SEVENTH GENERATION

120. Lieutenant William Torrey ⁽²⁾ was born on Sep 15 1759 in Boston, Massachusetts. He died on Oct 8 1831 in New York City. The following is from the Torrey family Bible, in my possession, and was written there by Samuel Whittemore Torrey as related to him by his father, William Torrey, the son of Lieutenant William Torrey.
"William Torrey was born in Boston Sept. 15th 1759. In June 1776 he left his father, then at Montreal, at the solicitation of his father's brother, Major Joseph Torrey, and joined the "Congress Own," light infantry regiment, under the command of Col. Hazen, and was appointed an Ensign of the regiment. A short time after his father joined the same regiment. He was at the Battle of White Plains when the army was on its retreat to the City of New York, under the command of General Washington. Col. Hazen's regiment covered the retreat and it occurred that the company of which William was ensign was the last on the march and he, as Ensign, was the last man. The captain of this company was Capt. (after Major) Popham, subsequently President of the Society of the Cincinnati of the State of New York. Our army on its retreat left some of their cannon. Ensign Torrey (then 17 years of age) told his men that he would have one shot at the enemy. He therefore loaded one of the pieces full to the muzzle, wheeled it around, and aimed it [at] the enemy, who in solid column, were marching up the road, and fired it with the touchrope which had been left burning beside the gun. The next day, being sent to the enemy with a flag of truce he inquired what was the effect of that last shot, and was told that it killed eight men. He was with his regiment at Brandywine, at Germantown, and at the Siege of Yorktown, when Cornwallis surrendered. Ensign (then Lieutenant) Torrey was at Valley Forge during all the severe winter of 1780. His regiment was with the army which marched into New York City on Evacuation day, by way of the Bowery to the Battery, Novr. 26th, 1783. He commanded the platoon of men which led Major Andre to Execution.
"After the war he made Captain and was stationed at Plattsburgh, N.C. [N.Y., surely] where he remained two years. In 1792 he married Margaret, daughter of Lewis Nichols. He was Alderman of the sixth Ward for some years."
William Torrey was a founding member of the Society of the Cincinnati. As alderman, he was given a ride on Robert Fulton's new steamboat, the Clermont, in 1807, the year it was built, and took his young son William (No. 60), then aged nine, along for the ride. He was married to Margaret Nichols on Jul 30 1793 in New York City.

121. Margaret Nichols^{(2) (59)} was born on Nov 9 1768 in New York City. She died on Oct 7 1839 in Fishkill, New York. Children were:

i. Lewis Torrey was born on Sep 1 1794. He died on Dec 2 1817.
ii. John Torrey⁽⁴²⁾ was born on Aug 15 1796. He died on Mar 10 1873. John Torrey was one of the most famous American botanists of the nineteenth century, equaled, perhaps, only by his pupil, Asa Gray.
In 1810, his father was appointed fiscal agent for the state prison located in what is now Greenwich Village. Incarcerated there for forgery was Amos Eaton, later the founder of the Renssaeler Polytechnic Institute, who fired John's interest in the natural world and plants. He studied medicine at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York (earning an M.D. degree in 1818) and while a student helped to found the Lyceum of Natural History, the forerunner of the New York Academy of Science. A committee of three was appointed by the Lyceum to prepare a catalog of plants living near New York, and on December 22, 1817, "A Catalogue of Plants Growing Spontaneously Within Thirty Miles of the City of New York" was presented. Most of it is known to have been written by John Torrey and it has always been known as Torrey's Catalogue.
Government expeditions to explore the West at this time gathered plants which were then turned over to Torrey for study and he was the first to scientifically describe and name hundreds of plants from North America. The Torrey pines, which grow only in the area of Monterey, California, are named in his honor as is Torrey's Peak in Colorado. Torrey climbed Torrey's peak in 1872, when he was 76 years old.
In 1823 he published "A Flora of the Northern and Middle Sections of the United States.
In 1824 he married Eliza Shaw and moved to West Point, where he was appointed a professor of chemistry, mineralogy, and geology. In 1827 he returned to New York City and was named professor of chemistry at the College of Physicians and Surgeons. He would be active as a professor there until 1855 and would be a professor emeritus there the rest of his life. He also became a professor at Princeton University. In 1836 he was appointed state botanist and wrote the two-volume "Flora of New York State," published in 1843. He collaborated with Asa Gray, his protege, on a "Flora of North America," but the work was never completed.
In 1839 he was elected a foreign member of the Linnean Society of London and in 1841 a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Over the years he built up the largest and most valuable botanical library and herbarium in North America. About 1860 he donated it to Columbia College. In 1899 the college deposited it at the newly established New York Botanical Garden.
In 1853 he was appointed United States Assayer, at which time he resigned as a professor at Princeton and from active work at Columbia. He traveled to California by way of Panama in 1865 on Treasury Department business, and spent the winter of 1871-72 in Florida, then a near wilderness.
He apparently possessed a remarkable personality "characterized by integrity, sagacity, and studiousness, but above all by a certain ingenuousness and genial friendliness, which increased with age." In his old age he gathered a group of young botanists about him and in 1867 they formed the Torrey Botanical Club and in 1870 began publishing the Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club, the oldest botanical monthly in the United States. At the end of the century the Torrey Botanical Club would be instrumental in forming the New York Botanical Garden.
An article on Torrey is in the Dictionary of American Biography and a biography of him, John Torrey: A Story of American Botany, by Andrew Denny Rodgers III, was published in 1942.
60 iii. William Torrey.
iv. Ebenezer Torrey was born on Mar 6 1800. He died on Feb 17 1801.
v. Mary Torrey was born on Aug 7 1802. She died on Nov 21 1819.
vi. Margaret Torrey was born on Feb 24 1804. She died on Nov 16 1804.
vii. Joseph Torrey was born on Jan 9 1806. He died on May 8 1893.
viii. James Torrey was born on Feb 11 1808. He died on Sep 21 1880.
ix. Edward Torrey was born on Oct 25 1809. He died on Sep 10 1873.

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