List of Union College alumni

This list of Union College alumni includes graduates of Union College in Schenectady, New York, United States who have achieved some notability or influence in the public or private spheres. Such a list is necessarily selective, and perforce subjective.

Chester A. Arthur, 21st President of the United States

William H. Seward, U.S. Secretary of State under Lincoln and Johnson

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by adding missing items with reliable sources.

Alumni list

Name	Year	Notability	Reference
Morris S. Miller	1798	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[1]
John Van Buren	1818	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[2]
Walter Case	1799	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[3]
John Savage	1799	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[4]
John Cramer	1801	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[5]
John B. Yates	1802	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[6]
Abraham Bockee	1803	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[7]
James M. Matthews	1803	First Chancellor of New York University	[8]
John W. Taylor	1803	Speaker of the United States House of Representatives (two terms)	[9]
Thomas Church Brownell	1804	President of Washington College (Trinity College)	[10]
Harmanus Peek	1804	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[11]
John C. Spencer	1806	Member of the United States House of Representatives; United States Secretary of War; United States Secretary of the Treasury	[12]
Theodric Romeyn Beck	1807	Author of pioneering Elements of Medical Jurisprudence (1823)	[13]
Adam Empie	1807	President of The College of William & Mary	[14]
John Watts Cady	1808	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[15]
Gideon Hawley	1809	First New York State Superintendent of Common Schools; Regent of the State University of New York; "Father of the New York State Common School System"	[16]
John F. Schermerhorn	1809	Missionary; appointed Indian Commissioner by Andrew Jackson	[17]
Alfred Conkling	1810	Member of the United States House of Representatives; Federal judge; United States Minister to Mexico	[18]
William Kendall Fuller	1810	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[19]
John Maynard	1810	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[20]
Abraham Maus Schermerhorn	1810	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[21]
Charles Borland, Jr.	1811	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[22]
Francis Wayland	1813	President of Brown University (1827–1855)	[23]
George Washington Gale	1814	Founder of the Oneida Institute and Knox College (Illinois). Galesburg, Illinois, named for him.	[24]
Richard M. Blatchford	1815	Secretary to William H. Seward; New York Central Park Commissioner	[25]
Gilbert Morgan	1815	President of Western University of Pennsylvania, Edgeworth Female Seminary, Harmony Female College	[26]
Dudley Selden	1815	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[27]
Nathaniel Pitcher Tallmadge	1815	Member of the United States Senate	[28]
Henry Booth Cowles	1816	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[29]
Richard M. Blatchford (attorney)	1818	Attorney, Member of the New York State Assembly, U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican	[30]
Sidney Breese	1818	Member of the United States Senate; author of landmark judicial decisions on state and national economic regulation	[31]
George Washington Doane	1818	Episcopal Bishop of New Jersey	[32]
Augustus Seymour Porter	1818	Member of the United States Senate	[33]
Alonzo Potter	1818	Episcopal Bishop of Pennsylvania	[34]
Charles Rogers	1818	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[35]
Robert J. Breckinridge	1819	President of Jefferson College; Superintendent of Public Instruction for Kentucky	[36]
Joseph William Chinn	1819	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[37]
James Irvine	1819 (1821?)	President of Ohio University	[38]
Andrew W. Loomis	1819	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[39]
David Stewart	1819	Member of the United States Senate	[40]
Laurens Perseus Hickok	1820	Educator; author; President of Union College (New York)	[41]
Archibald L. Linn	1820	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[42]
William H. Seward	1820	Governor of New York; member of the United States Senate; United States Secretary of State	[43]
George A. Starkweather	1819	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[44]
Nathaniel Boyden	1821	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[45]
