Details - Carl Bogenhard and John Torrey correspondence, 1852-1853

Carl Bogenhard and John Torrey correspondence, 1852-1853

Title

Carl Bogenhard and John Torrey correspondence, 1852-1853

Related Titles

Related/Analytical: New York Botanical Garden Archives

Series: John Torrey papers, series 1, correspondence

By

Bogenhard, Carl, 1811-1853

Type

Collection

Material

Archival material

Publication info

Notes

Correspondence from Carl Bogenhard to John Torrey, dated 1852-1853. Bogenhard's first letter to Torrey, writing on the recommendation of Asa Gray, introduces him as a desperate case. Recently arrived in America from Germany, he entered into an apothecary business in Williamsburg, Brooklyn with an unscrupulous partner-- one Buchholz-- who has since absconded with Bogenhard's money. Bogenhard appeals for help. In subsequent missives he forwards a letter of recommendation from his colleague Karl Reichenbach in Germany, and gradually describes the events that led up to his emigrating to America-- a fire that destroyed all his possessions, including his herbarium, and a chemistry experiment involving silver nitrate and alcohol that nearly lost him his eyesight. He thanks Torrey regularly and profusely for his assistance-- professional referrals, apothecary supplies, coal, and other gifts, including a New Testament, which Bogenhard relates has proved a great comfort to his wife. He apologizes for the imposition and for his imperfect English just as frequently. He offers the services of his wife, who has also been cheated by an unscrupulous employer, for mounting herbarium specimens; he himself offers to do translating and copying jobs for Torrey and his acquaintances. In one despairing letter he describes himself as "a martyr of the science." Bogenhard died in 1853. Also included in the collection is an unaddressed letter in German, possibly a draft, and another in English, which may have been meant for Asa Gray.

In English and German.