|
Correspondence of Elizabeth Atwater and G. W.
Clinton |
|
The Correspondence of Elizabeth Atwater (1812‑1878) and George William Clinton (1807‑1885) Edited by P. M. Eckel, P.O. Box 299, Missouri Botanical
Garden, St. Louis, Missouri, 63166‑0299; email: mailto:patricia.eckel@mobot.org Introduction In Charles Mohr's letters, dating from 1867 to 1879,
there is reference to a woman, Elizabeth Emerson Atwater, the wife of Samuel
T. Atwater. Mrs. Atwater was also a correspondent of George W. Clinton and so
it is appropriate to post a series of
her letters as well as Mohr's. These postings are the draft transcriptions of the
Editor of the letters of George Clinton, first president of the Buffalo
Society of Natural Sciences, currently housed in the Research Library of the
Buffalo Museum of Science, Buffalo, New York. Since it is doubtful that
sufficient time and liesure will be available in the immediate future to
produce a finished analysis of the letters, it was thought pragmatic to
produce the actual letters to speak for themselves to the reading public.
This decision would at least provide a new source of information to
interested students on the history and manners of botanists in the United
States during the two decades of the 1860's and 1870's in the venue of the
Internet. Elizabeth E. Atwater was the wife of Samuel T. Atwater,
an official of the United States Government during the administration of
Abraham Lincoln at least, and probably in the diplomatic corps. Emerson may
have been her maiden name. She was on speaking terms with Mary Todd Lincoln
after President Lincoln's assassination and received "a gorgeous,
photographic Album presented me on last New Years day by Mrs. Lincoln, wife
of our martyrd President" (March 36, 1867). Her husband's business
apparently allowed her to travel to various parts of the United States where
she enjoyed collecting objects of natural history. Such collections afforded
her a distinguished correspondence, of which George W. Clinton of Buffalo,
New York, was a member. It is her letters to George Clinton that are transcribed
in this posting. The letters date from March, 1866 to February, 1874. The Research Library of the Buffalo Museum of Science
also has an album of cartes‑de‑visite photographs of botanists
from the 1860's and ‑70's, but, although there is one picture of a
young woman, unidentified, all the others are accounted for ‑ and there
is no Elizabeth Atwater. It is not for want of asking that there is no image.
On March 36, 1867 she wrote about the request of a representative of the
Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences: "I
owe Mr. Marshall an apology for having so long delayed a response to his note
‑ asking for my picture (?). While hesitating as to the
expediency of sitting for this object, time has passed on ‑ leaving me
in the character of a delinquent. Should
I sit for my carte and the result be satisfactory ‑ that is ‑
look as much like me as any one else ‑ I shall take pleasure in
forwarding it to Mr. Marshall." Reminded
again for her photograph, she wrote Clinton on April 26, 1867: "Relative
to the carte, I beg you, Sir, give me the credit for an earnest
endeavor to respond to your application. I did sit ‑ no less
than four times. The result ‑ ask you? Anything but satisfactory. Had
it looked no worse than the original it should have been forwarded forthwith.
If there be any variation from the truth ‑ I claim that it be in my
favor! My friends rebel at my photographs, invariably, for the reason, that
what little expression my face affords is drawn out in conversation; in
repose it is, if possible, more stupid. Have you ever known such persons? If
so you can appreciate my position. If not, I ask you to believe that I speak
truthfully. Should not the artist be disgusted with me, and I with him, a truthful
picture may, at last ensue. Am I exonerated from the charge of
"perverseness?" On March 30, 1870: "Relative to my photograph
for the Society, I am too ill to sit for one and were I not, it would be a
most unsatisfactory effort ‑ I have such an inexplicable face that
artists cannot portray it. However, should I recover, I will yield to the
solicitations of friends, and make one more attempt." Mrs. Atwater was said by Mary Clark, of Michigan,
another Clinton correspondent, to be from Greenport, Long Island, ("I
