Rossiter W. Raymond

Rossiter Worthington Raymond (April 27, 1840 in Cincinnati, Ohio – December 31, 1918 in Brooklyn, New York) was an American mining engineer, legal scholar and author. At his memorial, the President of Lehigh University described him as "one of the most remarkable cases of versatility that our country has ever seen—sailor, soldier, engineer, lawyer, orator, editor, novelist, story-teller, poet, biblical critic, theologian, teacher, chess-player—he was superior in each capacity. What he did, he always did well."

Early years

Raymond's father, Robert Raikes Raymond (1817–1888), was a native of New York City, a graduate of Union College (New York) in 1837, editor of the Syracuse Free Democrat in 1852 and Evening Chronicle in 1853–54, and later professor of English in the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute and principal of the Boston School of Oratory. His mother (born 1818, died 1891) was a native of Providence, Rhode Island. They were married at Columbus, Ohio, in 1839. Rossiter was the eldest of a family of seven children, of whom four were sons and three daughters.

He received his early education in the common schools of Syracuse, New York, where his parents participated in the Underground Railroad, and in 1857 entered the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute, of which his uncle, John H. Raymond (later president of Vassar College), was then president. Raymond graduated from that institution at the head of his class in 1858.

Having attended college at the Royal Saxon Freiberg Mining Academy, Heidelberg University, and the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, 1858–1861, Rossiter would start his post graduate career serving as aide-de-camp, with the rank of captain, on the staff of John C. Frémont, by whom, during his Civil War campaign in the Valley of Virginia, he was officially commended for gallant and meritorious conduct.