Edward Curtis	1821	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[46]
William Montague Ferry	1821	Presbyterian minister, missionary, and community leader who founded several settlements in Ottawa County, Michigan.	[47]
Hiram Gray	1821	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[48]
Sherlock J. Andrews	1821	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[49]
John Williamson Nevin	1821	President of Franklin & Marshall College	[50]
Gideon Hard	1822	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[51]
Albert S. White	1822	Member of the United States House of Representatives; member of the United States Senate	[52]
David P. Brewster	1823	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[53]
Chesselden Ellis	1823	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[54]
John A. Lott	1823	Member of the New York State Senate and the New York State Assembly; Justice of the New York Superior Court	[55]
Stephen Alexander	1824	Astronomer; original member of the United States National Academy of Sciences	[56]
Charles Goodyear	1824	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[57]
Ira Harris	1824	Member of the United States Senate; lawyer, judge, educator	[58]
Charles J. Jenkins	1824	Governor of Georgia	[59]
Josiah Sutherland	1824	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[60]
Bradford Ripley Wood	1824	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[61]
Samuel Dickson	1825	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[62]
Amasa J. Parker	1825	Member of the United States House of Representatives; Regent of the State University of New York; Justice of the New York State Supreme Court; a founder of Albany Law School	[63]
John F. McLaren	1825	President of Western University of Pennsylvania	[64]
Henry Philip Tappan	1825	First official President of the University of Michigan (1852-1863)	[65]
George Emlen Hare	1826	Dean of the Philadelphia Divinity School	[66]
Horatio Potter	1826	Episcopal Bishop in the Diocese of New York; founded the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, New York	[67]
Thomas Fielder Bowie	1827	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[68]
M. Lindley Lee	1827	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[69]
Samuel W. Beall	1827	Explorer; Indian agent; Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin; one of the founders of Denver	[70]
William W. Campbell	1827	Member of the United States House of Representatives; Justice of the Superior Court of New York City; Justice of the New York State Supreme Court; historian	[71]
Levi Hubbell	1827	Wisconsin Supreme Court	[72]
Preston King	1827	Member of the United States Senate	[73]
Erasmus D. MacMaster	1827	President of Hanover College	[74]
Virgil Delphini Parris	1827	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[75]
Rufus Wheeler Peckham	1827	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[76]
Leonard Woods	1827	President of Bowdoin College (1839–1866)	[77]
Ward Hunt	1828	Mayor of Utica, New York; Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court (1872-1882)	[78]
Joseph G. Masten	1828	Mayor of Buffalo, New York; Judge of the New York Superior Court	[79]
Robert A. Toombs	1828	Member of the United States Senate; Secretary of State for the Confederate States of America	[80]
Joseph Alden	1828	President of the New York State Normal Institute; president of Jefferson College	[81]
Israel T. Hatch	1829	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[82]
John L. Wilson	1829	African missionary and explorer; author of Western Africa: Its History, Condition, and Prospects (1856)	[83]
George Washington Eaton	1829	President of Colgate University (1856-1868)	[83]
Leander Babcock	1830	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[84]
Frank Hastings Hamilton	1830	Surgeon; president of the New York Society of Medical Jurisprudence; author of important medical texts	[85]
Henry James	1830	Philosopher and author; father of Henry James (novelist) and William James (philosopher/psychologist)	[86]
Henry S. Randall	1830	Historian; author of The Life of Thomas Jefferson (1858)	[87]
Augustus Schell	1830	Lawyer; stock market manipulator; successor of William M. Tweed as Grand Sachem of the Tammany Society	[88]
Squire Whipple	1830	The "Father of American Metal Bridges"; civil engineer; inventor; bridge designer	[89]
Orsamus H. Marshall	1831	Chancellor of the University of Buffalo	[90]
Roswell Park	1831	President of Racine College	[91]
Don A. J. Upham	1831	Mayor of Milwaukee	[92]
Thomas Allen	1832	Member of the United States House of Representatives; railroad builder; printer to the Senate and House	[93]
