Prominent members of the Franklin Institute 5. Alexander Dallas Bache, 1806–1867
✍ Scribed by Thomas Coulson
- Book ID
- 103083683
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 1957
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 1005 KB
- Volume
- 263
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0016-0032
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
If ever a man was saddled with the responsibility of having to live up to family prestige, it was Alexander Dallas Bathe.
He was the son of Richard Bathe, one of the eight children of Sarah, the only daughter of Benjamin Franklin. His mother was Sophia Burret Dallas, daughter of Alexander J. Dallas, who was Secretary of the Treasury under President Madison, and sister of George M. Dallas, Vice President to President Polk. Although this relationship might be regarded as a handicap for a man to gain individual distinction, it was successfully overcome in this case.
Dallas, as his friends chose to call him, was born on July 19, 1806, at 74 Walnut Street, Philadelphia.
He was a shy sober youth, without that humor and urbanity which developed at maturity.
There is some doubt about the school he attended, but it was probably Clermont, a classical academy situated near Frankford.
He completed his education here at the age of fifteen and went directly to West Point, where he was the youngest cadet on the rolls. The class started with sixty-five cadets and finished with only thirty-six.
During his four years of training Dallas maintained his place at the head of his class. It was related of him during these years he was impressed beyond his years with a sense of the responsibility that would devolve upon him as the senior member of a large family. The necessity for cultivating this sense of responsibility was real. His father, one-