Based on the following evidence, the writer of these diaries has been identified as Mrs. Benjamin Eddy Cotting (nee Catherine Green Sawyer), who died in 1881. The 4 volumes located at MS A8a, written by a woman who refers to "the Dr" as if he were her husband, includes her account of the April 1865 voyage of the Colorado to Brazil with "the Professor" and "Mrs A. Agassiz." "A Journey in Brazil," 1868 (Ellis Aves C7) mentions in the foreword that his old friends, Dr. and Mrs. B. E. Cotting, accompanied him. Spencer Research library’s manuscript does not mention a Dr. C or Mrs. C.

MS A8b, written by the same person, mentions a gentleman putting her in a cab, and giving his love to Cotting. A former owner (bookseller? librarian?) has written in pencil on the cover of vol. 1 "Cotting, Mrs BE. Journey to Brazil." Benjamin Eddy Cotting, 1812-1897, is named in the National Union Catalogue as the author of a number of medical books, most published in Boston.

Author has to journey to New York, apparently from New England. Benjamin Eddy Cotting was a curator of the Lowell Institute in 1817 when he took the sick Agassiz into his home (Ellis Aves B17); original cataloguer suspected they lived in Massachusetts, probably Boston suburbs.

An obituary of Benjamin Eddy Colling (Boston Transcript, May 22, 1897) indicates his wife was Miss Catherine Green Sawyer of Newport, R.I., who died in 1881. Additional information supporting this identification can be found in the 1880 U.S. Census and in another obituary of her husband (Transactions of the New Hampshire Medical Society, 1897, p. 304).