John Torrey

John Torrey (August 15, 1796 – March 10, 1873) was an American botanist, chemist, and physician. Throughout much of his career, he was a teacher of chemistry, often at multiple universities, while he also pursued botanical work, focusing on the flora of North America. His most renowned works include studies of the New York flora, the Mexican Boundary, the Pacific railroad surveys, and the uncompleted Flora of North America. Biography Torrey was born in New York City, the second child of Capt. William and Margaret (née Nichols) Torrey. He showed a fondness for mechanics, and at one time planned to become a machinist. When he was 15 or 16, his father received an appointment to the state prison at Greenwich Village, New York, where he was tutored by Amos Eaton, then a prisoner and later a pioneer of natural history studies in America. He thus learned the elements of botany and something of mineralogy and chemistry. In 1815 he began studying medicine with Wright Post, and qualified in 1818. He opened a medical practice in New York City, while devoting his leisure to botany and other scientific pursuits. In 1817, he became one of the founders of the New York Lyceum of Natural History (now the New York Academy of Science), and one of his first contributions to this body was his Catalogue of Plants growing spontaneously within Thirty Miles of the City of New York (Albany, 1819). Its publication gained for him the recognition of foreign and native botanists. In 1824 he issued the only volume of his Flora of the Northern and Middle States. This used John Lindley's system of classifying flora, a way of classifying that was not commonly used in the United States. He found the medical profession uncongenial, and on August 5, 1824, he entered the United States Army as an assistant surgeon and became acting professor of chemistry and geology at West Point military academy. Three years later, he became professor of chemistry and botany in the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York (the medical school of Columbia University), where he stayed until 1855, when he was made professor emeritus. He was also professor of chemistry at Princeton 1830–1854, and of chemistry, mineralogy, and botany at the University of the City of New York 1832/3. He resigned from his Army position on August 31, 1828. In 1835, he was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society.