A Botanical Association Involving Elizabeth Pym, Peter Collinson, Sir Hans Sloane, and Admiral Sir Charles Wager

Abstract

Elizabeth Pym wrote a letter in 1742 from the island of Nevis, in the Caribbean Sea, to Peter Collinson in London, describing various botanical samples she was sending him, including two coffee plants. The letter was found inside Volume II of Sir Hans Sloane’s “A Voyage to the Islands Madera …” housed at Oak Spring Garden Library in Virginia. Collinson received both volumes as gifts, with Volume I inscribed to him by Admiral Sir Charles Wager and Volume II inscribed by Sloane. The letter serves as a rare example documenting the collection of botanical specimens by a woman in the New World.