February 21, 1871

Vassar’s Lady Principal, Hannah Lyman, who served, in President Raymond’s words, as “the chief executive aid of the President in the government of the college, and the immediate head of the college family,” died, at the age of 55, after a long and debilitating illness. Her successor was Harriet W. Terry.

An editorial, “Miss Lyman’s Influence at Vassar,” in the first issue of The Vassar Miscellany (April 1, 1872) observed, “the first instinctive thought connected with her was of intense moral power, and this, combined with her intellectual force, made up that subtle, essential spirit of character paramount to her.

“Let us, as students and as individuals, be thankful that we had her as we did, girded with her self-sacrificing, lofty womanhood, guided in all her difficult, delicate way. Let us be glad that when the last came, it came at Vassar College, to which she had given her noblest work, and with which her name must ever stand united in grateful, loving remembrance.”