Deaths

(This is a listing of deaths of which word hasbeen received since the last issue. Full notices,which are usually written by the class secretaries,may appear in this issue or a later one.)

CLASS OF 1851

News has been received of the death of John Sabin Pierce, the last survivor of this class, on December 23, 1919. Attempts to obtain further information have been so far unavailing. The following data may, however, be given.

* He was born in Strafford, Vt, February 2, 1828, the son of Dr. Albigence and Lucy (Bryant) Pierce. He taught at Shepherdstown, W. Va., most of the time for the first ten years after graduation, and then held a business position at the same place from 1861 to 1864. He was then for a year at South Norwalk Conn., and from 1886 to 1873 in the office of a steamship company in New York city. He was then for a time in the real estate business in New York, but finally for many years in business in Baltimore, Md., spending his last years in retirement in or near that city, daughter is said to survive him.

CLASS OF 1866

Rev. William Benjamin Tyng Smith died February 6, 1921, at his home in Charlestown, N. H.

The son of Rev. Henry Sumner and Mary (Hilliard) Smith, he was born in Claremont, N. H., March 9, 1842, and prepared for college at Kimball Union Academy, from which he graduated in 1861. He was a member of Kappa Kappa Kappa, and graduated with Phi Beta Kappa rank.

After graduation he was principal of the high school at Fort Wayne, Ind., for a time, and was then employed as civil engineer on the Fort Wayne and Grand Rapids Railroad. He then studied theology at General Theological Seminary, New York city, graduating in 1871'. December 19, 1869, he was ordained deacon in the Protestant Episcopal church, and priest July 2, 1871. In the summer of 1871 he went to Europe to travel, but was called home by the fatal illness of his father, whom he succeeded as rector of Union church, West Claremont, in June, 1872. In 1876 he went to Wolfboro Junction, where he established a mission and erected the church of St. John the Baptist, remaining there two years. In 1878 he did a similar work for St. Luke's, Woodsville, being there also two years. From 1880 to 1884 he was again rector of Union church, West Claremont; in 1884-6 of St. James' church, Keene; in 1886-8 of Trinity church, Tilton; and in 1888-92 of St. Luke's church, Charlestown. Failing health then compelled him to retire from the active work of the ministry, and he thereafter made his home at Charlestown. At the time of his death he was the oldest minister of the diocese of New Hampshire, both in years and in length of service. He had the esteem and affection of his parishioners and of the community in the various places of his residence. Since 1895 he had been a director and vice-president of the Connecticut River National Bank of Charlestown.

June 27, 1888, Mr. Smith was married to Nellie S. Baker of Charlestown, who survives him. They had no children.

Says the secretary of his class: "He was a beloved classmate. His happy, genial nature and his honesty of purpose in life won for him a place in the hearts of his classmates which will remain as long as there is memory."

CLASS OF 1867

Henry Clay Henderson died at his home in Williamstown, W. Va., September 19, 1920. He had been in failing health since a paralytic stroke received ten years ago.

The son of George Washington and Elizabeth Ann (Tomlinson) Henderson, he was born at Williamstown, September 24, 1845. He prepared for college at home and at Marietta (Ohio) Academy, and took the first two years of his college course at Marietta College, entering Dartmouth at the beginning of his junior year. He was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon.

Upon graduation he returned to his native town and engaged in farming, and so remained through his active life. He was especially interested in stock raising, and in the development of the oil industry in his locality, the Henderson oil field, of which he was part owner, being at one time one of the most productive in the state.

In 1876 he was a member of the House of Delegates of the state, and in 1896 of the Senate, being a life-long Democrat. He had been president of the Parkersburg and Williamstown National Banks and of the West Virginia Telephone Company. He was one of the projectors of the interurban car line between Parkersburg and Williamstown, and was president of the company when the Monongahela Traction Company bought its holdings. He was a Mason, and a communicant of the Protestant Episcopal church.

