George Frederick Behringer papers

Collection — Multiple Containers

Identifier: 37-5-242

Scope and content

Autograph book containing signatures of Ezra Cornell, Andrew Dickson White, Behringer's classmates and members of the 1869 faculty; a volume of class notes from his year at Cornell containing a lecture on moral philosophy by William Dexter Wilson; and diplomas and certificates of George F. Behringer. Inlcudes diploma from Cornell's first commencement in 1869. Since Behringer was one of the eight members of the first graduating class and because was first alphabetically this is the very first diploma given by Cornell University.

Dates

[ca.1868-1909]

Creator

Behringer, George Frederick, 1846-1909. (Person)

Biographical / Historical

Clergyman, educator. George Frederick Behringer attended Pennsylvania College at Gettysburg from 1866-1868, and entered Cornell University in 1868. He received his A.B. in 1869, a member of Cornell University's first graduating class. After teaching German at Cornell from 1869 to 1870, studying abroad from 1870 to 1873, and serving as acting professor of rhetoric, German and French at Harvard University, he entered the ministry of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in 1876. In succeeding years, he was a Lutheran pastor in Indianapolis, Des Moines, Brooklyn, and New York. Later he became professor of church history at Hartwick Seminary, receiving the degree of D.D. from that institution in 1896. Behringer died at Nyack in 1909. (Cornell University Class of 1869.).