Henry James Anderson

Henry James Anderson (February 6, 1799 – October 19, 1875) was an American scientist and educator who worked with the great-grandson of Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Dallas Bache. He became Knight Commander, President of the Particular Council of New York, and Head of the Supreme Council. Biography He was born in New York City, and graduated from Columbia College in 1818, he subsequently studied medicine at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York. He did not practice medicine for long however, instead devoting himself to scientific and literary pursuits. He was appointed professor of mathematics and astronomy at Columbia College in 1825, when he was twenty-six years old; he retained his chair until 1843. Anderson was elected an Associate Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1831. He married Fanny Da Ponte, the daughter of Lorenzo Da Ponte, a collaborator of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. They had two children named Elbert Ellery and Edward Henry. Elbert Ellery married to Augusta Chauncey, granddaughter of Commodore Isaac Chauncey, and their son Peter Chauncey Anderson married to Mary Yale Ogden, of the Yale and Ogden families. She was the granddaughter of Olivia Yale, daughter of Colonel Braddam Yale, and was related to Edith Ogden, wife of Chicago Mayor Carter Harrison Jr., a cousin of US President William Henry Harrison, and of Senator Aaron Ogden, Governor of New Jersey. From 1840 to 1844, Anderson remained briefly in Paris where he worked closely with the anti-Newtonian astronomer François Arago, Carl Friedrich Gauss, and Alexander Dallas Bache (Benjamin Franklin’s great-grandson), who later established the "Magnetische Verein" (Magnetic Association). In 1848, he accompanied the United States Dead Sea exploration expedition, commanded by Captain William F. Lynch, as a geologist.