Early alumni of Exeter include US Senator Daniel Webster (1796); John Adams Dix (1809) a Secretary of the Treasury and Governor of New York; US President Franklin Pierce (1820); Abraham Lincoln's son and 35th Secretary of War Robert Lincoln (1860); Ulysses S. Grant, Jr. (1870); Richard and Francis Cleveland; "grandfather of football" Amos Alonzo Stagg (1880); Pulitzer Prize-winning author Booth Tarkington (1889) and Hugo W. Koehler (1903), American naval spy during the Russian Revolution and step-father of United States Senator Claiborne Pell. John Knowles, author of "A Separate Peace" and "Peace Breaks Out", was a 1945 graduate; both novels are set at the fictional Devon School, which serves as an analog for his alma mater.