In 1877 Mr. Henderson was married to Caroline V. Snodgrass, who died in 1905. Three daughters and a son survive their parents.

CLASS OF 1869

David Herbert Andrews died February 24, 1921, at his home in Newton Center, Mass., from the effects of an apoplectic stroke received the day before.

He was born in Pepperell, Mass., September 17, 1844, his parents being David and Thankful (Murdock) Andrews. He took the course of the Chandler Scientific Department, and was a member of the Phi Zeta Mu fraternity (now Sigma Chi).

The first two years after graduation he was employed as a mechanical engineer in Worcester, Mass., and then was assistant engineer with the National Bridge and Iron Works of Boston until 1876. In that year he began business for himself as a bridge builder, and continued throughout his life with increasing reputation and success. In 1891 he organized the Boston Bridge Works, which became incorporated in 1901, and of which he became president and a director.

Mr. Andrews was a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the Boston Society of Engineers, and the Engineers Club of Boston. Since 1896 he had been a visitor at Dartmouth on the Chandler Foundation.

October 17, 1872, he was married to Clara M. Gilbert of Concord, N. H., who survives him, with a daughter, Mrs. William H. Rice, and three sons, John G. Andrews '01, Herbert M. Andrews '04, and Walter R. Andrews '07.

CLASS OF 1873

Matthew Scobey McCurdy was born in Dunbarton, N. H., May 21, 1849. His parents were Matthew and Esther T. (Gregory) McCurdy. When he was four years old the family moved to East St. Johnsbury, Vt., and there his boyhood was spent on a farm. He fitted for college at St. Johnsbury Academy, his principals being two Dartmouth men, H. C. Ide '66 and H. T. Fuller '64. He entered Dartmouth in the fall of 1869, continued with the class throughout the course, and graduated with it. He was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon. In his day a vacation of six weeks began at Thanksgiving time and ended after the New Year, and such as desired to teach school for needed revenue were granted an additional six weeks' absence without being obliged to make up the lost studies, thus giving them a complete winter term in the district schools. So McCurdy taught every winter during his college course.

In the fall of 1873 he became instructor in Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass., where during these almost fifty years he has been a successful teacher in the department of mathematics. He held the unique position in his college class, in that from college days until his death he served but one institution of learning, and died while still in active service.

Our dear "Scobe," as we called him, had that genial, democratic, cordial spirit that bound every member of the class to him. He was an excellent, careful student, and maintained his college friendships through after life. No class reunion was held without finding McCurdy present to renew, the old hallowed associations. He has gone to join that other educator, Dr. George A. Gates, his classmate in the fitting school and his roommate in college.

His death was most tragic. On February 6, Mr. and Mrs. McCurdy were returning home after making an evening call on another member of the faculty. Mrs. McCurdy wished to call at the door of a friend, and as she crossed the street she noticed a rapidly approaching automobile, and called to her husband not to cross. Apparently he did not hear her. As she looked around after crossing she saw his hat lying in the middle of the street, and knew he had been struck by the car, which did not stop, but went away at high speed. It was found that he had sustained multiple scalp wounds and a compound fracture of the right elbow. For a time he seemed to improve, but on Monday, February 14, he began to fail, and died on the early evening of Wednesday, the 16th.

The funeral services were held on the 19th in the chapel of Phillips Academy, the entire body of students being present and many of the people of Andover. His classmates Hadley, Hall, Putney, and Adriance, brought in the name of the class a wreath of laurel, a fitting tribute to his memory, "for deathless laurel is the victor's due."

Mr. McCurdy was married August IS, 1876, to Lydia E„ daughter of Calvin Morrill of East St. Johnsbury, who survives him, with their three sons, Robert Morrill, Sydney Morrill, and Allan Morrill, the last being of Dartmouth 'O9. He had been for many years a deacon of the Congregational church.

To the foregoing tribute from the secretary of his class may fitly be added the following from an appreciation of a former pupil in the Boston Transcript: "His great personal friendliness endeared him to his pupils and to the students in general. No mass meeting or celebration was complete without some words from him, and one of the happiest experiences of a returning alumnus was that of grasping the hand and receiving the genial smile of good old Mac'."

