History of Torrey, (Yates County) New York United States of America

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Samuel Botsford Buckley, naturalist, was born in Torrey, Yates county, N. Y., May 9, 1809. He was graduated at the Wesleyan university in 1836, and the two years following were spent in travelling through the south and west, making botanical, geological, malacological and geodetical investigations. In 1839-40 he was principal of the academy at Allenton, Ala., and in 1842 extended his travels and investigations through the southern and western parts of the country, discovering a nearly complete skeleton of a zeuglodon, twenty-four new species of plants, and a new genus of shrub, which was afterward named "Buckleya" in his honor, by Professor Torrey. He spent some months of 1842-43 in study at the New York college of physicians and surgeons, and in the same year he visited Florida, where he discovered some thirteen new species of shells. In 1858 he ascertained the altitude of several of the highest mountains in Tennessee and the Carolinas by means of the barometer. One of these peaks, Mt. Buckley, in North Carolina, was named in his honor. In 1859-60 he was engaged in collecting materials for a supplement to Michaux and Nuttall's "Sylva," and was employed upon the Texas geological survey of 1860-61, as assistant geologist and naturalist. From 1862 to 1865 he was the chief examiner in the statistical department of the U. S. sanitary commission, and, during 1866-67, state geologist of Texas, which office he again filled from 1874 to 1877, during the latter term constructing two geological maps of that state, and writing a number of articles on the mineral resources and the geological formations of the state for Hitchcock and Blake's Geological Atlas of the United States. In 1871-72 he was scientific editor of the State Gazette, published at Austin, and in 1872 received the degree of Ph.D. from Waco university, Texas. He founded the Texas association of science, was a member of various scientific associations, and a contributor to scientific journals. A full list of his journalistic contributions may be found in the Alumni Record of Wesleyan university (1881-83). At the time of his death he had in preparation a work on the geology and natural history of Texas, and another on the trees and shrubs of the United States. He died in Austin, Texas, Feb. 18, 1884.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

History of Torrey, (Yates County) New York

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