Before graduation, George Pray wrote brief descriptions of the 10 other young men who graduated with him in 1845 in the University of Michigan's first commencement. Four of the 11–Clark, Collins, Cumming and Rawls–died before their 32nd birthdays.

As he heard about his schoolmates after graduation, Pray noted their doings in his diary. Other sources for the following sketches include U-M surveys of its alunmi/ae, other University records and the writings of early matriculates.

¤  Charles Clark (1825-1854) of Monroe, Michigan, arrived in his sophomore year. Pray described Clark as "abounding in a profusion of words" and predicted that he would find "delight in study through life." Clark was the head of the Monroe preparatory school and was practicing law in Illinois when he died at about 31.

¤  Judson Collins (1823 or '24-1852) of Lyndon Township, Washtenaw County, was "plain and methodical," Pray wrote, and "sometimes obstinate." Collins taught at Albion College and went to China as a Methodist missionary in 1847, a few years after the Opium War. He became ill and was forced to return home where he died soon afterward at about 28.

¤  Thomas Cumming (1827-1858) of Grand Rapids graduated despite missing most of his junior year. "Good-hearted" and "precocious" according to Pray, Cumming fought in the Mexican-American war, ran a telegraph in Illinois and edited a newspaper in Iowa. President Jarnes K. Polk appointed him secretary to the governor of Nebraska Territory, and he was acting governor of that territory when he died at 31.

¤  Edmund Fish (1824-1904) from Bloomfield/Birmingham, Michigan, entered as a sophomore from Western Reserve and was "loved and respected by everyone," according to Pray. Fish wrote U-M that he was present at the "Convention Under the Oaks" in Jackson, Michigan, July 6, 1854, when the Republican Party was organized. He was a foe of slavery and friend of John Brown in Kansas. He also attended the Big Springs Convention in Topeka when the movement for a free state was organized. US troops dispersed the citizens at the antislavery meeting. He ended his days as a fruit grower in Illinois.

¤  Merchant Goodrich (1827-1892) of Ann Arbor was "vulgar, low and immoral" in Pray's eyes. Goodrich got an MA at Harvard, the first of his class to get an advanced degree. and practiced as an attorney in Ann Arbor.

¤  Edwin Appleton Lawrence (1827-1886) of Monroe, Michigan, was "perfectly careless" but also so "good-natured" that his schoolmates called him "the granny," Pray reported. Lawrence practiced law in Ann Arbor until 1855, when he went to San Francisco and grew rich in real estate. Probably the wealthiest in the class, he donated $10,000 to a local YMCA.

¤  John McKay (18??-1874) was a transfer from Oberlin and the only out-of-stater. He came to U-M for his last term, from May to August. Other than his having become an attorney who got into trouble as a secessionist in St. Louis, little is known of him.

¤  Fletcher Marsh (1819-1893) of Kalamazoo arrived in his sophomore year. The oldest and poorest of his classmates, he was in Pray's words "a good and noble-minded man and what more can be asked?" He earned a theology degree at Newton Theological Seminary and was teaching science and philosophy at Denison University in Ohio when money problems forced him to abandon teaching and run a lumber mill for 10 years. He returned to academic life at Leland University in New Orleans, teaching mathematics and the Bible.

¤  George Parmelee (1822?-1896 or '98) of Ann Arbor returned to his hometown in 1847, much to his former roommate's disgust. Pray called him "portly, whiskered–the dandy" who, having lived in New York, "couldn't endure Ann Arbor." He had an "exalted opinion of himself, while still hated and detested" by others. Parmelee, having worked in New York and New Orleans, as well as Ann Arbor, wound up in San Francisco. He wrote U-M in 1889 that "the degree of AM was conferred upon me at the time that the degree was first conferred by the University."

¤  Paul Rawls (182?-1849) of Kalamazoo came to U-M in June of his sophomore year. "Something of a poet," Pray reported, "and a favorite among the ladies," Rawls joined the fighting in the Mexican War. In 1848 he was either wounded or became ill. He returned to Michigan and soon died.

Linda Robinson Walker '66 MSW is an Ann Arbor writer. She thanks the "wonderful staff" of the Bentley Historical Library for their help in researching and illustrating this story. With the encouragement of history professor Nicholas H. Steneck, George Washington Pray's granddaughter, the late Jeanne Pray Ploger, donated Pray's trunk, coverlet, diary and other papers to the University in 1993.