Biography

English-born physician, teacher and naturalist based in Middleton, Connecticut. Joseph Barratt was a close friend of John Torrey and through him also acquainted with Asa Gray. He left a historically important herbarium at Wesleyan University, although most of his duplicates were given directly to Torrey, and Barratt's collection is almost certainly his most valuable contribution to botany, and indeed to science. An enthusiastic man with an aptitude for observation Barratt was not, however, hugely successful and was rarely able to focus on one project long enough to see it through to completion. This was probably partly because of his widespread interests, covering the fields of medicine, botany, ornithology, entomology, chemistry, mineralogy, meteorology and geology, as well as local history, ethnology and linguistics.

Born in Little Hallam, Derbyshire, Barratt took up the study of medicine in London in 1810 and by 1816 was a practising physician in Leicester. For an unknown reason he left England in 1819 bound for the United States and settled in Philipstown, New York, where he continued working as a medical practitioner. At this time he began to botanise and met the acquaintance of John Torrey, developing a correspondence with him by 1822.

In 1824-1825 he taught at the Academy of Norwich, Vermont, and with his proximity to the white mountains ascended Mt. Washington while there. In 1825 he returned to Philipstown and his practice but the following year began to work as a botany, chemistry and mineralogy teacher at Captain Alden Partridge's American Literary, Scientific and Military Academy in Middleton, Connecticut. Barratt would remain in that town for the rest of his life, although the academy closed around 1828 and at this time he resumed his activities as a physician. Very active in the community Barratt could be found attempting to re-stock the Connecticut River with salmon, investigating a boiler explosion, advising the Farmers' Club on various aspects of cultivation and fertilisation or judging awards at the local agricultural society's fairs.

As a collector Barratt worked until 1845 gathering all variety of specimens but was particularly interested in the willows (Salix L.) and became quite an expert on their taxonomy. Shipping specimens across the Atlantic to England he caught the attention of Sir William Hooker who sent Barratt specimens to identify and even asked him to contribute a section to his Flora Boreali-Americana (1838). Barratt declined but did send a synopsis which Hooker relied heavily on in this flora. He also provided Torrey with much support for the Salix section of his Flora of New York (1843) and in 1834 presented his own monograph of the North American willows to the New York Lyceum, although he was unable to publish for financial reasons. Barratt was also interested in members of the Cyperaceae family. Although he was never a member of staff at the Wesleyan University, Barratt was amongst the instigators of its Cuverian Society and gave some short courses on botany. Now his 3,000 mounted specimens make up the most important part of the university's herbarium (WECO) while most of his 40,000 duplicates were given directly to Torrey.

In later life Barratt's attention turned to geology and in this field he developed some very eccentric ideas which led to his eventual admittance into an insane asylum, where he died in 1882. Studying the Triassic sandstone of the Connecticut Valley he began to see what he believed were the imprints of mammals and birds much like ostriches and kangaroos. Barratt even claimed to have found a four-toed human footprint and named the creature Homo tetradactylos, imagining that these early humans domesticated the other animals he had identified. Naming this period the "Kalorimazoic" and placing it within the Eocene, Barratt even published a pamphlet on his theory in 1874. It is said that when he was refused entry to a geology convention, he snuck in at night and decked the building with illustrations of his theory for the attendees to find in the morning. He became so obsessed with his findings that he locked himself away and neglected his business and social life and so he was committed to the Connecticut Hospital for the Insane.

Sources:
J.W. Grimes and S. Keller, 1982, "The herbarium of Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut", Brittonia, 34(4): 368-375
C.A. Weatherby, 1921, "Old-time Connecticut botanists and their herbaria, II", Rhodora, 23(270): 121-125, 171-177
E. Warner, "Dr. Joseph Barratt: Renaissance Man Or Unreliable Genius?", Middletown Patch:
http://middletown-ct.patch.com/articles/renaissance-man-or-unreliable-genius barrie.