Early in their communications, Professor Benjamin Silliman, professor of sciences at Yale College, was planning his first issue of American Journal of Science. Edward Hitchcock was among its earliest contributors. The two men had not yet met face-to-face.
Hitchcock introduced Miss Orra White to Professor Silliman as the person who had helped to prepare the map of the Connecticut River Valley. He also sent Orra's drawings ("views") of Deerfield's Mount Sugarloaf and the waterfall at Turners Falls a few miles further, thinking that Silliman might publish them in the journal as illustrations. When Silliman gently turned them down, Hitchcock quickly disavowed any intention of publishing them in American Journal of Science.
In a letter dated October 18, 1817, from Edward Hitchcock to Benjamin Silliman, he wrote:
I have been much assisted in execution of the maps by Miss White, preceptress of Deerfield Academy. Perhaps it is not strictly proper to introduce the views of Sugar Loaf & the Falls in such an essay as this. Yet they are striking features in the physical character of this section of the country.