Sir,

          My young Friend, Benjamin Cowell Jr. of Providence, R.I. is solicitous for an appointment in the S.S.E. [South Seas Exploring] Expedition. His Father. Judge Cowell informs me that his son is well acquainted with Natural History so far as it relates to Ornithology. Indeed I have in my possession a Specimen of his ingenuity and taste in this pursuit. He is a member of the N.E. [New England] Society of Natural History and as Assistant to the Professor of Natural History might make himself useful and possessing a happy equanimity of temper, he would not fail to render himself a very agreeable fellow Passenger.”

            The irony of his letter is that the recipient, Andrew Jackson’s Navy Secretary, had been the inveterate opponent of the plan, stalled for nearly ten years, to send a Naval expedition to explore the islands of the Pacific. Dickerson stalled so long in issuing sailing orders for the Expedition that in November 1837, six months after Governor Francis wrote this letter, the Commodore originally slated to command the flotilla, resigned.  Not until President Martin Van Buren came into office the following year that in August 1838 the Expedition, soon to go down in American scientific history, finally set sail, commanded by Charles Wilkes, a mere Navy Lieutenant, accompanied by several officers with real scientific knowledge who resented his authority. It was typical of the earlier problems that beset the project that Francis thought a young man whose only claim to fame was being the son of a US District Court Judge might “make himself useful” on the Expedition.

In fact, 19-year-old Benjamin Cowell, Jr., bird lover though might be, never put his Ornithological passions to professional use, though he did take several long sea voyages – as a 49er to California early in the Gold Rush, where he found his cousins (later notable benefactors of the University of California) getting rich in the Limestone business. On a later trip to San Francisco, the steamer on which Cowell was travelling was shipwrecked off the California coast.  Maybe that was enough adventure for the Judge’s son. He soon settled down in Peoria, Illinois, where he established a Homeopathic Pharmacy and remained for the rest of his life as a prosperous merchant.