CLASS OF 1878

Rev. Charles Parkhurst died suddenly of heart disease at his home in Somerville, Mass., February 27, 1921.

The son of Chester and Sarah A. (Barnard) Parkhurst, he was born in Sharon, Vt., October 29, 1843, and prepared for college at Kimball Union Academy, from which he graduated in 1864. In that year he entered Dartmouth in the class of 1868, but left in the fall of 1866. He then read law in an office at Claremont, N. H., and practiced there from 1868 to 1871.

A religious experience of unusual intensity and depth then changed his plans for lite, and he began to study for the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal church. In 1874-6 he held an appointment in the Vermont Conference as pastor at Hyde Park. In the fall of 1876 he returned to college, entering the class of 1878 at the beginning of junior year. He continued to hold preaching appointments during the remainder of his college course, being assigned to Bradford, 1876-7, and to Fairlee and North Thetford, 1877-8. During this time he lived with his family at the Balch farm house, then known as "The Bird's Nest." Being a man of domestic and professional responsibilities, he naturally did not take much part in the activities of classmates ten years his junior, but his effectiveness as a public speaker was recognized among the men, and on two occasions he was chosen as class orator, once at a Washington's Birthday celebration, at which each of the four classes in college was represented by a speaker, and again at Class Day. On both occasions the class had occasion to congratulate itself upon its choice.

For two years following graduation he was pastor at Montpelier, Vt.; in 1880-1 at Auburndale, Mass.; in 1881-3 of Baker Memorial church, Concord, N. H.; of Garden St. church, Lawrence, Mass., 1883-6; and at Dover, N. H., 1886-8.

In 1887 a series of letters written from abroad and published in Zion's Herald and the Christian Advocate attracted attention to his literary gifts, and in 1888 he became editor of Zion's Herald, the Methodist church paper of New England. Here he did the great work of his life. In 1906 and '07 he made a journey around the world, said to be his only vacation during his editorship. Upon his return from this trip, apparently as a result, he had a physical breakdown from which he never fully recovered, and his subsequent work was much of it done under stress of physical pain, which, however, he endured with great fortitude. In 1888 he was honored with the degree of Doctor of Divinity by Allegheny College and by the University of Vermont, and in 1914 with the degree of Doctor of Laws by DePauw University. His retirement from the editorial chair in 1919 was made the occasion of a chorus of remarkable tributes by editors of other religious weeklies. Few men have been more honored by their peers.

Zion's Herald for March 2 bears a portrait of Dr. Parkhurst upon its cover, and its issue of March 9 contains a symposium of noble tributes from more than thirty editors, bishops, and university presidents the country over. A portion of the memorial adopted by the Boston Wesleyan Association reads as follows: "With clear vision he bravely faced the tragic facts of a troubled age, and gave the proper Christian interpretation of contemporary life and thought. He builded among his readers a rational Christian optimism, laying its secure foundation on a rational Christian faith. He exalted the ideals of Methodism, and of that wider Christianity of which Methodism is a part. He grew in power and in the regard and confidence of the church and the world, until he was recognized as a premier among Methodist editors, and Zion's Herald was accepted by the secular and religions press alike as one of the mightiest forces in all literature for the defense and promotion of righteousness in the earth."

January 1, 1868, Dr. Parkhurst was married to Lucia Ann Tyler of Sharon, Vt., who survives him, with a son and a daughter.

CLASS OF 1880

Edwin Dewey Field died of pneumonia at St. Mary's Hospital, Duluth, Minn., February'l6, 1921, after a week's illness.

The son of Cornelius A. and Nancy Maria (Dewey) Field, he was born in Montpelier, Vt., June 25, 1858. In 1862 the family removed to Hanover, and the father was for a long time postmaster there. He prepared at St. Johnsbury Academy for the Chandler Scientific Department, and was a member of the Vitruvian fraternity, now Beta Theta Pi.

