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Correspondence of Rhoda Waterbury and
G. W. Clinton |
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Correspondence of Rhoda Waterbury and G. W. Clinton 1865 - 1867 Edited
by P. M. P.O. Box 299, Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis, Missouri, 63166‑0299;
and Research Associate, Buffalo Museum of Science, Buffalo, New York, 14204.
Email: mailto:patricia.eckel@mobot.org August 1865 Vol.
1. No. 123 [I 90] Schoharie Aug. 16th, 1865 Judge
Clinton I
actually wonder how you can find the time and patience to keep up this
correspondence and yet I feel that I have lost much by allowing a whole week
and more to pass without writing to you about my progress, and now I am going
to give you a list of my mosses as Mr. Peck has named them and then if I have
any that you may desire how happy I shall be, (now please don’t to
gratify me send for those you have). I
was in Albany the [qst] inst. and attended the sessions of the University
convocation and heard the question several times “do you know whether
Judge Clinton is to be here?” Well I enjoyed the meetings but more the
time I spent in examining Mr. P’s collection of mosses. I did not
disarrange them at all, and Colonel Jewett said I did them up nicely, and how
happy I was on my return home to find a package of the most beautiful
specimens waiting for me from Mr. Peck. We
hope to visit the marsh again this week and Mr. P. says the Sphagnum that
covers the whole surface is now in fruit, if no disaster prevents we shall
spend sufficient time there to collect whatever may seem new and strange. Now
for my list of mosses. Bryum roseum, Tetraphis pellucida, Bartramia Oederi,
Hedwigia ciliata, Ceratodon purpureus, Weisia viridula, Physcomitrium
pyriforme, Trichostomum pallidum, Timmia megapolitana, Barbula unguiculata,
Barbula caespitosa, Atrichum angustatum, Hypnum imponens, Hypnum recurvans,
Hypnum delicatulum, Hypnum orthocladon, Dicranum flagellare, D. undulatum,
Mastigobryum trilobatum, Madotheca platyphylla, Fegetalla conica, Ptilidium
ciliare and Mr. Peck sent me Madotheca porrella, Sphagnum cuspidatum, S.
cymbifolium, S. squarrosum, S. acutifolium, S. compactum and I have just sent
up to him a package of eleven different species to obtain the correct names
before I report them, besides I am waiting to send the Mniums and Bryums in separate packages when I shall have found a few
more of each, in all about fifty different species, and you cannot imagine
how highly I prize my moss herbarium with only these few. I suppose you was never so foolish but I remember when a child going to
my bandbox to look at the beautiful colors of the ribbon and flowers several
times a day and I have the same delight in my mosses. There I don’t
know how that can interest you but I have been foolish enough to write it,
please to forget my expressions of delight - and believe if you can that I am
only interested in the subject scientifically. I
have found a little plant growing on the shore of our creek almost in the
sand. I ought to know its name. I took it for a Silene
but it does not seem to agree with any of the species exactly, being so very
small. I will send it to you, then, too, for the first time I discovered Melilotus officinalis a few
days since. M. alba grows in great abundance whole acres of it along the
creek, but I have found no one yet who has before seen M. officinalis
here though it must have been all carelessness. I send you also two other
plants I found specimens of each 18 inches in height and though these small
specimens look nearly alike the larger plants showed very distinct species
though the flowers were in no better condition to examine than these. I
number them that I may not be confused when you send the name. May
I hope to hear from you soon and subscribe myself still Your
disciple Rhoda Waterbury Oh
I must tell you about that fern. It does look so different from the specimen
of Aspidium cristatum you
sent me in the spring that though I had spent a long time in comparing them,
and in reality placed them together, I thought it must be a different
variety. So please excuse this girlish P.S. Hon.
G. W. Clinton In Gray’s 5th edition both species of
Sweet Clover (Melilotus) are mentioned, both
adventives from The Regents of the University, of which
Clinton was one, were “required to visit and inspect all colleges and
academies, and report their condition, annually.” “Vacancies are
filled by the Legislature in the same manner that U. S. Senators are
appointed; and the Regents hold their office during life, unless they resign
or forfeit their place .... the members may be
removed by concurrent resolution of the Senate and Assembly. They receive no
pay.” “In 1845 they were made trustees of the State Cabinet of
Natural History ...”. “Their secretary
and the Secretary of State are commissioners to superintend the completion of
the publication of the natural history of the State.” (French p. 125).
They are to “conduct exchanges of books and documents with other States
and countries.... and make full reports annually to the Legislature upon the
condition of the colleges and academies of the State, the State Library, and
the Cabinet of Natural History.” The officers of the Regents are, a
chancellor, vice-chancellor, and secretary. They appoint a librarian and
assistants to the State Library, and a curator to the State Cabinet. Six
members form a quorum for the transaction of business. Their annual meeting
is held on the first Thursday of January, in the Senate chamber, and is
adjourned for short periods during the session of the Legislature.”
(French p. 126). Rhoda here is letting Issued from the Senate (Document no. 90), in
the 18th Annual Report of the Regents of the University of the State of New
York, March 22, 1865, was a “Catalogue of Mosses presented to the State
of New-York” by Charles H. Peck. This is an unannotated list of 144
different species collected in Sandlake, Rensselaer County, with some 40
species from Albany and the Helderberg and Catskill mountains. This must be
the collection that Rhoda examined and which she did not
“disarrange.” It would be interesting to consider whether she and
others were anticipating Clinton’s move to have Peck appointed as
Botanist to the State. Such appointments were highly sought after. John Paine Jr.’s
eminent contribution to the flora of New York, his flora of Oneida County,
published in the same 18th Annual Report as that of Peck, was also that young
man’s effort to attain the same appointment. Paine would not succeed.
