American botanist and lawyer from Essex County, Massachusetts. Trained at Harvard University, William Oakes received his BA in Law in 1820 and practised this profession in Ipswich, Massachusetts between 1824 and 1827. He quickly abandoned this career path however, in favour of the study of natural history and began to observe and collect plants in Essex County and many other regions of Massachusetts, Vermont, and the White Mountains. This latter region was his favourite hunting ground and he often travelled alongside Dr. Charles Pickering, coming to know its flora like no other. A major work of his (although not principally a botanical one) was on the scenery of the White Mountains and was published with illustrations by Isaac Sprague soon after Oakes' death in 1848. Having produced a small flora of Vermont, Oakes hoped to complete a flora of New England but was preceded by Lewis Caleb Beck. Much of his rich herbarium was sent to William Sullivant and Edward Tuckerman for study, the latter of whom named the genus Oakesia in his honour.

Sources:
J. Robinson, 1880, "Sketch of some of the Early Botanists", Bulletin of the Essex Institute, 12: 90-91
F.A. Stafleu and R.S. Cowan, 1976-1998, Taxonomic Literature, 2nd edition (TL-2).