was no doubt restless and active, and learning quickly and easily would have leisure for some mischief, but he said, “I always learned my lessons.” He loved to recall the long rambles through the woods on Saturday holidays, and how in early spring he and his companions would climb to a lookout and see where columns of smoke could be seen above the trees, and so aim for the spot where they were making maple sugar. There they would beg a little syrup, and, boiling it down over their own fire and cooling it on snow, make a candy more delicious than any confectionery of after life. He remembered how he trained himself to know the trees by their bark as he ran through the woods, without looking up at the leaves, having then the keen power of observation though no especial interest in botany. For, as he always said, his first fancy was for mineralogy rather than for botany.

And he told how when he was a medical student, as so many about him were smoking, he tried it too; it made him very sick at first, and took him some time to get accustomed to it. At last, as he sat one evening before the fire and smoked, he said to himself, “Really, I am beginning to like it. It will become a habit; I shall be dependent upon it.” And so he threw his cigar into the fire and gave up smoking entirely.

[13] In later life the novels were always saved for long journeys. The novel of the day was picked out, and one pleasure of a long day’s ride in the train was to sit by his side and enjoy his pleasure at the good things. The glee and delight with which he read Hawthorne, especially the Wonder-Book and Tanglewood Tales, make days to remember. So he read George Eliot, and Adam Bede carried him happily through a fit of the toothache. Scott always remained the prime favorite, and his last day of reading, when the final illness was stealing so unexpectedly and insidiously on, was spent over The Monastery, which he had been planning to read on his homeward voyage in 1887.

[14] It was established as a college in 1812, having existed as a school in the academy since 1809. There were then only five others in the United Stated: Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Dartmouth, and Baltimore. The war of 1812 with Great Britain made a demand for army surgeons along the frontier, and New York and Boston were too far to send the young men to be educated. Dr. Hadley was professor in the literary academy, and Dr. Willoughby, who had a wide medical reputation, was also in Fairfield. They planned a medical college, and applied to the legislature for aid; the sum of $5,000 was granted, and later, in 1812, $10,000. The first Faculty was organized by the Board of Regents of the New York State University, which had control of the educational institutions in the State. It grew rapidly in favor, and soon outnumbered the schools of the large cities. In 1820 the school had one hundred students, and increased to two hundred and seventeen later, and was the largest medical school in the country, except the one at Philadelphia. After the Albany and Geneva medical schools were established, it was seen there was no need of three so near together, and Fairfield Medical College was discontinued in 1840. In the list of graduates of Fairfield Academy were Albert Barnes, the noted expositor, General Halleck, of the United States Army, and James Hadley, professor of Greek at Yale and the distinguished linguist. In the records of the academy it is stated that “Asa Gray entered Fairfield Academy in the fall of 1825, and at the second weekly meeting joined the Calliopean Society of the institute. His handwriting on the register is still preserved, as well as all his doings as a boy while here, since he entered at an early age, being in fact much younger than the majority of the students.” He graduated from the medical college January 25, 1831 in a class of forty-four. His rank was seventeen in the class on graduation. The subject of his thesis was “Gastritis.” Two old catalogues are preserved at Fairfield. In the first there is the programme of studies at the academy for the year 1826; the other, dating January, 1832, contains a list of the professors of the medical college, the cost of instruction, and the outlines of two courses of lectures. One of them was given by Dr. Mather, who was a fellow student of Asa Gray’s, and who still, at over eighty, retains a lively recollection of the eager, active young man whom his friends already thought would make his mark in the world; the other by Dr. Gray himself. This was one of the first courses of lectures which he delivered. The ticket-fee was four dollars. He kept through life a certain love for medicine and surgery, and a lively interest in its science and progress. These old studies and the country practice he had with the physician who was always his good friend, Dr. Trowbridge, often served him on his journeys, when a regular practitioner was not within easy reach.