After graduation he went to Ottumwa, lowa, and was employed in the pork packing establishment of John Morrell and Company to March, 1881, when he was transferred to Canton, Ill., remaining there until May, 1882. In August following he went to Rockford, Ill., and entered the Rockford National Bank. In 1885' he removed to Duluth, and entered the grain business. In 1887 his father removed to Duluth, and the two formed a partnership in the real estate and insurance business. After his father's death he conducted the business alone until six years ago, when he organized the Field-Frey Company, of which he was president at the time of his death. He was active and successful in business, and one of the most highly respected citizens of his city.

He was a leading member of Pilgrim Congregational church, of which he had been a deacon since 1912, and active in the work of the Y. M. C. A. He was a member of the Commercial, Kitchi Gammi, Curling, and Boat Clubs of Duluth, and interested in athletics of every nature. Hie served one term as president of the Duluth Board of Realtors.

August 4, 1887, Mr. Field was married to Mabel Bronson Smith of Rockford, Ill., who died April 7, 1894. A second marriage, April 30, 1907, was to Henrietta J. Barnes of Duluth, who survives him, with one daughter, Elizabeth.

CLASS OF 1888

Francello Grovenor Atwell died in Holliston, Mass., of arteriosclerosis, on his fifty-eighth birthday.

The son of David M. and Roxana (Eastman) Atwell, he was born in Springfield, N. H., February 4, 1863. His boyhood was spent in Enfield, N. H. He was a member of Phi Zeta Mu (now Sigma Chi), and was the leader of his class in the Chandler Scientific Department.

After graduation he taught successively for short periods at Enfield, Lebanon, Orford, Lyme, West Lebanon, Newport, Penacook, and Pittsfield, N. H., and from 1896 to 1901 he was principal of the Ashburnham St. Grammar School in Fitchburg, Mass. From 1901 to 1908 he was superintendent of the Baldwinsville school district, which includes Templeton, Phillipston, Hubbardston, and Royalston, Mass. In 1908 he became superintendent of the Hopedale district, which includes Mendon and Bellingham. He was obliged to relinquish this position in January, 1920, on account of ill health.

Mr. Atwell was married to Edith A. Mooney of Newport, N. H., July 30, 1895. Two children were born to them: Harold V., who is on the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Dorothy W., who is teaching in Northboro, Mass. Mr. Atwell was an active worker in the Unitarian church.

The same intelligent interest and conscientiousness which he showed in training his own children he gave throughout his life to the help and guidance of the children of others committed to his care. He was deeply interested in scientific studies and in manual training and vocational guidance, and he emphasized these features in his educational administration. He gave himself unstintedly during the war to arousing in his pupils ardor in patriotic zeal and work.

A quiet man who never sought to be conspicuous, he found his joys in his books and his home, and in doing his work thoroughly and heartily. Dartmouth sent out during his generation no wiser, no more faithful, no more noble schoolman.

Frederick Austin Whittemore, the oldest member of the class, died of heart disease and pneumonia at the Mary Hitchcock Hospital in Hanover, February 19, 1921.

He was born in Bridgewater, N. H., September 2, 1856, and was fitted for college at New Hampton Institution, New Hampton, N. H. He was a charter member of the Dartmouth chapter of Phi Delta Theta.

After graduation he was principal of schools successively at Hyannis, Mass., Eatontown, N. J., Bristol, Vt., and Lonsdale, R. I. In 1893 he left the teaching profession, and became a farm manager first at Lonsdale, then at Whitinsville, Mass., Bristol, N. H., and at Hanover. In 1903-4 he had charge of agricultural work on the New Jersey Agricultural College farm. . ... .

Mr. Whittemore was .married May 1, 1879, before coming to college, to Ida May Dolloff, who survives him. They have had six children, of whom two sons and two daughters survive. One of the sons is Wilfred Dolloff, Dartmouth '04, now connected with the International Banking Company in Japan.