Rhoda, in the company of men intimately associated with the State Cabinet,
including John Gebhard, Jr., once its custodian, is
at this time carefully cultivating at least acquaintance relationships with
principals involved in the coming political changes in the State Cabinet.
John Torrey published his two volume Flora of the
State, with revisions in 1849 and 1866. Although Charles Peck would go on to
expand the vascular flora of the State, during his tenure as State Botanist,
little acknowledgement is made of Paine's extraordinary contribution to the
State flora. His Oneida County flora of the 18th report was "virtually a
flora of the entire State north of the Hudson Highlands," (House, H.
1924 p. 6, Annotated List of the Ferns and Flowering Plants of New York
State, NY State Museum Bulletin
No. 254, Albany, New York). As noted above (May 17, 1865), Colonel Ezekiel
Jewett was a close associate and protégé of James Hall and
studied the fossils of central and western By law, the Cabinet was open to the public
during the week (French p. 27, ftnt. 4). Vol.
1. No. 135 [I 78] Schoharie Aug. 28th, 1865 My
dear friend Judge Clinton, I
have delayed the answer to your kind letter almost a week that I might have
another list of mosses to send you, but first let me tell you about that
little Silene (?) I sent you, the only specimen I
found and though I have been looking ever since I have not discovered
another, and after the arrival of yours I took another long search for it, in
vain. Of the two similar plants I take the liberty to send larger specimens (Alisma Plantago) as it seems to
me they are not quite the same. And now just listed what a strange thing I
have to tell you. Mr. Peck says I have found a moss of which he is not aware
that any one before has found in this state (excuse that crooked English. I
have a class of Germans) and of course I must send you a specimen. I am sorry
it is not a prettier thing if indeed I have the honor of first discovery in
these regions, though I think the teeth of the peristome are beautifully
twisted, it is Barbula mucronifolia.
I have also as named by his last [letter] Bartramia pomiformis,
Neckera pennata, Bryum
argenteum, Dicranum scoparium
var. pallidum, Schistidium
apocarpum, Orthotrichum strangulatum, Funaria hygrometrica, Leskea
polycarpa, Pylaisaea intricata. And now I must tell you of my great
disappointment. I was sick and could not go to the marsh, and there will be
no other opportunity this season but I have just the nicest arrangement for
next summer, and that is that you be my guest for a week at any time you may
choose between the first of July and the first of Sept. another year, you
will observe that I do not see the least objection to it, for you must have
vacation some time as well as we miserable teachers and did you not say
“you envied the gentleman who would accompany me?” please think
seriously of my arrangement and put a note in your memorandum at some point
in July or Aug. 1865 for I am very much in fear of losing track of you during
the winter. We have been out for a day’s ramble up another mountain and
discovered Collinsonia Canadensis, Desmodium nudiflorum, Hydrocotyle interrupta, Eupatorium ageratoides. I am
just on the start for a few days ramble in Rensselaerville,
Albany Co. just back of the Catskill Mountains but the season is so far
advanced I fear my discoveries will be few, will report on my return. I am
really glad you do not dislike my rambling way of correspondence for I have a
gross fault, that it is difficult to correct, and that is of letting the
thing that enters the brain first come out, when a second thought sometimes
proves now unwise and childish for one so old, and I know I am foolishly fond
of my studies in Botany, but who cares if one finds delight in it, when so
much of life is made up of what is not the delightful. I am very glad that I
am so constituted as to find enjoyment of the purest kind in it, most of my
rambles are entirely alone with nature and I sometimes find myself actually
talking to the little mosses hid away among our rocks. I sit down to rest
anywhere and invariably discover something new just at hand. If I were not
sometimes cross when people will not be what I call true and just and
patriotic; and sundry other defects I mourn in my disposition, I should be a
happy old maid living as a child with my parents. There! do
you know I think you Judge know how to make me say these things because you
are a lawyer. I did not intend to let you know that at all. But I must close
this and write to my pet brother in the army, who has just lost his horse
which was indeed a veteran, having served ever since the first call for
volunteers. As
ever your disciple Rhoda
Waterbury Judge
Clinton Recd
Sept. 1 ansd 2d.
Hydrocotyle interrupta
Muhl. ex Elliott = H. verticillata Thunb. is a rare plant in “... and did you not say “you
envied the gentleman who would accompany me?”:
this is some indication of the sort of “postal flirting” to which
Schoharie County was first settled by a colony
of German Palatinates in 1711. They vied with the Dutch for settlement in the
territory, intermarried with them, but seemed to maintain their ethnic
dominance in the county through to the 1860’s. Rhoda’s eldest
brother managed a mill in Rensselaerville (see
letter November 1865 below). Rensselaerville in 1860 is a township
in Albany County: “Its surface is mostly upland, broken by parallel
ridges extending N. and S. and rising 400 to 600 feet above the valleys. The
principal streams are Catskill Creek and its tributaries, Scrub, Fox, Ten
Mile, and Eight Mile Creeks, and Willow Brook. The valleys of these streams
are narrow, and are bordered by steep hill sides, and the streams are rapid,
and subject to sudden and destructive freshets. Upon Ten Mile Creek, near Rensselaerville, is a fall of 100 feet; and upon Willow
Brook is another of 40 feet.” (French, 1860, p. 165). |
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Sullivant’s Plate 4 |
