JOHN CAREY. 1 



John Carey — of whom few of the botanists of our day 

 can have a personal remembrance — died at Blackhcath, near 

 London, March 26 ult., in the 83d year of his age. He came 

 from London to the United States, in the spring of 1830, ac- 

 companied by three young and motherless children and by his 

 brother, Samuel T. Carey, who was also addicted to botany. 

 Both, we believe, were Fellows of the Linnsean Society, and 

 were near friends of Thomas Bell, afterwards the presi- 

 dent of that society, who also lived to a good old age, dying 

 only a few weeks earlier than the subject of this notice. 

 Samuel T. Carey remained in the city of New York, in active 

 business, and so was only an amateur botanist. His brother 

 John went into the country, first to Towanda, in the northern 

 part of Pennsylvania, then to Bellows Falls, Vermont, where, 

 giving much of his leisure to botanical pursuits, he resided 

 until the year 1836, when he removed to New York, upon the 

 entrance of his sons into Columbia College. He did not 

 enter into business, but his administrative talents and great 

 worth were so appreciated that he was at various times culled 

 to very responsible temporary positions. These position-, 

 although unsought, were not unwelcome, for no small part of 

 the moderate property he had brought from England had 

 been lost in investments made through reliance upon the 

 honor and probity of defaulting States. 



From the time of his arrival in the United States down to 

 the year of his return to England in 1852, most of his leisure 

 was given to botany, and much of it in the companionship of 

 the present writer, who was generously and greatly assisted 

 by him in many critical studies. The proofs of the writer's 

 first botanical book were revised by him, and to the first 



1 American Journal of Science and Arts, ',) ser., xix. 421. (1880.) 