[15] Amos Eaton, 1776-1842. Graduated from Williams in 1799. Teacher, lecturer, and author of Manual of the Botany of North America, as well as of many reports on geological surveys.

[16] College catalogue of Fairfield, 1830-31.

[17] Lewis C. Beck, 1798-1853; professor in Albany Academy; author of Botany of the United States North of Virginia.

[18] Lewis David Schweinitz, 1780-1834; the first American who studied and described the fungi of the United States. He wrote also on other North American cryptogams and carices.

[19] John E. Le Conte, 1784-1860; formerly major in United States army. His first botanical publication was a catalogue of the plants on the island of New York, in 1810. He later wrote chiefly on entomology.

[20] It appears that in December, 1834, I read to the Lyceum of Natural History my first paper, Monograph of North American RhynchosporÆ, and my second, New or Rare Plants of the State of New York. They must have been printed early in 1835.—A. G.

[21] J. G. C. Lehmann, 1793-1860; professor at Hamburg.

[22] George Francis Reuter, 1815-1873; directer of the Botanical Garden at Geneva; curator of Boissier’s herbarium.

[23] Edward T. Channing; professor of rhetoric and oratory at Harvard University.

[24] Daniel Treadwell; professor in Harvard University of applied physics; distinguished inventor in mechanics, especially in the welding of steel.

[25] John H. Redfield; curator of the herbarium of the botanical department of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Science.

[26] American Jour. Sci., xxv. 346-350.

[27] Dr. Trowbridge.

[28] North American GramineÆ and CyperaceÆ, of which Part I. was issued in 1834, Part II. in 1835. This was the first separate and individual publication by Dr. Gray. Sir W.J. Hooker said of it:—[It] “may fairly be classed among the most beautiful and useful works of the kind that we are acquainted with. The specimens are remarkably well selected, skillfully prepared, critically studied, and carefully compared with those in the extensive and very authentic herbarium of Dr. Torrey.”

[29] Alluding to the then popular squib of Major Jack Downing’s letters.

[30] S. Wells Williams, 1812-1884. Went as missionary to China in 1833. Wrote a Chinese dictionary and other works; translated Genesis and Matthew into Japanese also. Later was secretary of the American Legation to China; returned to America in 1875.

[31] Elements of Botany.

[32] Chester Dewey, 1784-1887; professor in Williams College, Massachusetts. Removed to Rochester, N.Y., 1836, where he died. “Carried on the study of Carex and published on them for more than forty years” [A. G.].

[33] Jacob Whitman Bailey. 1811-1857; professor in the Military Academy at West Point. One of the earliest students of American AlgÆ, and distinguished also for his microscopic researches in botany.

[34] Charles W. Whipple, died in 1855. Was educated at West Point, where probably he was a pupil of Dr. Torrey. He was never in the army, but studied law and practiced in Detroit; was made Judge, then Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Michigan. Ex-officio regent of the State university.

[35] David Bates Douglass, 1790-1849. He held the professorship of natural philosophy and civil architecture in the University of New York, and was afterward president of Kenyon College. He laid out Greenwood Cemetery.

[36] Dr. Thomas Raffles; a distinguished Congregational clergyman in Liverpool from 1812 to 1863.

[37] John Shepherd, b. 1764. For thirty-five years at the Liverpool Botanic Garden.

[38] Peter D. Knieskern, M. D., 1798-1871. “Botanized over the pine-barrens of New Jersey with utmost assiduity and skill, a simple-hearted, unpretendingly good and faithful man.... Few botanists have excelled him in their knowledge of the plants of the region in which he resided, and none in zeal, simplicity, and love of science for its own sake.”—A. G.

[39] Thomas Nuttall, 1784-1859; a great traveler and explorer. Came to the United States in 1807. His writings are intimately connected with the development of North American botany.

[40] Robert K. Greville M. D., 1794-1866; author of Scottish Cryptogamic Flora, Flora Edinensis, and AlgÆ BritannicÆ.

