Rossiter W. Raymond - Early Years

Early Years

Rossiter W. Raymond was of English descent. His earliest American ancestor on the paternal side, Richard Raymond, emigrated from England to this country and settled at Salem, Massachusetts, in 1632. On his mother’s side, he was descended from well-known New England families. His great-grandfather, Nathaniel Raymond, was an officer in the Continental Army; and his grandfather, Caleb Pratt, served in the War of 1812.

His father (born 1817, died 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 1853-4, 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.

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 Mining Academy, Freiberg, Saxony, the University of Heidelberg and the University of Munich, 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.