Edward Dorr Griffin Prime	1832	Religious journalist	[94]
Joseph Mullin	1833	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[95]
Daniel Pratt	1835	New York State Supreme Court Justice	[96]
George F. Comstock	1834	Lawyer; Solicitor of the United States Treasury; Chief Judge of the New York State Court of Appeals	[97]
Edmund Sears	1834	Clergyman; author; hymn writer ("It Came Upon the Midnight Clear," "Calm on the Listening Ears of Night")	[98]
John Bigelow	1835	Consul-General to Paris during the Civil War; Minister to France; founder of the New York Public Library	[99]
John Wells	1835	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[100]
Henry W. Halleck	1837	General-in-Chief of the Union Armies	[101]
Levi Augustus Mackey	1837	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[102]
Edward Tuckerman	1837	Botanist; lichenologist; namesake of Tuckerman Ravine	[103]
Clarence A. Walworth	1838	Catholic priest; author; historian	[104]
Austin Blair	1839	Member of the United States House of Representatives; governor of Michigan	[105]
Joel T. Headley	1839	New York Secretary of State; historian and author	[106]
John Upfold Pettit	1839	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[107]
George W. Clarke	1840	Founder of the Mount Washington Collegiate Institute	[108]
Leonard Jerome	1839	New York City financier and grandfather of Winston Churchill	[109]
Lewis Henry Morgan	1840	Anthropologist; ethnologist; the "Father of American Anthropology"	[110][111]
John W. Cary	1842	Wisconsin State Senator	[112]
Charles C. Parry	1842	Botanist of the United States Department of Agriculture; explorer and botanist of the Rocky Mountains	[113]
Clarkson N. Potter	1842	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[114]
Franklin B. Hough	1843	Botanist; mineralogist; forester; historian of New York State; Director of the United States Census; "Father of American Forestry"	[115]
Charles Lewis Beale	1844	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[116]
Alexander H. Rice	1844	Member of the United States House of Representatives; governor of Massachusetts and mayor of Boston	[117]
Edward P. Allis	1845	International manufacturer; inventor	[118]
Robert Earl	1845	Judge on the New York State Court of Appeals	[119]
Daniel Hall	1845	Member and Speaker of the Wisconsin State Assembly	[120]
Daniel Bigelow	1846	Regent of the University of Washington; founder of the University of Puget Sound	[121]
John Michael Carroll	1846	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[122]
John M. Gregory	1846	President of the University of Illinois and Kalamazoo College	[123]
John T. Hoffman	1846	Governor of New York	[124]
Bradley Phillips	1846	Clergyman and member of the Wisconsin State Assembly	[125]
Gabriel Bouck	1847	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[126]
Chester A. Arthur	1848	Twenty-first President of the United States	[127]
William James Stillman	1848	Journalist; artist; photographer; diplomat; American Consul to Rome during the Civil War; American Consul at Crete	[128]
Hannibal Goodwin	1848	Inventor of roll film	[129]
Charles C. Nott	1848	Chief Justice of the United States Court of Claims	[130]
Daniel Butterfield	1849	Civil War general; composer of revised "Taps" bugle call; Civil War chief of staff for General Joseph Hooker; Civil War chief of staff for General George Meade	[131][132]
Frederick W. Seward	1849	Diplomat; journalist; son of William H. Seward; Assistant Secretary of State	[133]
Allen Wright	1852	Governor, Choctaw Nation; author of English-Choctaw dictionary	[134]
John F. Hartranft	1853	Governor of Pennsylvania	[135]
Edward Tuckerman Potter	1853	Architect of the Nott Memorial; architect of Mark Twain's residence in Hartford, Connecticut	[136]
William Clarke Whitford	1853	President of Milton College	[137]
Orlow W. Chapman	1854	Solicitor General of the United States	[138]
Edwin W. Rice	1854	Editor and author with the American Sunday School Union	[139]
Sheldon Jackson	1855	Presbyterian missionary in the Western United States; first United States Superintendent of Public Instruction in Alaska	[140]
Philip S. Post	1855	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[141]
Clement Hall Sinnickson	1855	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[142]
William G. Donnan	1856	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[143]
George W. Hough	1856	Astronomer; inventor of meteorological instruments; president of the World Congress on Astronomy and Astrophysics	[144]
Seaman A. Knapp	1856	Pioneer in experimental agriculture and practical education; president of Iowa State University	[145]