enclose two plants which you will please accept ‑ probably both are
familiar to you ‑ the delicate one was sent me with the mate to it by
Ms. Atwater from Green Port L. Island & which she says "grew down by
the sea." She calls the flower orange color ‑ but it is certainly
red now, as it was when it reached me. I named it Spergula rubra variety
marina" Say if it is not too much trouble if my diagnosis is
correct." Mary Clark, Aug. 25, 1866). Elizabeth and her husband spent
their summers in this town, a respite from sweltering, humid Chicago, where
they resided in hotels during the period of the letters, notably the Clifton
House, but later the Gardner House. New York, however, seems to be her native
state (April 12, 1870). One might read some of the novels of Edith Wharton to
get an idea of hotel life in this period. In her letter of March 36, 1867, Elizabeth mentions her
education, in Troy, New York, at Madame Emma Willard's Seminary (see
illustration at end of this Introduction). She received a finished education
for women of high social status or high expectations and enjoyed the
acquaintance of women in similar circumstances, such as Elizabeth P. Stevens
(letter December 4, 1868), who resided for a while in Ciudad Bolivar on the
Orinoco river in Venezuela, and her sister. Mrs. Atwater actually resided in
Buffalo, New York, and perhaps for some time: on March 36, 1867, she stated:
"I fain would be, or would have been a scientific Botanist, and,
no doubt, should have made some proficiency had not so many years of
my residence in Buffalo been those of a confirmed invalid." Also Mary H. Clark (1813‑1875) of Ann Arbor,
Michigan, originally of New York State. Mary was founder and principal, or
headmistress, of The Misses Clark's School, or the Misses Clark's Young
Ladies' Seminary, an earlier name. In a footnote, Voss (1978) indicated the
Michigan school was founded on Emma Willard's Troy Female Seminary, which
Mary was supposed to have attended. Voss discussed the omission of her name
in a list of students published in 1898, and the possibility of her not
attending that institution. Her mutual acquaintance with Elizabeth Atwater,
who had, lends some support to Clark's being an alumna after all. It is Miss
Clark, apparently, who provided the connection between Judge Clinton and Mrs
Atwater (April 6, 1868: " Mrs. Atwater lives in Chicago & her
address is ‑ "Mrs. Elizabeth Atwater Clifton House Chicago.")
Miss Clark says, on February 4, 1869, " Mrs. Morris, the niece of Mrs.
Atwater who accompanied her this summer, has given me some nice specimens of
Aspidium fragrans which she says they picked at Berlin Falls, Vt. ‑ I
do not find such a place on the map but believe I give you the state
correctly. Is it a new locality?". Elizabeth Atwater and Mary Clark were
on very good terms, for she resided with her in Chicago, a letter of August
17, 1870 from that great city states: "Looking over Mrs. Atwater's ferns
since I have been staying with her I noticed "A. montanum"
one of the ferns which I lack to make a complete collection of all mentioned
in Gey's new book. Could you give it me & the others I particularly want ‑
Asplenium ebenoides, Aspidium Clintonianum & A. Felix mas & Woodsia
Oregana? You once spoke of giving me some ferns from greenhouses. They would
be very acceptable." The letter ends "Mrs. Atwater desires me to
present her compliments." Elizabeth also wrote to Charles Peck, the curator of
botany at the State Cabinet, protege of George Clinton, specialist in
bryology and eventually an expert in mycology in Albany, New York. She wrote
Clinton on December 4, 1868: "I regret to say to you that I plucked, I
am almost certain, the only plants of the Heather which could be found on
Nantucket Island, and I fear that, in my excitement, I so successfully
dislodged the roots, no more will ever be found. I forwarded a specimen to
your friend Mr. Peck, of Albany, and trust it reached him safely." This letter came after one Clinton wrote to Charles Peck
on November 2, 1868, and perhaps he asked her to find more: "Did I write
you that Mrs. E. E. Atwater found, last summer, Calluna on Nantucket Island? If yes, I retract. It
was a true Erica. I think E. cinerea but have not confidence in my
determination of the species." And on February 9, 1869, she wrote Clinton: "As you
desire it, I will look up spms of the Dianthus Armeria L. and forward to Mr.
