The Philolexian Society
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| Prominent Members of the Philolexian Society: |
| Name: | Year: | Claim to fame: |
| Nathaniel F. Moore | 1802 | President of Columbia College |
| John L. Lawrence | 1803 | Comptroller of New York City |
| James Alexander Hamilton | 1805 | Son of Alexander Hamilton; Acting U.S. Secretary of State |
| Henry Ustick Onderdonk | 1805 | Episcopal Bishop of Pennsylvania |
| Edmund H. Pendleton | 1805 | U.S. Congressman |
| William M. Price | 1805 | U.S. Attorney, Southern District of New York |
| Peter D. Vroom | 1808 | U.S. Congressman; Governor of New Jersey; U.S. Minister to Prussia |
| Henry Vethake | 1808 | Provost, University of Pennsylvania; President, Washington College |
| Hugh Maxwell | 1808 | District Attorney of New York City; Collector of the Port of New York |
| Benjamin Tredwell Onderdonk | 1809 | Episcopal Bishop of New York |
| William B. Astor | 1811 | Son of John Jacob Astor; wealthiest man in the United States |
| Charles G. Ferris | 1811 | U.S. Congressman |
| Stephen Watts Kearny | 1812 | Commander, U.S. Army of the West; military governor of California, Vera Cruz and Mexico City |
| James I. Roosevelt, Jr. | 1815 | U.S. Congressman; U.S. District Attorney, Southern District of New York |
| Samuel L. Gouverneur | 1817 | Postmaster of New York City |
| William Beach Lawrence | 1818 | Acting Governor of Rhode Island |
| James Lenox | 1818 | President, New York Chamber of Commerce; bibliophile whose collection helped form basis of New York Public Libary |
| John Lloyd Stephens | 1822 | Explorer of the Yucatan, Holy Land, and Eastern Europe; U.S. Special Agent to Central America; President, Panama Railroad |
| Horatio Allen | 1823 | Imported and operated first successful locomotive engine in the Americas |
| John McKean | 1825 | U.S. Attorney, Southern District of New York; U.S. Congressman |
| Hamilton Fish | 1827 | U.S. Senator; Governor of New York; U.S. Secretary of State; Chairman of the Columbia Trustees |
| Theodore Sedgwick | 1827 | U.S. Attorney, Southern District of New York |
| Robert Emory | 1831 | President, Dickinson College |
| John L. O'Sullivan | 1831 | Editor, United States Magazine and Democratic Review ; coined term "Manifest Destiny" |
| Isaac Clason Delaplaine | 1834 | U.S. Congressman |
| John Richardson Thurman | 1835 | U.S. Congressman |
| Samuel Blatchford | 1837 | Associate Justice, U.S. Supreme Court |
| George Templeton Strong | 1838 | Treasurer, U.S. Sanitary Commission; noted diarist and chronicler of New York City |
| William Riggin Travers | 1838 | President, New York Athletic Club; founder, the Travers Stakes |
| Oliver Wolcott Gibbs | 1841 | President, National Academy of Sciences |
| James H. Mason Knox | 1841 | President, Lafayette College |
| Abram S. Hewitt | 1842 | U.S. Congressman; Mayor of New York City |
| William Backhouse Astor | 1849 | Financier; husband of Mrs. Astor, co-founder of "The 400" |
| Alfred Thayer Mahan | 1858 | President, U.S. Naval War College; author of The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 |
| Edgar M. Cullen | 1860 | Chief Judge, New York State Court of Appeals |
| John Howard Van Amringe | 1860 | First Dean of Columbia College |
| Edward Mitchell | 1861 | U.S. Attorney, Southern District of New York |
| Nicholas Fish | 1867 | U.S. Minister to Switzerland and Belgium |
| George Lockhart Rives | 1868 | Chairman of the Columbia Trustees |
| Wm. Milligan Sloane | 1868 | President, American Academy of Arts and Letters; coach of first U.S. Olympic team, Athens, 1896 |
| Willard Bartlett | 1869 | Chief Judge, New York State Court of Appeals |
