Lewis Ransom Fiske (December 24, 1825 – February 14, 1901) was an educator from the U.S. state of Michigan. He served as president pro tempore of the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan (now Michigan State University) from 1859 to 1862 and as president of Albion College from 1877 to 1898. Fiske sometimes spelled his name Fisk. Biography Lewis Ransom Fiske was born in Penfield, New York, the sixth child of ten born to James and Eleanor (née Ransom) Fiske. The ancestors of the Fiske family left England to settle in Wenham, Massachusetts, in 1637. Lewis' father, James Fiske, was born in New Hampshire, August 4, 1788, and was a cousin to Levi Woodbury, a prominent politician from New Hampshire who served as a justice of the United States Supreme Court. The family moved to a farm in Coldwater, Michigan, in 1835. In the school year 1845–46, Fiske attended the Wesleyan Seminary of Albion (now Albion College). He went on to graduate in 1850 with an A.B. from the University of Michigan. He began to study law, but in the fall of 1850 accepted a position as professor of Natural Science at the Albion Female Collegiate Institute and Wesleyan Seminary. On September 19, 1852, Fiske married Elizabeth Ross Spence (d. February 25, 1879). Spence was the cousin of Scottish author and poet George MacDonald. In the summer of 1880 Fiske married Helen M. Davis of Detroit (d. 1896). Fiske had one daughter and one son with his first wife and three sons with the second. In 1853, Fiske received an A.M. degree from the University of Michigan and also accepted a professorship at the Ypsilanti State Normal School (now Eastern Michigan University). In 1856, he became professor of Chemistry at the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan (now Michigan State University). He served as President pro tempore of the Agricultural College from 1859 to 1862 and also acted as the chaplain of the State Reform School in Lansing. In 1863, Fiske entered the ministry for the Methodist Episcopal Church, served as pastor of the Methodist Episcopal in Jackson, 1863–66; of the Central Methodist Episcopal Church in Detroit, 1866–69; and of the First Methodist Church in Ann Arbor, 1869–72. In 1872 he was the Presiding Elder of the Ann Arbor District. In 1873, he was awarded the D.D. from Albion College and returned for another three years to his