Page 94 - Swann Galleries - Printed & Manuscript Americana - Sale 2310 - April 16, 2013

194 ● (NATURAL HISTORY.) Archive of scientific and family papers of
naturalists William Cooper and his son James Graham Cooper. Approximately 300
items (0.8 linear feet), including 136 letters (40 of them from James G. Cooper), 4 William
Cooper diaries dated 1820-24, 62 photographs, extensive natural history notes, and other
papers; various sizes and conditions, no general condition issues.
Vp, 1818-1921, bulk 1821-1863 [1,500/2,500]
William Cooper (1798-1864) was a zoologist, founder of the New York Academy of
Sciences, and associate of John James Audubon. He is probably best remembered today as the
namesake of Cooper’s Hawk. His son James Graham Cooper (1830-1902) was also a
prominent naturalist.
The collection includes 40 letters from James Graham Cooper to various family members,
mostly 1853-61, many of them written from the west while he was on the 1853 Stevens
Pacific railroad survey and 1860 Blake expedition, and including 3 long illustrated letters from
Panama in 1853. A 9 May 1858 letter discusses at length a visit to Arlington House, home
of Robert E. Lee. Also included are 9 letters from naturalist and surgeon George Suckley,
1855-65, some written while returning from the Stevens expedition, and later as a surgeon in
the Union army.
General John Ellis Wool (1784-1869) was the uncle of William Cooper’s wife Mary. A
folder of related letters includes one long Autograph Letter Signed from Wool to his niece Mary
Cooper, Paris, 29 August 1832; typescripts of 2 letters by Wool from the front in Mexico,
1847 and 1848; and 3 personal family letters to General Wool, 1826-30.
Among the other interesting features of this wide-ranging collection are 4 diaries kept by
William Cooper while touring Europe, 1820-24 * Several of Cooper’s original pencil and
watercolor sketches intended for publication in scientific journals, including a map of his paleon-
tology excavations at Big Bone Lick, 1831, and drawings of mastodon bones * Manuscript
volumes titled “The Genera of North American Plants, Reduced to the Natural Orders of
Decandolle” and “Catalogue of the Birds of New York, April 1831.” A more detailed
inventory is available upon request.