LETTERS OF EDWARD HITCHCOCK AND FAMILY 1819 – 1864 Transcriptions of the original hand-written letters in the collections of the Amherst College Archives and Special Collections, Amherst, Massachusetts Transcribed by Robert T. McMaster 2017-2020 Introduction Edward Hitchcock (1793-1864) is best known as a geologist and paleontologist who taught at Amherst College from 1826 to 1863 and served as the third president of the college from 1845 to 1854. He was also a minister who preached in churches throughout southern New England for over thirty-five years. He married Orra White in 1821 and the couple raised six children in their home adjacent to the Amherst College campus. Orra created thousands of drawings, woodcuts, and paintings that Edward used in his books and in his teaching. Hitchcock was a prolific letter writer. In his Reminiscences of Amherst College he refers to his “epistolary correspondence” during his presidency as “peculiarly onerous,” numbering four or five hundred letters per year, not counting letters of recommendation for students. But he wrote many letters throughout his adult life and likely received as many in return. I have read and transcribed over three hundred letters of Edward, Orra, and their children in the course of my research. Most of these are held in the Amherst College Archives and Special Collections; nearly all have been digitized and can be accessed online at acdc.amherst.edu. I used voice-to-text software to dictate the letters from the images into a document file, then reread them, comparing the transcription to the images of the originals. Of the 316 letters transcribed below, all but about thirty are from the Amherst College Archives and Special Collections. Most are originals, but twenty-five are photocopies of letters held in other locations. Five letters are from the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association library in Deerfield, Mass.; two are from the Mount Holyoke College Archives and Special Collections, South Hadley, Mass.; twenty-four are from the Biodiversity Heritage Library (biodiversity.org). Not included in this document are the many letters in the Amherst College Archives between Edward Hitchcock and Benjamin Silliman which have been transcribed and extensively annotated by Robert L. Herbert of Mount Holyoke College. My transcriptions appear below in the order in which I completed them. The numbers assigned are my own. The location of each letter within the Archives or elsewhere is shown in brackets at the beginning of each letter. Pages were seldom numbered by the letter writer. The page numbers shown are in most cases the number of the image; in many cases a single image includes two written pages. When available I have also transcribed information from the envelope including the address, return address, and in some cases information from the postmark. Many variations in spelling have been preserved in the transcription. In a few instances punctuation has been added to make the meaning clearer. My comments are shown in brackets. Unreadable words and phrases are indicated by four question marks in brackets: [????]. I have previously completed transcriptions of Hitchcock’s sermons, geological survey notes, and private notes. It is my intention that these will eventually be made accessible online. Early in 2021, I expect that my biography, All the Light Here Comes from Above: the Life and Legacy of Edward Hitchcock, will come into print. It is my hope that the book and these transcriptions will inspire others to further studies of Edward Hitchcock. I am indebted to Amherst College and particularly to Margaret Dakin and Michael Kelly of the Archives for preserving the unpublished writings of Edward Hitchcock and making them accessible to all. If you make use of this transcription, please be sure to cite your source including, of course, the Amherst College Archives and Special Collections. Please send comments or corrections to me at [email protected]. Sincerely, Robert T. McMaster Williamsburg, Massachusetts December 7, 2020 Abbreviations: EH Edward Hitchcock (Sr.) OW and OWH Orra White Hitchcock EHJ Edward Hitchcock, Jr. MH Mary Hitchcock EHT Emily Hitchcock Terry Letters from Edward Hitchcock #1-40 Letter 1 [EH to Epaphras Hoyt, 12 August 1819, Hitchcock Family Papers, PVMA, S 925.51 H674L Manuscript] New Haven August 17th 1819 Dear Sir, I have been lately looking at some of the late Nos. of Tilloch’s Magazine and of Thomson’s Annual of Chemistry etc. sent me by Prof. Silliman. They do not contain much that is very interesting. They are published monthly and are much smaller than Silliman’s Journal and not near as well executed. In Tilloch’s Mag. For April, I think is a particular account of the uniting of the great Trigonometrical Surveys of France and England. The English Astronomers embarked for the French coast (I forget what place) with their instruments and were there met by the French astronomers. Here they tried their respective instruments in getting the latitude and found them to agree exactly!! This survey extends through 6° of Latitude and the principal object of it has been to measure the meridian. When this labour of several years was completed so satisfactorily it of course produced much joy and much cannon firing – and drinking and beef eating. Prof. Kingsley has handed an abstract of the account to Mr. Davis the editor of the Christian Spectator in this city and I suppose it will appear in a few days. [James L. Kingsley, Classics Professor at Yale] Page 2 I have before me the Manatis Scientific Journal published in N. York. It is small and mostly devoted to analytical questions in mathematics. It has been discontinued for a year and lately revived by publishing a No. consisting of tally sheet. Prof. Fisher has much to do with it. Many of the most difficult questions and solutions are his. [Possibly Alexander M. Fisher, Prof. of Math.] I have had two opportunities lately to purchase at auction Gregory’s Dictionary of the Arts and Sciences in 3 vols thick quarto. It appears to be a fine work and is on the plan of most encyclopedias. I had thought of purchasing it for your library – as I could have got it for 12 or 15 dollars – original price $30. But I did not know you would want it. I think had I been authorized I could have purchased many works that could have suited a library company for about one third of the original cost. I think it probably there will be another auction about the time of Commencement. Dr. Ives lately received 345 sorts of seeds of plants that will grow in the U. States from the Botanical Garden in Paris. He offered to give me samples of most of them if I would make out a catalogue—and I have done it and have... Page 3 …obtained about 280 seeds. Among them are many seeds of trees and shrubs and also common garden vegetables several species of greens not growing in this country are among them. I wrote to Major J. A. Saxton to come after me. And from some things written by Dr. Williams I thought he would be here as soon as this. I have hoped to see you here as I perceived by your writing on your letters lately that you had not gone to the Springs. But I have nearly given up the expectation. While I am writing the bell is tolling for the funeral of another child of Prof. Silliman. He lost his oldest boy some time since – and these afflictions I perceive affect him sensibly. – A young man who in some way or other escaped from quarantine ground died a few doors from my boarding place last night it is said of the yellow fever. Whether it be that or not it is pretty near it. People feel some alarmed. But I hope such a disorder will not prevail here. I will thank you however not to mention this fact, lest my mother get it. My health has in general been better this summer than usual. In a fortnight past I have been rather complaining and I impute it to the excessive hot weather. A very interesting case was tried in the Sup. Court in this town last week concerning the digging up of dead bodies for dissection by the Medical Students last winter. Prof. Knight was the defendant. It occupied two… [Prof. Jonathan Knight, Prof. of Anatomy] Page 4 …days when the Professor was acquitted. I do not know that I have written any thing that will interest you: but it will not take you long to look it over: so that you will not lose much. The Journal will not appear at present – probably not for several months. I suspect it will hereafter be published in quarterly Nos. two of which will constitute a volume. Matter continues to flow in for it. I received a letter some time since from Prof. Cleaveland containing a long list of mineralogical queries connected with my piece in the Journal. He will soon publish another edition of his Mineralogy. He is one of these indefatigable diggers. Yours etc. E. Hitchcock [Below folds] I will thank you to mention to Dr. Williams that I received a letter from him last week. As I had nothing particular to write I think it will be best not to answer it if I return soon after Commencement. Addressed to: Gen. Epaphras Hoyt, Postmaster, Deerfield, Mass. Postmark: August 27 New Haven Letter 2 [EH to John Torrey, 1820, EOH, Series 2-B, Box 5, Folder 23] [Plant names are approximate and have not been checked against any botanical references.] Plants sent to Dr.