James Ryder Randall (1839 - 1908) graduated from Georgetown in 1858. He was a poet, known for composing "Maryland, My Maryland," the state song of Maryland.1 He is depicted in the northernmost bay window of Copley Hall, representing the field of poetry.2
While a student at Georgetown, Randall wrote poems for commencement exercises, including "Mother of the Gracchi" and "Pass of Thermopylae." A fellow student and friend, Caleb E. Magruder, later said that he was "regarded as the the poet of the College by Father Maguire [president of the University] and the rest of the faculty."3
On the first anniversary of his death, a portrait of Randall was hung in the Old Senate Chamber of the Maryland State House in Annapolis.
- 1James S. Easby-Smith, Georgetown University in the District of Columbia, 1789-1907, its founders, benefactors, officers, instructors and alumni. Vol. 2, New York: Lewis, 1907, p. 22. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/nyp.33433076015860?urlappend=%3Bseq=38
- 2Francis X. Ballman, "Copley Hall," Building Outlines Campus Buildings, 1789 – 1995, Father Lawrence Hurley Memorial Edition, Francis X. Ballmann and the Division of Facilities, 1995, p. 10.
- 3"Tribute to James R. Randall," Georgetown College Journal, March 1909, Vol. XXXVII No. 6, p. 263. http://hdl.handle.net/10822/1049841