Fitz Hugh Ludlow	1856	Author; drug experimentalist; author of The Hasheesh Eater	[146]
Seth L. Milliken	1856	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[147]
Laurenus C. Seelye	1857	First president of Smith College; advocate for women's colleges	[148]
Charles Horton Peck	1859	Mycologist; New York State Botanist	[149]
Elnathan Sweet	1859	New York State Engineer and Surveyor	[150]
Warner Miller	1860	Member of the United States House of Representatives; member of the United States Senate	[151]
Charles E. Patterson	1860	Speaker of the New York State Assembly	[152]
Americus Vespucius Rice	1860	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[153]
Chester Holcombe	1861	Missionary; diplomat; secretary of the United States Legation to China	[154]
Charles E. Smith	1861	United States minister to Russia; United States Postmaster General	[155]
Ridgley C. Powers	1862	Governor of Mississippi	[156]
Amasa J. Parker, Jr.	1863	New York State Senator; Union College trustee; author of Banking Law of New York	[157]
Charles Edward Pearce	1863	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[158]
William Appleton Potter	1864	Architect; designed many Princeton University buildings; Supervising Architect of the United States Department of the Treasury	[159]
Daniel Newton Lockwood	1865	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[160]
Cady Staley	1865	President of Case Western Reserve University	[161]
La Mott W. Rhodes	1866	Member of the New York State Assembly	[162]
Edward Wemple	1866	Member of the United States House of Representatives; New York State Comptroller	[163]
Joseph M. Carey	1867?	Member of the United States Senate; member of the United States House of Representatives; governor of Wyoming; author of the Carey Arid Lands Act (1894)	[164]
Preston King	1827	Member of the United States House of Representatives; member of the United States Senate	[165]
Franklin H. Giddings	1877	"Father of American Sociology"	[166]
Joseph E. Ransdell	1882	Member of the United States House of Representatives; member of the United States Senate from Louisiana; career ended by Huey Pierce Long, Jr.	[167]
Wallace T. Foote	1885	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[168]
Henry A. Van Alstyne	1893	New York State Engineer and Surveyor	[169]
Archibald Rutledge	1904	Educator, author	[170]
Robert P. Patterson	1912	United States Secretary of War	[171]
George Stibitz	1927	One of the fathers of the modern digital computer	[172]
John Schiller Wold	1938	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[173]
Clare W. Graves	1940	Psychologist; developed theory of human development known as "emergent cyclical levels of existence theory"	[174]
Gordon Gould	1941	Widely, but not universally, credited with the invention of the laser	[175]
Armand V. Feigenbaum	1942	Businessman; developer of the concept of Total Quality Management/Control	[176]
Stanley Green	1943	American historian of theatre and film, and a writer on music.	[177][178]
Gordon F. Newell	1945	Scientist in the field of applied mathematics; Gordon–Newell theorem named for him and colleague William J. Gordon	[179]
Baruch S. Blumberg	1946	Nobel Prize in Medicine (1976)	[180]
Elmer H. Antonsen	1947	Professor of Germanic Languages with a particular expertise in Runology	[181]
Herbert Freeman	1947	Computer Pioneer Award winner from the IEEE Computer Society; designer of the Sperry Corporation's first digital computer, the SPEEDAC	[181]
Harry Mazer	1948	Author of books for children and young adults	[182]
Eric Schmertz	1948	Law professor and labor arbitrator	[183]
Richard Selzer	1948	Surgeon and author	[184]
Hermann A. Haus	1949	Frederic Ives Medal; National Medal of Science	[185]
David Markson	1950	Author of works such as Wittgenstein's Mistress and The Ballad of Dingus Magee	[186]
Herman W. Nickel	1951	Ambassador to South Africa	[187]
John H. Ostrom	1951	Paleontologist	[188]
Howard Simons	1951	Managing editor of The Washington Post	[189]
Herbert Schmertz	1952	Vice President of Public Affairs for the Mobil Corporation	[190]
Robert Chartoff	1955	Producer	[191]
Neil Abercrombie	1959	Politician in Hawaii; member of the US House of Representatives (1986–87, 1991–2010) and 7th Governor of Hawaii (2010–2014)	[192]
George DiCenzo	1962	Character actor and acting teacher	[193]
Alfred Sommer	1963	Ophthalmologist; discovered the benefits of Vitamin A for children deficient in this vitamin	[194]
Alan Horn	1964	President and COO of Warner Bros. Entertainment	[195]
Victor H. Fazio	1965	Member of the United States House of Representatives	[196]