[41] Robert Graham, M. D., 1786-1845; professor of botany in the University of Edinburgh.

[42] William Nicoll. Invented section-cutting of recent and fossil woods in 1827.

[43] James Forbes, 1809-1861; professor of natural philosophy in the University of Edinburgh.

[44] Robert Jameson 1774-1854; professor of natural history in the University of Edinburgh.

[45] John Hutton Balfour, M. D. 1808-1885; professor of botany in Glasgow, and afterwards in the University of Edinburgh.

[46] Sir Charles Bell, 1774-1842; a very distinguished surgeon; author of Anatomy of Expression and many celebrated works. He accepted the chair of surgery at Edinburgh, 1836.

[47] John Abercrombie, M. D., 1781-1844; celebrated Scotch physician and author.

[48] Sir Robert Christison, 1798-1882; professor of materia medica in the University of Edinburgh.

[49] James T. W. Johnston, 1796-1865; agricultural chemist; professor at Durham. Lectured in the United States.

[50] Francis Boott, 1792-1863. Born in Boston, United States. Early removed to London, where he studied and practiced medicine a few years. “A good botanist, and in his later life devoted to the study of Carices” [A. G.].

[51] John Joseph Bennett, 1801-1876; keeper of the herbarium of the British Museum. “One of the most learned and modest of men” [A. G.].

[52] Sir John Richardson, M. D., 1787-1865. “The well-known Arctic explorer, zoÖlogist, and botanist” [A. G.].

[53] David Don, 1795-1856; librarian of the LinnÆan Society; professor of botany in King’s College, London.

[54] Frederic Pursh, 1774-1820. Emigrated to America, 1799. Traveled and collected much; settled later in Montreal, where he died.

[55] Aylmer Bourke Lambert, 1762-1842; author of the Genus Pinus and the Genus Cinchona. Owned a very large herbarium comprising plants of Pursh, who published under his liberal patronage.

[56] John Forbes Royle, M. D.; a surgeon in the East India Company. Wrote on the botany of the Himalaya.

[57] John Edward Gray, 1800-1875; keeper of the zoÖlogical collections of the British Museum for many years. “Of persistent ardor, indomitable energy, and great practical power” [A. G.].

[58] William Clift, 1775-1849; curator of the Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons.

[59] Peter Mark Roget, M. D., 1779-1869; secretary of the Royal Society, London. Wrote Animal and Vegetable Physiology, and the well-known Thesaurus.

[60] Richard Taylor; printer; for many years secretary of the LinnÆan Society.

[61] Francis Bauer; botanical artist to George III.

[62] Thomas Horsfield, M. D., 1774-1859. Born in Pennsylvania. After sixteen years in Java, passed the rest of his life in London as keeper of the museum of the East India Company. Brown & Bennett published part of his collections, PlantÆ JavanicÆ Rariores.

[63] I forgot to mention also some bricks from Babylon, covered with arrowhead characters, which were the most interesting relics of antiquity I almost ever saw.—A. G.

[64] Nathaniel R. Ward, 1791-1868; inventor of the Wardian case.

[65] Archibald Menzies, 1754-1842; the botanist who accompanied Vancouver in his voyage to the west coasts of North and South America. His collections are in the Edinburgh and Kew Herbariums.

[66] Sir Charles Lyell, the geologist.

[67] Edwin J. Quekett, 1808-1847. Wrote much on the microscopic structure of plants and animals.

[68] John Miers, 1789-1879; a botanist who studied in South America and wrote many papers.

[69] Thomas Walter, d. 1788, in Carolina, U. S. Wrote Flora Caroliniana.

[70] James Scott Bowerbank, 1797-1877. Wrote on Sponges and the Fossil Fruits of the London Clay.

[71] Edward Forster, 1765-1849. Made vice-president of the LinnÆan Society in 1828.

[72] Herbert Gray Torrey, born just before Dr. Gray sailed, was his godson.

