CHARLES PARKER CHASE

Charles Parker Chase was born in West Newbury, Mass., May 6, 1845, and died at Hanover, N. H„ August 10, 1923. His life, which extended beyond the allotted span of threescore years and ten, was one of active service. This was the natural result of his nature and his environment.

The son of a farmer, one of nine children, his boyhood was passed under circumstances that, according to the prayer of Agar, were most favorable, as they were marked by neither poverty nor riches. Comfort without luxury, frugality without want required labor but did not enforce privation. His father gave to his children the ordinary educational advantages of the time, but his means or his interest did not extend to the higher education, and that Mr. Chase, as well as an older brother, went to college was due to the fact that his mother "was not one who never considered the possibility of her sons not going to college."

His later preparation for college was secured at Phillips Andover Academy, from which he entered Dartmouth in 1865, led thither by the older brother's choice of that college and through the influence of the Rev. Davis Foster, the pastor of the church in West Newbury. In college he was self-supporting, and except for $200 received from home he met all his college expenses by his own work. Like so many students of his day, he turned to teaching, and at the serious risk of health he taught at Thetford and Norwich while carrying on his college work, but nevertheless that work was so well done that at graduation he gained the coveted honor of membership in Phi Beta Kappa, and at Commencement he was assigned an English oration, when that part connoted high scholarship. Before the days of athletics and other activities, now so prominent, he was a member of a fraternity, or society as the organization was then called, the D. K. E., which was the one form of social and scholarly recognition in college.

After graduation Mr. Chase continued the work which had been both successful and remunerative, and a year later he was invited to become a tutor in Greek in the College. That was before it was regarded important that a college teacher should have trod the narrow road of specialization that leads to a doctor's degree, but ability shown in college, and breadth of interest, strengthened by character, were the basis of appointment. Mr. Chase's range is indicated by his record. In 1872 he became professor of mathematics in Olivet College and two years later he was transferred to the chair of Latin. While he was a tutor at Dartmouth he was one of a group of young college instructors who daily gathered about the hospitable table of Mr. Newton S. Huntington, the cashier of the local national and savings banks. That association led to the marriage of Mr. Chase with Mr. Huntington's daughter, Fanny Caro Huntington, July 7, 1874.

In 1878 Mr. Chase resigned his position in Olivet College and returned to Hanover to assist Mr. Huntington in the increasing business of the banks of which he had become the president. But he did not wholly abandon teaching even when serving as cashier and director of the banks, for in 1880 the college again secured him as instructor in Greek, and for nine years, from 1883 to 1892, he was instructor in political economy in the Chandler School. In 1890, on the death of Frederick Chase, the treasurer of the college, Mr. Chase was appointed in his place, although he did not give up his connection with the banks, which continued until his death.

For twenty-five years he conducted the college treasury with fidelity and exactness, a period in which the extraordinary growth of the College under President Tucker brought special strain upon its resources and in which great additions to its funds made new demands in their oversight.

But during those years, while the banks and the college called for separate and discriminating judgment, Mr. Chase was more and more identified with important matters in the community. After the death of Mr. Huntington people increasingly relied upon him for advice and aid in investments and in the management of funds and estates. His name constantly appeared in the probate lists; of executors, administrators and trustees. Much of this work was gratuitous, the quiet expression of a helpful spirit. It was through his advice that the College, the village, the hospital and the Howe Library benefited by the bequests of Mrs. Emily Howe Hitchcock.

Prominent in all matters of public interest Mr. Chase was for many years the superintendent of the Sunday School of the college church, a member of the corporation and trustees of the Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital, its secretary and treasurer for many years, a trustee of the Howe Library and one of the two trustees of the Pine Park Association. Though without ambition for political preferment he was a staunch Republican and influential in party counsels. In the extension of his business interests he was a director of the Northern Railroad and the president of the Mascoma Electric Light and Power Company and of the Grafton County Electric Light and Power Company.

In all the lines of his activity Mr. Chase exhibited the same qualities. He was diligent, painstaking, precise to an extreme, faithful to every obligation and unwearied in its performance. Behind a smiling demeanor he carried a strong determination and was sometimes sharp and impatient with those whose positions seemed unreasonable or whose requests he could not or would not satisfy. A superficial irritability was often a cover for the performance of an unpleasant duty, but where he felt no barrier of duty he was open and responsive. Not an easy talker he yet enjoyed social life.

Students and others who found him unresponsive to excuses that seemed to him evasions did not realize that he was a man on whom many leaned, and who quietly and efficiently did those things which hold a community together.

CHARLES PARKER CHASE