Portrait of John Sanderson

This painting is of John Sanderson, who was elected to the Central Faculty as a Professor of Greek and Latin, and assistant in the department of English and Belles-Lettres in September 1840. It was presented to the school (with many other paintings) at the Dedication of the third building, November 1902. A gift of Prof. Albert H. Smyth, painted by Maximillian Sellman, it is a copy from a painting by Thomas Sully "that great American portrait-painter". (page 182 School of The Republic 1893-1943, AACHS, 1952, by William Hafner Cornog (146), eighth president of CHS.

Sanderson was born in 1783 near Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and had previously been Alexander Dallas Bache's teacher. See pages 52-55 of Franklin Spencer Edmonds' (96) History of the Central High School of Philadelphia, J.B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, 1902. The photo in the book is from the above painting.

Sanderson died April 5, 1844. He was author, with his brother of Biography of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence, and other works.