Working Years
Following the American Civil War, he entered private practice for several years, forming the partnership of Adelberg and Raymond in 1864. In 1868, Justus Adelberg died and Raymond dissolved the partnership to become the United States Commissioner of Mines and Mining Statistics in and West of the Rocky Mountains. In 1869, Raymond hired Anton Eilers as Deputy Commissioner and, together and apart, the two explored the entire intermountain west, becoming national experts on the mining industry and creating large annual reports for Congress. See the published version of the 1869 report.
He was a long-time supporter of Brooklyn's Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims, and was the director of its Sunday school for 50 years. His role in the church was so influential that he was asked to take over for Henry Ward Beecher when Beecher died. He would also play an important role during the Beecher-Tildon scandal.
From 1870 to 1872, he was the professor of ore deposits at Lafayette College. He was the United States Commissioner to the Vienna Exposition. In 1885, he was the New York State Commissioner of Electrical Subways.
In 1871, he was a part of the a six-member party that entered what is now Yellowstone National Park, running into the Hayden Geological Survey of 1871 in the process. Raymond's party is officially known as the first group of visitors to enter a National Park, though it technically wasn't a national park at the time. Rossiter recorded the visit in his 1880 book Camp and Cabin. The visit was also recorded by Calvin C. Clawson, a reporter for the New Northwest Newspaper. Pictures were taken by August F. Thrasher who, according to Mary C. H. Williams, carried negative plates and photos of the Yellowstone journey as far east as Indiana where the trail grows cold.
In 1911, during a visit to Japan as members and guests of the American Institute of Mining Engineers (AIME), Raymond received from the Mikado the distinction of Chevalier of the Order of the Rising Sun, fourth class—the highest ever given to foreigners not of royal blood—’ “for eminent services to the mining industry of Japan”. These services consisted in advice and assistance rendered in America to Japanese engineers, students, and officials throughout a period of more than 25 years.
An original member of the American Institute of Mining Engineers, he served as its vice-president in 1871, 1876, and 1877, president from 1872 to 1875, and secretary from 1884 to 1911. In the last capacity he edited 40 of the annual volumes of Transactions, to which he liberally contributed essays, especially pertaining to the Federal mining laws, as well as other articles of importance. In 1945, the institute created the Rossiter W. Raymond Memorial Award after him, to recognize the best paper written each year by an author under 33 years of age.
Read more about this topic: Rossiter W. Raymond
Famous quotes containing the words working and/or years:
“United Fruit... United Thieves Company... it’s a monopoly ... if you won’t take their prices they let your limes rot on the wharf; it’s a monopoly. You boys are working for a bunch of thieves, but I know it ain’t your fault.”
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“The years seemed to stretch before her like the land: spring, summer, autumn, winter, spring; always the same patient fields, the patient little trees, the patient lives; always the same yearning; the same pulling at the chain—until the instinct to live had torn itself and bled and weakened for the last time, until the chain secured a dead woman, who might cautiously be released.”
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