[73] Mr. George P. Putnam; the American publisher and bookseller, at this time established in London.

[74] William Valentine, a very promising young botanist, who wrote valuable papers on the structure of mosses. Went early to Tasmania, where he died.

[75] Pulled down in 1891.

[76] Theodore Hartweg, died in 1871. Explored in Mexico and California, 1836 to 1847; later director of the Grand-ducal Gardens, Swetzingen, Baden.

[77] Philip Barker Webb, 1793-1854; a “distinguished English botanist residing in Paris, of vast and varied knowledge. He accumulated one of the largest herbaria, bequeathed to the Duke of Tuscany.”—A. G.

[78] BeauprÉ Charles Gaudichaud, 1780-1854; French botanist. Went round the world in the Bonite, and published the Botany of the expedition.

[79] Jacques Gay, died 1863. Born in Switzerland, and a pupil of Gaudin.

[80] Jean F. Camille Montagne, 1794-1865; surgeon in the French army. Retired in 1830, and devoted himself to cryptogamic botany.

[81] Achille Richard, 1794-1852; professor of botany in the Ecole de MÉdecine, Paris; son of L. Claude Richard.

[82] Edouard Spach, 1801-1879; native of Strasburg, many years keeper of the herbarium at the Jardin des Plantes.

[83] Charles FranÇois Brisseau Mirbel, 1776-1854; one of the most distinguished vegetable anatomists of the age. His earliest publication in 1801.

[84] Auguste de St. Hilaire, 1779-1853. Accompanied the Duke of Luxembourg on his voyage to Brazil, where he spent six years, and published a Flora of Brazil, 1825, and many other works.

[85] Baron Benjamin Delessert, 1773-1847; a French financier and philanthropist. Associated with De Candolle in the publication of the Icones SelectÆ.

[86] Jean Louis Berlandier, died 1851; a Belgian. Established as an apothecary at Matamoras, 1827 or 1828. The first botanist to explore New Spain. He also made large collections in western Texas.

[87] Adolphe Theodore Brongniart, 1801-1876; distinguished French botanist, more especially in fossil botany; professor of botany at the Jardin des Plantes.

[88] The rediscovery of Shortia in 1878 is described on p. 682.

[89] Nicolas Charles Seringe, 1775-1856; professor at Lyons. Seringia named for him.

[90] Esprit Requien,1788-1851; a pupil of A. P. de Candolle at Montpellier. Often quoted in the Flore FranÇaise.

[91] Michel Felix Dunal, 1789-1856; professor of botany at Montpellier. “One of the earliest friends of A. P. De Candolle. Author of several important monographs” [A. G.].

[92] Alire Raffeneau Delile, 1778-1850; director of the Garden of Agriculture established at Cairo. Later he succeeded De Candolle in the Botanic Garden, Montpellier. A celebrated botanist.

[93] There is a gigantic statue of Columbus, placed in a conspicuous place and looking down into the harbor. They make very much of him now, as well they may; they derided him when living, they set up his image long after he is dead. Of course we are very much obliged to him, for if he had not discovered America what would have become of us!—A. G.

[94] Gaetano Savi, 1769-1844.

[95] Antonio Targioni-Tozzetti, 1785-1856; distinguished Florentine botanist.

[96] Giovanni Battista Amici, 1784-1863; an Italian astronomer, especially skilled in the construction of optical instruments.

[97] Horatio Greenough; the American sculptor in Florence.

[98] Roberto de Visiani, 1809-1878; professor of botany at Padua; author of a Flora Dalmatica.

[99] B. Biasoletto, M. D., 1793-1858. Triest. “A botanist of merit and investigator of AlgÆ of the Adriatic” [A. G.].

[100] M. J. Tommasini, 1794-1879. Triest. Author of a Botany of Mt. Slavonik, Istria.

[101] Stephen Ladislaus Endlicher, 1804-1849; professor of botany in the University of Vienna; author of Genera Plantarum.

