CLASS OF 1879

Any boy baby, born in the United States during this spring of 1929, stands an excellent chance of being named "Herbert Hoover"— and this, probably, is not confined to those born north of the Mason and Dixon line. About 1945 they probably will begin to appear in the Dartmouth catalogue.

There is nothing peculiar in this. Something of the kind is likely to happen every four years—hence the thousands of "Andrew Jacksons," "Grover Clevelands," etc., etc.

In 1852, Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire was elected president, and inaugurated March 4, 1853. This probably accounts for the worst mix-up that has ever occurred in the Alumni Records Office. Even in that interesting article in the January number of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE, on "Dartmouth's Lost Sheep and How They Are Found," nothing is disclosed quite equal to it. It required more than 50 years to get things straightened out.

August 4, 1875, Franklin Pierce Fisher, born January 20, 1853, was enrolled in the Dartmouth Medical School, and soon after dropped out of sight.

September 3, 1873, Franklin Pierce Fisher, born April 24, 1853, was enrolled in the Academic Department of the class of '79, Dartmouth College, and soon after dropped out of sight.

Here were two men, of the same age, with exactly the same name, coming at the same time, leaving at the same time. What would be more natural than to suppose that they were one and the same. In later days it was so supposed, and in the last General Catalogue only one man is accounted for, and all records available were applied to him.

There had been found to be a Franklin Pierce Fisher, a worthy Doctor, in Enfield Center, N. BL, who admitted that he was the Medic of 1875. He was believed to be "it," though he denied that he was ever in the Academic Department,—especially as he asserted that he had no relative or acquaintance named Franklin Pierce Fisher, and never knew any other Fisher in Hanover.

The Doctor died in Enfield, January 17, 1929, and only since his death has the identity and history of his namesake been discovered. There really were two of them. It seems that the Enfield man was the son of Sanford Fisher of Charlestown, Mass., while the other was the son of Welcome Fisher of Lyndon Center, Vt., and that the latter Franklin Pierce, immediately after leaving Hanover, went West, dropped completely out of Dartmouth ken, and finally brought up in California, where he lived for many years at San Diego, and died there, September 9, 1925, without ever knowing of the other's existence or of the search that had been made for him.

And that sort of thing is what comes from naming babies after presidents.

Secretary, 165 Broadway, New York