CLASS OF 1899 KENNETH BEAL

Elmer Williams Barstow, born October 9, 1876, was descended from a race of shipbuilders, of whom the first New Englander was William Barstow; passenger in 1635 on the good ship "Truelove," and the first settler in Elmer's birthplace, Hanover, Mass. And the same practical sense, simple fidelity, and virile self-reliance that made his ancestors notable among the early shipbuilders of the Atlantic coast gave this man also high place in the more exacting labor of character-building in the schoolrooms of New England.

There mingled in his nature the firm, religious character of his father and the sunny, even disposition of his mother. Nothing impressed his associates more than his downright genuineness. One who knew him especially well says: "For an absolutely sincere and genuine man without disguise or pretense he could not be beaten. His religion had shaken off the shackles of bigotry and New England hardness, but it had lost nothing of the traditional devotion and fullness of perspective."

Barstow entered Dartmouth by certificate from the Rockland (Mass.) High School, and maintained throughout his college course a high, well-balanced grade of scholarship. Early in his sophomore year he became an associate editor of The Dartmouth, and in senior year alumni editor. It was in this last position that Elmer truly "found himself." His patient, systematic attention to detail, and his cordial personal correspondence gave his department a significance for the alumni greater than ever before, and likewise gave undergraduate readers a more familiar contact with the alumni.

His success in this executive position and particularly the human touch he had given his work made him a natural choice for the first class secretary of '99. Following no established trail, but simply the lead of his native common sense, he began at once a series of annual class reports that were epoch-making. They were a happy blending of vital statistics and intimate personal messages from the different men. A few, but truly a few, classes before had undertaken annual reports, and none had much departed from the conventional type of statistical summary or matter-of-fact correspondence. It was Elmer's invincible good-nature in securing- responses from procrastinating comrades that injected a new tone into the printed letters. His straightforward, hearty spirit of fellowship created as it were a new world in which the men could still meet familiarly as in the happy college days, — a world of the printed page and of spiritual comradeship. The attitude of mind thus created was further intensified by regular and informal "roundups" in both Boston and New York, which gave many of the class an immediate and delightful way of continuing the old fellowship before it had had time to cool.

The leaven worked rapidly. Class after class fell into line. The Secretaries Association came into being, of which he was early an elected president, though owing to his resignation after ten years as '99's secretary he never actually served. And finally in these days we have our Alumni Association with its manifold vital activities. It is impossible not to see in Elmer Barstow's services as editor and secretary one very considerable factor in the achieving of some of these results we now consider so indispensable as to be commonplace.

His lifework was teaching. Except for a few months soon after graduation spent with the Erie Telegraph and Telephone Company the past twenty-two years have found him ever in the schoolroom. One year he was principal of the high and graded school of Middletown Springs, Vt.; four years he taught at the Pratt Free School, North Middleboro, Mass.; five years he was principal of the Central Grammar School, New Britain, Conn.; one year similarly in the new Ohio Avenue Central Grammar School, Atlantic City, N. J. ; and the last ten years he spent as principal of the Barrows and Strickland Grammar Schools of Springfield, Mass. This was the record. It was a career of steady advancement.

His distinguishing traits as a teacher were thoroughness, sincerity, and affecton. No side of a child's life but was important to him. There was no avenue, however arduous to himself personally, that he knowingly left closed that might lead to any individual child's physical, mental, or spiritual uplift. Moreover, the democracy of Dartmouth had left its imprint upon him in his marked ability to work zealously and cheerfully with both superiors and subordinates in the service. Alike in superintendents, fellow-principals, teachers, pupils, he inspired feelings of genuine confidence and affection.

The home life of Elmer Barstow was singularly happy. His wife was Miss Louise Gertrude Lau of Brooklyn, N. Y., though their first meeting was romantically connected with her services as nurse at the Marry Hitchcock Hospital. There were two children: Marie Louise, born January 7, 1904, and Olive Morse, born April 29, 1905. The latter's death at the Barstow's summer home, Round Pond, Maine, in 1918, was their one great grief. The former is now a senior in the Springfield Central High School.