| Hamilton Fish, Jr. | 1869 | U.S. Congressman; Speaker of the New York State Assembly |
| Robert Fulton Cutting | 1871 | President, Cooper Union |
| Brander Matthews | 1871 | First professor of dramatic literature in the United States |
| John Buckley Pine | 1877 | Clerk of the Columbia Trustees; suggested Morningside Heights as future site of Columbia University |
| William Barclay Parsons | 1879 | Chairman of the Columbia Trustees; chief engineer, NYC Rapid Transit Commission |
| J. Mayhew Wainwright | 1884 | U.S. Congressman; Asst. Secretary of War |
| James W. Gerard | 1890 | U.S. Ambassador to Germany, 1914-1917 |
| John Purroy Mitchel | 1899 | Collector of the Port of New York; Mayor of New York City |
| Alfred Harcourt | 1904 | Co-founder and President, Harcourt Brace & World |
| Alfred Joyce Kilmer | 1908 | Poet; author of "Trees" |
| V. K. Wellington Koo | 1909 | Premier and foreign minister of China; ambassador to the United States; member of the International Court of Justice |
| J. Ward Melville | 1909 | President, Melville Shoe Corp.; founder, Thom McAn Shoes |
| William R. Langer | 1910 | U.S. Senator; Governor of North Dakota |
| Dixon Ryan Fox | 1911 | President, Union College |
| Randolph S. Bourne | 1912 | Radical social critic and essayist; contributor, The New Republic and The Atlantic |
| Douglas McRae Black | 1916 | President, Doubleday & Co. |
| Frederic R. Coudert, Jr. | 1918 | U.S. Congressman; campaign manager for Wm. F. Buckley, Jr. as New York City mayor |
| James Warner Bellah | 1923 | Author; short stories formed basis of John Ford classics Fort Apache , She Wore a Yellow Ribbon , and Rio Grande ; screenwriter, Sergeant Rutledge and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance |
| Sidney Buchman | 1923 | Screenwriter for Mr. Smith Goes To Washington ; winner of the Academy Award for Here Comes Mr. Jordan |
| Elliott V. Bell | 1925 | New York State Superintendent of Banks; publisher, BusinessWeek |
| Lawrence A. Wien | 1925 | Pioneering real estate lawyer and Columbia philanthropist |
| Jacques Barzun | 1927 | Provost and University Professor, Columbia University |
| William Ludwig | 1932 | Screenwriter for Oklahoma and The Great Caruso ; winner of the Academy Award for Interrupted Melody |
| John Berryman | 1936 | Poet; winner of the Pulitzer Prize for 77 Dream Songs |
| Robert Giroux | 1936 | Chairman and editor-in-chief, Farrar Straus & Giroux |
| Robert Marshak | 1936 | President, American Physical Society; President, City College of New York |
| Thomas Merton | 1938 | Trappist monk; author; humanist |
| Wm. Theodore de Bary | 1941 | Provost of Columbia University |
| I.A.L. Diamond | 1941 | Screenwriter for Some Like It Hot and The Fortune Cookie ; winner of the Academy Award for The Apartment |
| Paul V. Governali | 1943 | Quarterback, New York Giants |
| Allen Ginsberg | 1948 | Poet; author of Howl ; winner of the National Book Award |
| Robert N. Butler | 1949 | Geriatrician; winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Why Survive? Being Old in America |
| Jason Epstein | 1949 | Editorial director, Random House; co-founder, The New York Review of Books ; co-founder, The Library of America |
| Carl Hovde | 1950 | Dean of Columbia College |
| Richard Howard | 1951 | Poet, critic, translator; winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Untitled Subjects |
| Robert Gottlieb | 1952 | Editor-in-chief, Simon and Schuster; president and editor-in-chief, Alfred A. Knopf; editor, The New Yorker |
| Ben Stein | 1966 | Actor, entertainer, author |
| Gideon Yago | 2000 | MTV news correspondent |