1921] Weatherby, — Old-time Connecticut Botanists 123 



have done as much for the former, since Barratt in his capacity as a 

 physician brought him safely through a fever. Barratt had made 

 his acquaintance in 1822 and for more than twenty years remained 

 his correspondent and occasional visitor. 



In July, 1824, Barratt went to Norwich, Vermont, to teach in the 

 Academy, or, as he calls it, the "Scientific Institution" there. He 

 promptly took advantage of his comparative nearness to the White 

 Mountains to visit them and ascend Mt. Washington, September 

 18, 1824. l In September, 1825, he returned to Philipstown and re- 

 sumed practice. That autumn he, in company with Torrey, visited 

 Schweinitz at Bethlehem and, he records, first heard " that admired 

 hymn, 'Or Greenland's Icy Mountains.'" 2 



In May, 1826, Barratt became "professor of botany, chemistry 

 and mineralogy in Capt. Alden Partridge's Military Academy" at 

 Middletown, Connecticut. There, with occasional brief absences — 

 one a visit to Niagara — he remained resident for the rest of his long 

 life. At first he devoted himself wholly to teaching, but when the 

 academy closed in 1828, again turned to medicine. For the next 

 twenty-five years we get occasional glimpses of him as a successful 

 physician, a well-liked man, a guest " eagerly sought for" and an active 

 citizen, 3 interested in the history and such of the doings of the place 

 as touched his tastes and abilities. He relates with somepride^that 

 he was among the first to be presented tc Daniel Webster when that 

 great man visited Middletown. We find him proposing a plan for 

 re-stocking the Connecticut River with salmon; serving on a com- 

 mission to investigate a boiler explosion; one of the jury of awards 

 on gardens at the local agricultural society's annual fair; addressing 

 the Farmers' Club on fertilizers, grasses, the cultivation of goose- 

 berries and the like subjects; and inducing two of its members to 

 try raising Lolium pcrcnne as a forage grass. 4 He was a vigorous 

 advocate cf cheap postage. Toward 1845 he became interested in 



1 One incident of this journey Barratt related with gusto to Torrey in after years. 

 "That coarse, long-legged fellow .... Crawford," he wrote, "laughed at the 

 idea of my enduring fatigue, but I gave him such a walk over the mountains, taking 

 him about ti irty miles in one day, that he will not soon forget. I tired him out 

 and had to s-end a horse for him." 



; The proposition suggests that the enunciation of singers, in those days as now. 

 was not always perfect. 



3 He was naturalized in 1830 and made a voter in the following year. 



4 The expe-iment seems not to have been a great success; at least, ray grass has 

 not displaced timothy in the hay-fields about Middletown. 



