James D. Hague

James Duncan Hague was a much cherished member of this Association, the interests of which were near his heart for twenty-eight out of the seventy-two years of his useful and successful life. He was born in Boston, was a school-boy there, and received his comprehensive education in Harvard, Göttingen, and Freiburg. For two years he was an explorer in the South Seas and served in the navy for one. A learned engineer, he had charge of great mining interests near Lake Superior and in California, being for a time in the public service as assistant geologist on the Geological Survey, and later Commissioner for the interests of his profession to the Paris Exposition of 1878. Thereafter he found his home in New York and became almost at once a Centurion. With the Chamber of Commerce and our great educational societies, five in number, he identified himself and was a member of six important clubs. His wide experience, his thorough training, his catholic spirit, were all mirrored in the man; without effort he commanded the respect and esteem of the profession he adorned, and of men in every walk of life. He was regular and frequent in his attendance here, and his acquaintance was highly cherished. The volumes he published and the many articles he wrote, though mainly scientific, were distinctly literary in quality. His appreciation for the best in art and literature was based on intelligent and independent opinion.

William Milligan Sloane
1909 Century Association Yearbook