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 p75  George Lucius Anderson
No. 2516 Class of 1874
Died March 9, 1934, at Wauwatoosa, Wisconsin,
aged 85 years.

George L. Anderson was born in Delafield, Wisconsin, April 9, 1849, the son of Archibald A. and Clarissa Emeline Clarke Anderson. His father was a prosperous farmer who moved from Caledonea, New York to Delafield, Wisconsin on homesteaded •125 acreage in 1843. He was educated in the public schools at Delafield and later entered Lawrence College, Appleton, Wisconsin, from which he graduated in 1870 and received A. M. and A. B. degrees.

Through the advice and encouragement of Dr. Adams, a professor at Nashotah Theological Seminary, an Episcopalian institution •two miles West of his farm home, and without the knowledge of his parents, he passed a successful examination to enter the Naval Academy at Annapolis at the age of fifteen. However, because of his youth, his parents sent him off to Lawrence College where he completed a five year classical course giving him a splendid preparation for entrance to West Point in 1870. He graduated from the Military Academy on June 17, 1874, standing eighth in his class, and was commissioned Second Lieutenant, Fourth Artillery, and served in garrison at Point San José, California, from September 30, 1874 to June, 1875. He was  p76 on duty with troops at various stations in the United States, served a tour of duty in Alaska and participated in campaigns against the Nez Perce and Bannock Indians on the western frontier 1879‑1880 and the Narragansett Bay defenses from 1880 to 1883. He was Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics at the U. S. Military Academy from 1884 to 1889 and instructor of Electricity and Submarine Mining at the Artillery School for Practice at Fort Monroe, Virginia to 1895. He was a student at the Naval College, Newport, Rhode Island, from which he graduated in 1897. He was Military Attache at St. Petersburg, Russia and later commanded the 76th Company Coast Artillery Corps at Fort Banks, Massachusetts. During this time he had been promoted to First Lieutenant, November 11, 1881, captain, March 8, 1898 and major, July 30, 1902.

In 1902 he was sent to Cuba with the Army of Occupation and was subsequently Inspector General of the Departments of California and the Columbia. From July, 1903 to November, 1906 he was a member of the U. S. Ordnance Board and Recorder of Board for Testing Rifled Canon, U. S. Proving Ground, at Sandy Hook. On October 1, 1906 he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and on July 10, 1908 to Colonel. He was retired on March 31, 1909, at his own request after over thirty years of service.

During the World War Colonel Anderson was recalled to active duty and served in the Office of the Chief of Ordnance, at Washington, D. C., from May 16, 1917 to October 25, 1918. After the war he returned to his father's estate and lived with his sister, Mrs. Ella Calkins, and her daughter. After a number of years he went to live with a younger sister, Mrs. Clara Kunz, from whose home he went to The Milwaukee Veteran's Home. He was later moved to The Milwaukee Sanitarium at Wauwatoosa, Wisconsin, where he died on March 9, 1934.

Colonel Anderson was recognized as an expert in the field of electrical and mining engineering and was the author of "A Course in Instruction in Electricity and Its Applications for Artillery Gunners" as well as "The Handbook of Electrical Machinery and Apparatus in the U. S. Sea Coast Defenses". He was modest, persevering, faithful, a man of great endurance and was a great lover of birds and animals and of astronomy. He was a linguist of marked ability, as well as a skilled mathematician. During his early days he was particularly fond of baseball and was a well known pitcher in League games of Waukesha County.

In a letter to Colonel Anderson's relatives at the time of his death, General Douglas MacArthur said: "Colonel Anderson was an excellent officer, faithful, conscientious and thoroughly reliable, whose performance of the various duties assigned to him during his long military career was characterized by efficiency and devotion to his profession. His death is deeply regretted".

Colonel Anderson is survived by two sisters, — Mrs. Ella Calkins and Mrs. Clara Kunz. He was buried in Delafield on March 12, 1934, from the St. Johns Military Academy Memorial Chapel with full military honors. Interment was in the family plot in Delafield Cemetery.

Secretary, Association of Graduates.

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