Correspondence from family and colleagues in Massachusetts, New York, and South Carolina to Dennis Cooley. Colleagues include Stephen Elliot, a botanist, who writes about exchanging information on plants; and the botanist and chemist John Torrey, M.D., who writes on exchanging plant specimens, particularly Cryptogamia. H.P. Hartwell also writes about various drugs and other medical matters. Letters from family members Henry, Orrin, Caleb, and Eli address many topics: family matters; personal health; farming and gardening in Massachusetts and Georgia; Orrin's stay at Amherst College and his impressions of its newly-installed president, Heman Humphrey; and economic conditions and the business community in Deerfield, Mass. Another letter by N.C. Cooley gives impressions of Washington, D.C. in 1853, and comments on the construction of many new buildings and monuments. The collection includes a few letters written by Dennis Cooley himself.