Peck, ‑ although not having acknowledged the plant and accompanying
note which I forwarded to his address last Autumn, I feel a delicacy in
intruding myself again upon his attention." Her displeasure with Peck
was communicated to him, as Clinton wrote at the bottom of this letter
"wrote to Mr. Peck." Peck wrote Clinton on February 15, 1869,
referring to some matter, perhaps regarding this letter: "I will make
all right with Mrs. Atwater."; and on May 1, 1869, "Mrs. Atwater
sends Spiranthes graminea from Greenport, also the white flowered
Sabattia stellaris.". Her specimens were communicated to Asa Gray by Clinton,
November 5, 1873, but such requests tried Gray's gallantry: "Your
express parcel goes back to‑day. I gave 2 hours to it yesterday ‑
enough to set you generally on the track. To
have named all species, with my failing memory would have required at
least 2 days hard work. Mr. Watson & I are at work against time
on Flora of California which will enable Mrs. Atwater & all others to
name her plants, if she will study them. But when is it to be got out, if we
stop to name miscellaneous collections picked up on way to California &
back. Now,
you potter on with the clues I have given you ‑ or be
content with genus ‑ till the Fl. Calif. comes out." Note will be made of a rather elusive figure in the
Clinton correspondence, that of Miss Mary Wilson. She was closely associated
with the early herbarium of the young Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences,
assisting Clinton in the organization of its first herbarium and going on to
make a study of lichens. She was recognized by the foremost lichenologist in
the United States, Edward Tuckerman of Amherst College, in his publications. Unlike the women of Elizabeth Atwater's station, Miss
Wilson does not appear to have possessed the advantages of social status. She
did, however, have the patronage of a powerful political personage both in
the State of New York, and locally, in the City of Buffalo, and arguably, nationally
in George W. Clinton, son of DeWitt Clinton, and an emblem of the Democratic
Party. However, such patronage could be a double‑edged sword. Women involving themselves in scientific study at this
particular period faced many dilemmas, as I am sure many studies of women
scholars in this era of post Civil War have discussed. Looked at solely from
the vantage of the letters in the Clinton correspondence, one can see some of
the practical effects or consequences to various women in their approaches to
the study of natural history. At this point in history, the few decades from the end
of the Civil War, there were still many regions of the world, indeed in the
United States, with floras that were unknown to science. Charles Mohr, as a
young man, courted death many times to make botanical collections, most of
which were lost to disasters en route. He would declare in his letters that
he did not wish to burden science with names he erected, describing species
of plants unknown to science, only to have them synonymized later after more
careful study. He is very modest about his own ability to describe new
plants. However, his modesty seems to disappear with the advent of other
scholars describing new species based on plants he has collected, with the
expectation that the new species would bear his names as epithet, or as
author, were he to publish a species identified as new by a recognized
scholar ‑ or even to have the type specimen chosen from one of his
collections. Many times in the Clinton correspondence is reference
made to a near mania for describing new species or having new species named
after someone, the former usually by a scholar, the latter by a collector.
Since many had neither the time, inclination or resources to be a scholar,
they settled for being collectors. The opening up of hinterlands by the advent of the new
railway systems that mushroomed during and after the Civil War, meant that
women of refinement, with their distinguished contacts, could spend their
leisure hours on railroad cars or other conveyances, enjoying the relative
luxury of hotels and resorts, for instance in Europe, protected by their
husbands and their government or business associates and associations, and
collect biological specimens. Some specimens were likely to be new to
science. Gallantry, such as that exhibited by George Clinton, induced these
women to send their specimens to famous scholars, such as Asa Gray. It is
probable that Bryum Atwateriae C. M. Bull. Torr. Club 5:35.
1874, now Bryum miniatum Lesq. was named after our Elizabeth,
and there are doubtless other epithets that actually do bear her name. A refined education at a women's seminary where botany
was taught with French lessons and handwriting prepared a woman for a
smattering of science, enough to manage in the bewildering array of botanical
wealth. They could stock a conservatory, fill a charming herbarium book,
plant a garden, communicate beautiful letters and travel with their husbands.
At this period where the natural sciences and other
endeavors were becoming professionalized and the status of amateur arising as
a necessary corollary, a woman attempting to be a scholar, as Miss Mary
Wilson did with her organization of Clinton's botanical collections and
endeavor to study lichenology, endured a different kind of experience. Such
women were entering a world dominated by scholars who were male. What were
the factors involved in succeeding in such a world? What could make a woman
fail? For Miss Wilson failed and perhaps one can get a glimpse of why this
happened in the few lines in Elizabeth's letters in which Mary is mentioned. One can detect a coolness in Mrs. Atwater's compliance
with Clinton's encouragement for her to interact with Miss Wilson, to send
her specimens for study. On September 18, 1873 she wrote: "Thanks for
your kind note enclosed in Miss Wilsons, which followed me to California. I
regret to say that of Miss Wilsons' particular pets I found scarcely any. I
enclosed in the box one bright sp'm from the Sequoia giganteus at the
Calaveras group of Big Trees for her." The coolness of her sympathy when
she writes on February 26, 1874 that: "I was surprised to learn that
Miss Wilson was losing her interest in the Academy [i.e. at Buffalo]. I
sincerely trust that ill health was not the cause. It seemed that her
enthusiasm would be adequate to overcoming all obstacles." It would not
be long before Miss Wilson disappears from Buffalo and the Society to which
she had devoted so much of her attention. There is no doubt that within her social environment,
Mrs. Atwater is one of the most charming and loveliest. She had integrity and
honesty, and one might presume she recognized these qualities in others, as
well as when they were lacking. To ascribe any "mania" to Mrs.
