CLASS OF 1845

George Hodgdon Ricker died April 26 at his home in Melrose, Mass., after a brief illness. He was born in Lebanon, Me., December 23, 1820, and fitted for college at Parsonsfield Seminary. After graduation he entered upon the work of a teacher, which he followed through his active life. From 1846 to 1853 he was principal of Parsonsfield Seminary, and was teacher of languages at the Maine State Seminary, Lewiston, from 1857 to 1860. For the next two years he was principal of the New Hampton (N. H.) Literary Institution, and then for some time at the head of Gilford Academy, Laconia, N. H. After some years as principal of Lapham Institute, in Rhode Island, he removed to Melfose for the benefit of his health, and gave private instruction. In 1875-6 he was professor of Greek in Hillsdale College, Michigan, for a short time principal of Hampton (N. H.) Academy, and from 1879 to 1883 principal of Fryeburg (Me.) Academy. In 1883 he returned to his Melrose heme, and for a number of years was engaged again in private instruction, and did not lay aside the work of teaching until he had completed fifty-five years of service. He was highly successful as a teacher, being especially devoted to the classics, and was the author of a text-book on English grammar. December 2, 1847, Mr. Ricker was married to Harriet N., daughter of Mark A. Chase of Newfield, Me., and they had a married life of over sixty years, Mrs. Ricker dying in March, 1911. A daughter, Hattie G. Ricker, for several years a teacher in Melrose, survives her parents.

Dr. Daniel Kimball Pearsons, the philanthropist, who died of pneumonia April 27, in a sanatorium at Hinsdale, Ill., was for a year or more connected with this class. Dr. Pearsons was born in Bradford, Vt., April 14, 1820, his parents being John and Hannah (Putnam) Pearsons. On his mother's side he was a descendant of General Israel Putnam, Daniel Pearsons began teaching school at the age of sixteen, and taught five winters, working at other times on his father's farm. He prepared for college at Bradford Academy and Newbury Seminary, but left college to pursue the study of medicine at Woodstock Medical College and with Dr. Walter Carpenter (D. M. C. '3'0) at East Randolph, Vt. He settled in practice in Chicopee, Mass., and there married in 1847 Miss Marietta Chapin. It is said that she discovered his extraordinary business ability, and urged upon him the change of occupation which he soon undertook. In 1857 he gave up his large practice and removed to Ogle county, Illinois, engaging in agriculture. He began at once to have large dealings in real estate, and soon removed to Chicago, continuing there in active and remarkably successful real estate business until his retirement in 1890. The rest of his life he devoted to travel and to the disbursement of his fortune. In the twenty-two years of life which remained to him, he had given away some seven millions of dollars. As he had no children and his wife had died before him, he retained at the last nothing but an annuity which expired with his death. Some of his gifts have been to mission boards, but by far the most, both in number and in amount, to the smaller colleges of the Middle West. In him has passed away one of the most remarkable of American philanthropists.