Alexander Dimitry

Alexander Dimitry (February 7, 1805 – January 30, 1883) was a mixed race American diplomat, linguist and scholar. He worked as a United States ambassador to Costa Rica and Nicaragua.[1]

Family, early life, and education

Alexander Dimitry was born in New Orleans, February 7, 1805 to merchant Andrea Dimitry (1775-1852) and Marianne Céleste Dragon (1777-1856). His Greek father immigrated to New Orleans in the spring of 1799 and was a veteran of the War of 1812, having fought against the British in the Battle of New Orleans. On Dimitry's mother's side, his maternal grandfather was also a Greek immigrant to Louisiana and a veteran of the American Revolution, having served under Bernardo de Galvez. His maternal grandmother was born to an enslaved mulatto woman in New Orleans. Their daughter and Dimitry's mother was born free, although the couple did not marry until 1815. Dimitry's mother's 1777 baptismal record identifies her as a free pardo, but she was identified as white upon her marriage to his father in 1799.

By the age of ten, Dimitry was fluent in classical Greek and Latin. He spoke English, French, Greek, Italian and Spanish. He graduated with distinction from Georgetown College in Washington, D.C.

Career

In 1842, he established the St. Charles Institute in Louisiana, which he headed as the first state superintendent of public education in 1847. During this period as superintendent (1847–51), he organized public schools of Louisiana. The author, Mary Bushnell Williams, was one of his students.[2]

He was appointed in 1854 as translator in the U.S. Department of State. In 1859, he was sent as Minister to Central America by president James Buchanan. During the American Civil War, he was Postmaster General and Chief of Finance of the Postal Service of the Confederacy.

He died on January 30, 1883, in New Orleans.[3] Many of Dimitry's writings remain unpublished.[4][3]

References
  1. Alexander Dimitry - People - Department History - Office of the Historian
  2. Wilson, James Grant; Fiske, John (1889). Appleton's Cyclopædia of American Biography: Sunderland-Zurita (Public domain ed.). Appleton. pp. 529–.
  3. Ohles, John F. (1978). Biographical Dictionary of American Educators. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 379. ISBN 9780313040122.
  4. James, John Garland (1879). Southern Student's Hand-book of Selections for Reading and Oratory. A. S. Barnes & Company. p. 87.
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