Jacob Whitman Bailey

American naturalist (1811–1857)

Jacob Whitman Bailey (1811–1857) was an American naturalist, known as the pioneer in microscopic research in America.

Jacob Whitman Bailey was born in Auburn, Massachusetts on April 29, 1811, and in 1832 graduated at West Point, where, after 1834, he was successively assistant professor, acting professor, and professor of chemistry, mineralogy, and geology. At West Point he studied with John Torrey. He devised various improvements in the construction of the microscope and made an extensive collection of microscopic objects and of algae, which he left to the Boston Society of Natural History. In 1857 he was president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, as well as a member of the National Institute for the Promotion of Science, a precursor to the Smithsonian Institution. He was elected an Associate Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS) in 1845. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1852. Bailey and his son William were survivors of the steamboat Henry Clay disaster on July 28, 1852, though his wife and daughter, both named Maria, were among the casualties. The genus Baileya, a North American genus of sun loving wildflowers native to the deserts of northern Mexico and the Southwestern United States was named by botanists William Henry Harvey and Asa Gray in honor of their colleague Jacob Whitman Bailey. It was Jacob Whitman Bailey that Lieut. Matthew Fontaine Maury wrote a letter to inquiring as to the material from the sea floor brought up with Lt. John Mercer Brook's deep sea soundings and core samples. From that it was determined that the sea floor where the trans Atlantic Cable was laid because the samples showed Lieut. M. F. Maury that his "Telegraphic Plateau" was perfect for the underwater cable. The samples Maury sent proved the "Telegraphic Plateau" samples were non abrasive for such a cable to be laid. Bailey was buried at the West Point Cemetery.