Douglas LaBier	1965	Psychologist; psychotherapist; writer; director of the Center for Adult Development	[197]
Martin Jay	1965	Historian; critic	[198]
Richard Fateman	1966	One of the developers of the Macsyma computer algebra system and the Franz Lisp system	[199]
Michael Fuchs	1967	Executive producer for HBO	[200]
Lamin Sanneh	1967	D. Willis James Professor of Missions and World Christianity at Yale Divinity School and Professor of History at Yale University	[200]
Kenneth Merchant	1968	Chair of Accountancy at the Leventhal School of Accounting, University of Southern California	[201]
Jeffrey DeMunn	1969	Film and television actor	[202]
Anderson Mazoka	1969	Zambian politician and president of the United Party for National Development (UPND), a leading opposition party
Phil Alden Robinson	1971	Screenwriter; director	[203]
Jim Tedisco	1972	New York State Assemblyman	[204]
Kate White	1972	Author; editor	[205]
Steven Zaloga	1973	American historian; defense consultant; author	[206]
Andrea Barrett	1974	Author; National Book Award winner; MacArthur Fellow	[207]
Mark J. Bennett	1976	Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit	[208]
John Kelly III	1976	Senior Vice President and Director of IBM Research	[209]
Rich Templeton	1980	Chairman, president and CEO of Texas Instruments	[204]
David Stern	1982	Philanthropist; activist; CEO of Equal Justice Works and president of the Stern Family Fund	[210]
David B. Haviland	1983	Physics professor, member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and Nobel Committee for Physics
Ilene Landress	1983	Emmy-award winning television and film producer. Co-executive producer for HBO's The Sopranos.	[211]
Sue Goldie	1984	MacArthur Fellow	[212]
Devin Wenig	1988	President and CEO at eBay	[213]
Chris Sheridan	1989	Writer and television producer noted for his work on Family Guy	[214]
Andy Miller	1990	Corporate executive and entrepreneur	[215]
David S. Sachar	1992	US Army Veteran, Gastroenterologist, Atrium Health	[216]
Dylan Ratigan	1994	Television journalist; host of MSNBC's Morning Meeting with Dylan Ratigan	[216]
Nikki Stone	1995	Olympian; first American to win a gold medal in inverted aerial skiing; motivational speaker	[217]
Rawson Marshall Thurber	1997	Screenwriter; director	[218]
Ben Schwartz	2003	Actor and comedian, known for House of Lies and Parks and Recreation
Phillip Chorba	2005	Actor, on cast of Silver Linings and Concussion	[219]
Joanna Stern	2006	Senior personal technology columnist at the Wall Street Journal	[220]
Nancy Borowick	2007	American artist, photographer, and author.	[221]
Shayne Gostisbehere	2015	NHL defenseman for the Carolina Hurricanes
Yiluen Zhang	2015	Tufts Medical Center Psychiatry student rotator of the month, October 2023
Jake Fishman	2019	American-Israeli baseball player for the Miami Marlins and for Team Israel	[222]
Emma White	2019	American former professional racing cyclist and Olympic bronze medalist.	[223]

Select gallery

• 
  Frederick W. Seward, Assistant U.S. Secretary of State under Lincoln and Johnson
• 
  Henry W. Halleck, General-in-Chief of the Union Armies
• 
  Robert Toombs, first Confederate States Secretary of State
• 
  Ward Hunt, Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, 1873-1882
• 
  Robert P. Patterson, U.S. Secretary of War under Harry S. Truman
• 
  Franklin H. Giddings, "Father of American sociology"
• 
  Neil Abercrombie, seventh Governor of Hawaii
• 
  John Bigelow, Minister to France under Lincoln
• 
  Daniel Butterfield, Union General in the Civil War
• 
  Joseph M. Carey, governor of Wyoming, 1911-1915
• 
  Gordon Gould, developer of the laser
• 
  Ira Harris, member of the U.S. Senate, 1861-1867
• 
  John F. Hartranft, governor of Pennsylvania, 1873-1879
• 
  Franklin B. Hough, first chief of the US Division of Forestry
• 
  Henry James, Sr., philosopher and author
• 
  Fitz Hugh Ludlow, author of The Hasheesh Eater and Union's alma mater
• 
  Lewis Henry Morgan, "Father of American anthropology"
• 
  John W. Nevin, president of Franklin and Marshall College, 1866-1876
• 
  Clarkson N. Potter, president of the American Bar Association (1881–1882) and US Congressman from New York (1869–1875)
• 
  Laurenus C. Seelye, first president of Smith College, 1875-1910
• 
  John Canfield Spencer, U.S. Secretary of War and U.S. Secretary of the Treasury under President John Tyler
• 
  William Stillman, journalist, artist, photographer, and diplomat
• 
  Henry Philip Tappan, first President of the University of Michigan, 1852-1863
• 
  Jim Tedisco, Minority Leader of the New York State Assembly from 2005 to 2009
• 
  Francis Wayland, president of Brown University, 1827-1855