Biography

American school teacher and botanist in Illinois. Henry Homes Babcock was born in Thetford, Vermont and studied at Thetford academy and Dartmouth College between 1849 and 1851. The following year he began to teach at the Second Middle School in Dedham, Massachusetts but in 1854 resigned to take up a position in a grammar school in Newton. Made a principal of the High School of Somerville in 1860 he remained there for seven years before moving from Massachusetts to Chicago. Here Babcock established a girls' academy and was principal of this establishment until 1880 when he was named associate principal of Atheneum Academy in Chicago.

Interested in botany he also worked as a professor in this subject at the Chicago College of Pharmacy and after his move to Illinois collected some 10,000 specimens in this state. His herbarium is largely housed in Northwestern University after it was donated in 1887, although some duplicates can be found in the herbarium of the Missouri Botanical Garden. A member of the Chicago Literary Club he published a work on the debate surrounding limits to state funded education. Babcock was married to Mary Porter Lincoln Keyes of Somerville in 1861 and he died in Chicago in 1881.

Sources:
R.H. Mohlenbrock, 1982, "Illinois Solanaceae in the Missouri Botanical Garden Herbarium and Biographical Sketches of Some Collectors", Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden, 69(2): 382-392
Dedham historical register (Volume v.11-12 1900-01), Dedham Historical Society (Mass.):
http://www.ebooksread.com/authors-eng/dedham-historical-society-mass/dedham-historical-register-volume-v11-12-1900-01-hde/page-2-dedham-historical-register-volume-v11-12-1900-01-hde.shtml, accessed 15 February 2011.