The Biographical Dictionary of America/Anthon, Charles

ANTHON, Charles, educator, was born in New York city, Nov. 19, 1797, son of George Christian Anthon, a German physician, who served in the British army in America until the surrender of Detroit in 1788, when he married the daughter of a French officer and settled in New York city. Charles was graduated from Columbia college in 1815, with honors. He was admitted to the bar in 1819, but did not practise law, taking up the study of the classics with a view to the adoption of the profession of pedagogy. He was adjunct professor of Greek and Latin in Columbia college from 1820 to 1830; Jay professor of Greek and Latin from 1830 to 1857; rector of Columbia grammar school from 1837 to 1864, and Jay professor of Greek and Latin literature, 1857 to 1867. He published a number of valuable classical works, among which were a new edition of Lemprière's" Classical Dictionary," which was published in England; "Ancient and Mediæval Geography," "A System of Greek Prosody and Metre," and various Greek and Latin grammars, readers, etc., which were adopted as college text-books. He also edited and compiled many volumes, consisting of Greek and Roman literature, lexicons, etc., relating to the study of the dead languages. Columbia college conferred upon him the degree of LL.D. in 1831. He died July 29, 1867.