[102] Aloys Putterlich, 1810-1845; keeper of the Botanical Museum, Vienna.

[103] Edward Fenzl, 1807-1879; professor of botany and director of the Botanic Garden at Vienna.

[104] Dr. Heinrich Schott, 1794-1865; director of the Imperial Gardens, SchÖnbrunn. “He was the highest authority on AroideÆ” [A. G.].

[105] A. C. J. Corda, 1809-1849. Prague. A distinguished mycologist. Lost at sea on returning from America.

[106] Karel B. Presl, 1794-1852; professor at Prague and curator of the herbarium.

[107] Christian Gottfried Nees von Esenbeck, 1776-1858; professor of natural history at Bonn and Breslau.

[108] Joseph Gerhard Zuccarini, 1797-1848; professor of botany at Munich. Among other publications he assisted in describing the plants collected and described by Siebold in the Flora Japonica.

[109] Julius Hermann Schultes, 1804. Died in Munich, 1840.

[110] Jean Etienne Duby, 1797-1885; long one of the Genevese clergy and a botanist and colleague of Augustin Pyramus do Candolle.

[111] Dr. Gurdon Buck.

[112] Hugo von Mohl, 1805-1872. Born at Stuttgart. Professor of botany at TÜbingen. “Chief of the vegetable anatomists of this generation” [A. G.].

[113] Eduard Friedrich PÖppig, 1798-1868; professor of zoÖlogy at Leipsic. Made collections of plants in Cuba, Chili, Peru, and on the upper Amazon.

[114] Christian Friedrich SchwÄgrichen, 1775-1853; professor of natural history at Leipsic.

[115] Heinrich Gottlieb Reichenbach, 1793-1879; professor of botany at Dresden. A voluminous author, especially of illustrated works on European plants.

[116] D. F. L. von Schlechtendal, 1784-1866. University of Halle. Editor of the LinnÆa and Botanische Zeitung.

[117] Christian Schkuhr, 1741-1811. History of Carices, 1802.

[118] Dr. J. H. Klotzsch, 1805-1860; keeper of the Royal Herbarium at Berlin.

[119] Karl Sigismund Kunth, 1788-1850. Appointed professor of botany at Berlin, 1819. Author of Enumeratio Plantarum and other well-known descriptive works.

[120] Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg, 1794-1876. Berlin. Student of the microscope, and author of works on the lower forms of plants and animals.

[121] Heinrich Friedrich Link, 1767-1851. Professor at Breslau, then at Berlin. Wrote Anatomy of Plants and Elements of Botanical Philosophy.

[122] A Flora of North America; containing abridged descriptions of all the known indigenous and naturalized plants growing north of Mexico; arranged according to the natural system. By John Torrey and Asa Gray. New York. 8vo; vol. i., 1838-1840, pp. xvi, 711; vol. ii., 1841-1843, pp. 504.

[123] S. Constantine Rafinesque-Schmaltz, d. 1840. A Sicilian by birth. First arrived in the United States, 1802, for three years; returned in 1815, and explored the Alleghanies and Southern States. “An eccentric but certainly gifted personage, connected with the natural history of this country for the last thirty-five years” [A. G.].

[124] Benjamin D. Greene, 1798-1862. First studied law; then medicine in Scotland and Paris. Devoted himself to botany. “His very valuable herbarium and botanical library were bequeathed to the Boston Natural History Society. He was always a most liberal and wise patron of science” [A. G.].

[125] Jacob Bigelow, M. D., 1787-1870; an eminent Boston physician; author of the Floral Bostoniensis, 1814.

[126] George B. Emerson, 1797-1881; an eminent teacher in Boston, Mass.; author of Trees and Shrubs of Massachusetts.

[127] Director of Kew Gardens.

[128] Ferdinand Lindheimer, 1801-1879. Died at New Braunfels, Texas. A German. “An assiduous and excellent collector and a keen observer; his notes, full and discriminating, add not a little to the value of the collections” [A. G.].

