462 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [1895. 



A BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF W. S. W. RUSCHENBERGER, M. D. 

 BY EDWARD J. NOLAN, M. D. 



Since the first recorded meeting of the founders of the Academy, 

 "friends of science and of rational disposal of leisure moments " at 

 the house of John Speakman, January 25, 1812, the society has 

 been served by a succession of devoted men who have given their 

 time, their means and their best thought to the promotion of its 

 interests. The membership at large, however, has been for the 

 most part composed of specialists in science who have had neither 

 time nor inclination to occupy themselves with administrative affairs, 

 and a much larger number who have been content to lend their sup- 

 port, moral and pecuniary, to an institution for the advancement of 

 learning without taking part intimately in the details of its work. 



The services rendered by the subject of this notice during the last 

 twenty-six years of his life are of such character and magnitude that 

 they have secured for him a distinguished position among the bene- 

 factors of this society. He was intellectually in close sympathy 

 with the Academy's work, while the termination of his active con- 

 nection with the United States navy enabled him to devote himself 

 with tireless fidelity to the duties of the several executive positions in 

 which he was placed. 



William Samuel Waithman Ruschenberger was the son of 

 Peter Ruschenberger, a sea captain, and Ann Waithman. His 

 mother, the third in a family of nine children, was born near 

 Bridgeton, Cumberland Co., N. J., June 18th, 1785. Her son was 

 also born there September 4, 1807. Prior to this, however, her 

 father and his family had moved to Philadelphia, the young couple 

 living with them, and here a daughter was born. Three months 

 before the birth of the son Captain Ruschenberger and all his crew 

 were lost at sea, leaving the wife and children in straitened circum- 

 stances, so that it became necessary to add to their income by literary 

 work. Sacrifices were made to secure a good education for the boy, 

 who co-operated earnestly with his mother to that end. The details 

 of his early training are not known, but he attended schools in TSew 

 York and Philadelphia, and studied Latin with an Irishman of 

 culture who had been compelled to leave the country of his birth 



