Memoir, etc.
To commemorate the virtues of a departed friend, which I now do by command of the College, is a task both pleasing and painful. In this mixed emotion of pleasure and pain, you will all sympathize with me on the present occasion: for the subject of this memoir was the meritorious friend and companion of us all; one whom we looked to for pleasure and instruction; whose welcome voice was often heard in this hall, and never without sincere respect; whose friendly and benevolent demeanor won more and more our esteem and love.
Dr. Isaac Parrish was distinguished and favored by the merits of his ancestors. His great-great-grandfather was John Parrish, a native of England and of Dutch extraction. He commanded a merchant vessel trading to the Chesapeake, and was afterwards made surveyor-general of Maryland. He became possessed of considerable tracts of land, on a part of which some of his descendants now reside.
His great-grandfather, whose name was also John, died in possession of a landed estate on which a portion of the city of Baltimore is now built; but it was lost to his family by his generosity in the perilous friendship of indorsing.
Isaac Parrish, his grandfather, settled in Philadelphia, where he raised a numerous family, and retired from business in the decline of life with a respectable competence. He and his wife were eminent members of the society of Friends, and held important stations in the government of the Church. The following notice of this exemplary pair, I quote on account of its beauty as well as its propriety and authority, from the memoir of their son, Dr. Joseph Parrish, written by the President of this College.—
