John Howard Raymond was born on March 7, 1814, in New York, New York.

He was an American educator. At the age of fourteen, he entered Columbia but was expelled for causing disorder in class. In 1832, he graduated from Union College in Schenectady and moved on to the New Haven School of Law. He soon abandoned this pursuit, and in 1834, he entered the Hamilton Baptist Theological Seminary and became their Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy and English Literature. In 1850, Raymond accepted a position as a professor at Madison University (now Colgate). He left in 1851 to help organize a new institution, Rochester University, where he became Professor of Belles-Lettres. In 1856, he helped organize the Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute in Brooklyn and became its first president (1856-1864). He joined the first board of trustees for Vassar College of Poughkeepsie, New York, in 1861 and was elected its president in 1865. He also taught mental and moral philosophy at Vassar. Though an able and eloquent preacher, ministering regularly as chaplain of the college, he was never ordained. He received the honorary degree of LL. D. He published numerous pamphlets and sermons. His “Life and Letters” were published in New York in 1880. His nephew Rossiter Worthington Raymond (1840-1918) was a noted mining engineer and writer.

In 1840, he married Cornelia Eliza Raymond (1820–1905). He died on August 14, 1878, in Poughkeepsie, New York.