Strangers – Today

James Cook Ayer, May 5, 1818 — July 3, 1878

James Cook Ayer was an American pharmacist and businessman. Ayer attended public schools before becoming an apprentice to an apothecary in Lowell, Massachusetts. He would later go on to study medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, though he never practiced, focusing instead on developing and manufacturing patent medicines. Some of Ayer's medicines made dubious claims as to their effectiveness, including a blood medicine called Sarsaparilla meant to cure syphilis, and a hair restoration tonic called Hair Vigor. Others, however, appeared to have true medicinal value. Ayer amassed a sizeable fortune in his medicines, which he advertised heavily with illustrations and in an annual almanac that he published in five languages. He attempted to enter politics later in life, but lost election to Congress. Fittingly, the Record of Strangers indicates that the member who signed Ayer into the Athenaeum was a doctor.

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Henri Hirzel, 1815 — 1905

Henri Hirzel was a Swiss educator of the blind. He was the director of the Institution for the Blind and Ophthalmic Hospital at Lausanne, Switzerland. He was also the author of multiple works on the topic of his profession, and an inventor of communication aids for the blind. Member George Cadwalader is shown signing Hirzel into the Athenaeum on this occasion. Appropriately, the Cadwalader family were known supporters of institutions for the blind in Philadelphia.

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Robert Hutchinson Rose, 1776 — 1842

Robert Hutchinson Rose was an American land developer, businessman, and poet. He studied medicine, served as a land agent for the Susquehannah Company, and published several poems and a volume of poetry before purchasing around 100,000 acres of land in northern Pennsylvania. Rose advertised the land across the United States and Europe as an ideal place to settle, and invited several families of formerly enslaved individuals to settle in the developing Silver Lake Township. However, Rose's conditions for settlement soon became akin to enslavement, and the community of formerly enslaved families dissolved. Rose also served as Silver Lake's postmaster from 1810 until his death, and was named the president of Silver Lake Bank in 1817 and of the Agricultural Society of Susquehanna in 1820. The Record of Strangers indicates that Rose visited the Athenaeum on multiple occasions.

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