The friendships of these latter days were many and warm, whether associated with the summer colony at Round Pond, with the Hope Church at Springfield, with the Roswell Lee Lodge of Masons, or with the Dartmouth Lunch Club of Springfield and the Dartmouth Alumni Association of Western Massachusetts, of which latter he was president during the year 1919-1920. Of whatever organization he was a member, his service to it was constant and unselfish.

Peculiarly touching were the circumstances of his death. He was attending the educational convention of principals and superintendents at Atantic City, N. J. On his way to that city he had spent the night with his old college classmate and roommate Surrey, a teacher in New York. And on March 1, the day of his death, he had lunched and reuned happily with three other '99 comrades, Benezet, Silver, and Wiggin, also in attendance on the convention. On leaving them he went to the home of friends for an afternoon's rest before an evening engagement. And there he simply " fell asleep."

By a further odd coincidence, the classmates who on Saturday, March 4, acted as pallbearers at the burial service at Hanover, Mass., returned to Boston just in time to attend the annual '99 round-up in that city. Thus strangely were the last scenes of his life interwoven with the life of that class which he had loved so well and served so loyally.

CLASS OF 1905

Thomas Dunham Luce, Jr., who had been suffering for some months with a malignant tumor in the upper abdomen, died at the home of his parents in Nashua, N. H., February 24, 1921.

He was born in Manchester, N. H., June 10, 1883, his parents being Thomas Dunham (Dartmouth 1875) and Sarah Elizabeth (Nichols) Luce. His parents moved to Nashua in 1887, and it was in Nashua that he attended the public schools. After graduating from the Nashua High School he entered college in the class of 1905, and graduated In due course. He was a member of the Kappa Kappa Kappa fraternity and the Dragon senior society, and was on the Mandolin Club for four years, and was generally active in social matters in college.

After graduating from college, he immediately attended Harvard Law School, and in 1908 began the practice of law in Boston. Until within a few months of his death, he continued there in the general practice of the profession.

January 17, 1916, he was married to Mary W. Wilcox of New Bedford, Mass., who survives him. There were no children. He is also survived by a brother, Charles L. Luce '03, a lawyer in Milford, N. H., by his parents, and by a sister and a younger brother.

It is difficult to express in words the characteristics of Tom Luce, and to state adequately the place that he held in the esteem and love of his classmates. Tom was a true friend, and above all was a lovable fellow. It is safe to say that during all his years at college and in his years afterwards in the outer world he had no enemies. Tom had achieved considerable success in the practice of his profession, and undoubtedly would have been far more successful if he could have lived longer. All his friends regret his pass but will always remember him and his great capacity for friendship.

CLASS OF 1914

Herbert Frank Schuchmann died at his home in the Jamaica Plain district of Boston, February 25, 1921, of pneumonia.

The son and only child of Carl O. and M. Louise (Noether) Schuchmann, he was born in Boston, September 10, 1891, and prepared for college at the English High School in Boston. He took high rank in scholarship in college, specializing in the fine arts during the latter part of his course.

He studied fine arts in the graduate school of Harvard University 1914-17 and 1918-19, taking the A. M. degree in 1917. During the year 1916-17 he was assistant in the department of fine arts and gave a course in the history of engraving in Radcliffe College.

In October, 1917, he was appointed assistant in the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, but resigned in February, 1918, in order to engage in war work. He offered himself repeatedly for active service, but each time was rejected for physical reasons. Finally he accepted a position in the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, because it offered an opportunity to do a necessary work. For a short time during the autumn of 1918 he was with the Food Administration in Boston.

During the spring of 1919 Mr. Schuchmann was not well, and took an extended trip in the West, returning no better. It was then that just the position he had hoped for opened for him, but his health prevented him from accepting it. He was seriously ill for more than a year before the fatal attack of pneumonia.