|
 |
|
|
|
|
Albion College Principals & Presidents
While at Lansing he served for four years as presiding officer of the college and also acted as chaplain of the state reform school located at that place. After leaving the Agricultural College in 1863 he entered the ministry and continued in active service for fourteen years, occupying pulpits in the state of Jackson, Ann Arbor, and Detroit. Soon after the Michigan Christian Advocate was established Dr. Fiske and Rev. Orrin Whitmore were appointed editors. It was in 1875 that Dr. Fiske was elected editor, which position he held in connection with the pastorates of the Central and Tabernacle churches in Detroit, until he left to assume the presidency of Albion College in 1877. For twenty-one years he held the executive chair in this institution and the hundreds of young people who graduated under him looked up to him as to a father. He was a scholarly friend to every one he met. His broad, legal mind came to the best conclusions and his administration is not only the longest but perhaps one of the strongest thus far in the history of the institution. After his resignation of the presidency in 1898, Dr Fiske devoted his time largely to literary pursuits. He published in 1898 - Echoes from a College Platform, comprising many of his baccalaureate addresses. Later he wrote Among the Professions, while his last work - Man Building was on the press at the time of his death. Dr. Fiske received the degree of doctor of divinity from Albion College in 1873, and the University of Michigan gave him the degree of doctor of laws in 1879, having previously conferred upon him the degrees of A.B. and A.M. He was married twice, first in 1852 to Miss Elizabeth Spence. Her death occurred in Albion, February 2,5 1879. She was a cousin of the famous author, George McDonald, who visited her once in Detroit. The children by this marriage are living and all married except the eldest son Lewis, who died some years ago. The others are J.H. Fiske, of Leadville, Colorado; Herbert, of Denver; Clarence Adelbert, of Springfield, Ill [sic]; and Mrs. OA. Leonard, of Albion. In June, 1879, President Fiske married Mrs. Ira Davis, of Detroit, Dr. J.H. Bayliss and Dr. Arthur Edwards performing the ceremony. Mrs. Fiske died March 19, 1896. In December, 1900, Dr. Fiske has a slight attack of pneumonia. From this he had not fully recovered when in January he went west to visit his son. Shortly after his arrival in Denver he suffered a relapse from which he never recovered. He passed away February 14, 1901. Aged 75 years. Excerpt from "Lewis Ransom Fiske 1877-1898," Old Albion 1861-1909 Links to More Documents about Lewis Ransom Fiske
Additional Resources
|
|
|||
Albion College ◦ Albion, Michigan ◦ 517/629-10000
|
||||
LEWIS
RANSOM FISKE, fifth president, was born at Penfield, Monroe county, New
York, December 24, 1825. He traced his lineage back to Symond Fiske,
who was lord of the manor of Stradhaugh, England, in 1399. The first
representatives of the family in America settled in Essex county, Mass.,
in 1637, their descendants spreading over the New England states and
eventually in the west. In 1853 Lewis Ransom Fiske went to Michigan with
his parents and settle at Coldwater on a farm. His education was begun
in the public school and his preparation for college completed during
the year 1846 at Wesleyan Seminary. In 1850 he graduated from the
University of Michigan and accepted the chair of natural science in the
Albion Female Collegiate Institute and Wesleyan Seminary. In 1853 he
resigned to accept a similar position in the state normal school at
Ypsilanti, from which place he went to the Michigan Agricultural College
in 1856 as professor of chemistry.