Alexander Dimitry

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

Early life and education

Alexander Dimitry was born in New Orleans, February 7, 1805. He was the son of Andrea Dimitry (1775-1852) and Marie Celeste Dragon (1777-1856). His father, Andrea Dimitry, was a native of Greece who came to New Orleans in the spring of 1799 and was a veteran of the War of 1812 and the Battle of New Orleans. He was also a New Orleans shipping merchant.History of the Order Ahepa - The First Greeks in the New World (Page 16) His grandmother was a Native American woman from the Alibamon Tribe.

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He died on January 30, 1883, in New Orleans.[3] Many of Dimitry's writings remain unpublished.[4][3]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