SKETCH OF THE LIFE AND LABORS OF PROF. JOHN TORREY, 



OF 



COLUMBIA COLLEGE, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES ASSAYEE, AND FOR 

 MANY YEARS AN ESTEEMED COLLABORATOR OF THE SMITHSONIAN IN- 

 STITUTION. 



By Dr. Asa Gray, of Harvard College.* 



John Torrey, M. D., LL. D., died at New York on the lOtli of March, 

 1873,in the seventy-seventh year of his age. Hehas long been thechief of 

 American botanists, and was at his death the oldest, with the exception 

 of the venerable ex-president of the American Academy, (Dr. Bigelow.) 

 who entered the botanical field several years earlier, but left it to gather 

 the highest honors and more lucrative rewards of the medical profession 

 abont the time when Doctor Torrey determined to devote his life to 

 scientific pursuits. 



The latter was of an ©Id New England stock, being, it is thought, a 

 descendant of William Torrey, who emigrated from Combe St. Nicholas, 

 near Chard, in Somersetshire, and settled at Weymouth, Mass., about 

 the year 1640.t 



His grandfather, John Torrey, with his son William, removed from 

 Boston to Montreal at the time of the enforcement of the " Boston port 

 bill." But neither of them was disposed to be a refugee ; for the son, 

 then a lad of seventeen years, ran away from Canada to New York, 

 joined his uncle, Joseph Torrey, a major of one of the two light infantry 

 regiments of regulars (called Congress's Own) which were raised in that 

 city ; was made an ensign, and was in the rear-guard of his regiment 

 on the retreat to W^hite Plains ; served in it throughout the war with 



* From tlie proceediugs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 



t In some notes fnrnislied by a member of tlie family, the descent is endeavored to 

 be traced throngh the eldest of the five sons who survived their parent, namely, Samuel, 

 who came with him from England, became a minister of the Gospel, and had the un- 

 precedented honor of preaching three election-sermons (in 1674, 1683, and 1695) as 

 well as of having three times declined the presidency of Harvard College, (after Hoar, 

 after Oakes, and after Rogers.) Although educated at the college, he was not a gradu- 

 ate, because he left it in 1650, after three years' residence, just when the term for the 

 A. B. degree was lengthened to four years. The tradition has it that, " at the prayer- 

 meetings of the students he was generally invited to make the concluding prayer," 

 for which an obvious reason suggests itself, for " such was his devotion of spirit that, 

 after praying for two hom's, the regret was that he did not continue longer." Students 

 of the present day are probably less exacting. 



The desire to claim a descent through so eminent a member of the family is natural. 

 But our late venerable associate, Mr. Savage, in his Dictionary of Early New England 

 Families, states that he could not ascertain that Samuel had any children. 