[129] Edward Tuckerman, 1817-1886; professor at Amherst. “The most profound and trustworthy American lichenologist of the day” [A. G.].

[130] Benjamin Peirce, 1809-1880; professor of mathematics, Harvard University.

[131] Carl Geyer, 1809-1853; a German botanist who explored the basin of the upper Mississippi with Nicollet under the Bureau of Topographical Engineers, 1836-1840. Afterwards crossed the Rocky Mountains to Oregon.

[132] Lecture to his class in college.

[133] Dr. Gray imported a quantity of small evergreens from England and planted the ground extensively, adding also many other kinds.

[134] Dr. Rugel came to America, 1842; settled in eastern Tennessee and collected in the southeastern States.

[135] To his college class.

[136] Dr. Jeffries Wyman.

[137] This was Dr. Gray’s second course of Lowell lectures. Dr. John A. Albro, the Congregationalist minister of Cambridge, was his pastor.

[138] G. J. Mulder, 1802-1880; professor of chemistry in the University of Utrecht. Wrote on Animal and Vegetable Physiology.

[139] Carl H. Schultz-Schultzenstein, 1798-1871; professor of physiology in the University of Berlin. Wrote voluminously upon Cyclosis and the Vessels of the Latex, etc.

[140] Dr. Charles Danbeny, G. B., 1795-1867; professor of botany and rural economy at Oxford; chemist and geologist.

[141] William Oakes, 1799-1848. “The most thorough and complete collector and investigator of New England plants” [A. G.].

[142] Alphonse Wood, 1810-1881; author of popular botanical text-books.

[143] His brother, then living with him in Cambridge to enter Harvard.

[144] Christian Hendrik Persoon, 1755-1838; a botanist at the Cape of Good Hope. Died in Paris at a very advanced age. Fungologist.

[145] The third course of Lowell lectures.

[146] Augustus Fendler, 1813-1883. Came from Prussia to America in 1840. Collected in New Mexico, and on the Andes about Tovar in Venezuela, and in Trinidad. “A close, accurate observer, a capital collector and specimen-maker; his distributed specimens are classical. Of a scientific turn of mind in other lines than botany” [A. G.].

[147] Spencer F. Baird, afterward widely known as secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.

[148] A relative left Nuttall a comfortable little estate and property on condition that he should not be away from it more than three months in the year. He managed to come to America again by taking the three last months of one year and the three first of the next.

[149] Increase Allen Lapham, 1811-1875; author of a Catalogue of Plants in the Vicinity of Milwaukee.

[150] Charles Pickering, 1805-1878. “Author of Geographical Distribution of Plants and Animals and Man’s Record of his own Existence, largely a record of changes in the habitat of plants. A monument of wonderful industry” [A. G.].

[151] John P. Brace, Litchfield, Conn.; an early botanist and mineralogist. His herbarium went to Williams College.

[152] A. Wislizenus, M. D., b. 1810. Explored New Mexico and Mexico; was arrested as a spy. On returning to the United States published a memoir of the tour, 1846-1847.

[153] Josiah Gregg, died in California, 1850; made excellent collections in Chihuahua and in the Valley of the Rio Grande. Author of the Commerce of the Prairies.

[154] Leo Lesquereux, 1806-1889; the leading fossil botanist of America, and a distinguished bryologist.

[155] Sprague made, under Dr. Gray’s directions, some drawings in color of the work planned, The Trees of North America. The work was never completed, too many things, expense, etc., coming in the way, but the few plates printed and colored by Prestele were issued in a small quarto pamphlet by the Smithsonian Institution in 1891.

[156] John Amory Lowell, 1798-1881; a Boston merchant, and a liberal patron of botany. He bought many valuable books and collected a fine herbarium. He shaped the policy and direction of the Lowell Institute founded by his cousin, John Lowell.