Atwater is not borne out by the personality of her letters. It is much more
likely that it is Clinton's excessive gallantry that is the source of a sense
of aggression. On March 36, 1867, Elizabeth wrote: "And now let me disabuse
you of an impression which you have, I fear, imbibed, and which I may have
encouraged ‑ yet not intentionally, relative to my knowledge of Botany.
I fain would be, or would have been a scientific Botanist, and, no
doubt, should have made some proficiency had not so many years of my
residence in Buffalo been those of a confirmed invalid. On this point I am
extremely sensitive ‑ that of receiving credit for merits, or
acquirements to which I have no claim." Mrs. Atwater's collecting specimens of all kinds to
enrich the young natural history institutions of America proved a delightful
basis for friendship and utility. Indeed, her motives for doing so, among
many, are likely to have included the same ones possessed by her
correspondent: a desire to contribute to the cultural distinction of a twice‑new
nation ‑ one at its founding, the second at the affirmation of its
union. The Chicago Academy of Sciences, as well as the Buffalo
Society of Natural Sciences, to name only two institutions, benefited from her
efforts. The Index Herbariorum Part II "Collectors" A‑D,
Regnum Vegetabile vol. 2 compiled by J. Lanjouw and F. A. Stafleu, 1954,
makes no mention of E. E. Atwater, Mary Clark, or Mary Wilson, although the
Stevens woman (women?) do receive mention. Atwater's specimens reside both at
BUF, the herbarium of the Buffalo Museum of Science, and at the Chicago
Academy of Sciences (CACS). Her mineralogical collections are among the 20,000
specimens of the Chicago Academy. On the Website for the Academy, it is
stated "Among the highlights [of the botanical collections] are some of
the earliest known specimens from the Chicago area, collected by Elizabeth
Atwater, dating back to the 1850's." Perhaps the most interesting
collections, for the purpose of knowing more about Mrs. Atwater, would be
among the archival materials of the Academy for "Among the more esoteric
collections is a scrapbook of Elizabeth Atwater, which contains, among other
things, specimens of George and Martha Washington's hair." Elizabeth enjoyed
collecting autographs: on March 36, 1867, she wrote to Clinton:
"Speaking of Madame Emma Willard brings to mind the fact that knowing me
to be a collector of autographs, she not long since enclosed for my
acceptance an autograph note of your father's, adding, that to no other
person would she part with it." Although she herself did not sit for a
photograph, at least according to her statements to Clinton, as noted above,
Mrs. Abraham Lincoln did present her with a great, empty photograph album
which she, no doubt, endeavored to fill. The Chicago Academy's Website can be reached at: http://www.chias.org/biology/bota.html Acknowledgements I thank Marshall Crosby and Bob Magill for research
support and use of the Web facilities of the Missouri Botanical Garden. I
thank John Grehan and David Hemmingway for permitting access to the Clinton
Herbarium and the Research Library at the Buffalo Museum of Science, Buffalo,
New York. Richard Zander, architect of the Res Botanica Website, was
instrumental in the posting of these letters and images. Bibliography Voss, Edward G. 1978. Botanical Beachcombers and
Explorers: Pioneers of the 19th century in the upper Great Lakes. Contributions
from the University of Michigan Herbarium Volume 13, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Note Editor's
comments are in square brackets. At the beginning of every letter there is a
volume number and another number (e.g. Vol. 5 No. 116). This is George Clinton's
own system for organizing his letters in sequence, the volumes roughly
corresponding to a given year and a number given each letter as he received
it. Actually only the letter number occurs on each individual letter);
Clinton later had his letters bound together into volumes. The letter and
number in square brackets is part of the numbering and cataloguing or
inventory system developed during the 1990's at the Research Library of the
Buffalo Museum of Science. On each letter, the black ink is Clinton's
handwriting, the pencil marks are the library's. At the bottom of each letter
Clinton wrote the date when he received it and whether he took action. P.
M. Eckel St.
Louis Illustration
below: Elizabeth mentions her education, in Troy, New York, at
Madame Emma Willard's Seminary. She received a finished education and enjoyed
the acquaintance of women in similar circumstances. Image from French,
J. H. 1860. Gazetteer of the State of New York. Syracuse. Reprinted
1986 by Heart of the Lakes Publishing, Interlaken, New York. |
|
|