Strangers – Today

Henry Vethake, May 26, 1791 — December 16, 1866

Henry Vethake was an American educator, administrator, and author. Born in a British colony in present-day Guyana, he came to the United States with his family as a young boy. He graduated from Columbia and briefly studied law before turning to teaching, a career he would pursue until his death. Vethake first taught mathematics and natural philosophy at Columbia, followed by what would become Rutgers University and Princeton University, and finally Dickinson College. He later returned to Princeton, was a professor at New York University, and president of Washington and Lee University in Virginia before accepting a professorship at the University of Pennsylvania. Vethake would go on to become Penn's vice-provost and later provost. He published several works on economics, outlining his opposition to leisure time for workers and labor unions. The Record of Strangers indicates that Vethake visited the Athenaeum on multiple occasions and eventually became an Athenaeum shareholder.

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William Coxe Dusenbery

William Coxe Dusenbery was a visitor from New York. He is listed in multiple New York City Directories from around the time of his visit to the Athenaeum, both as a notary and a trustee of the New York Life Insurance Company.

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Francisco Joaquim de Lima

Francisco Joaquim de Lima was a Brazilian diplomat. Documents from 1828 list him as the consulate general from Brazil, stationed in Philadelphia. This visit to the Athenaeum comes two years earlier, in 1826. Two years prior to this visit, the United States was the first country to recognize Brazil's declaration of independence from Portugal.

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