[4] 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.

On August 19, 1857, Augustus Addison Gould delivered a speech to the AAAS in commemoration of Bailey's life.

The speech was subsequently published in the American Journal of Science and Arts, volume xxv (second series), (New Haven, May 1858).

[6] 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.

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.