Letters to the Editor
ABOUT MARIS PIERCE
My dear Sir: In reading the account of the Dartmouth Indians in the December number of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE I mention as follows: Maris Bryant Pierce D. C. 1840. I think Chapman was right in listing him as a graduate. I had an uncle, George P. Hadley, who graduated in the class of 1840, and died in 1885, and I have often heard him speak of Pierce as a graduate.
Albert Carney 1875. When Carney first came to New Hampshire he landed at Hanover. This was late in fall of 1868 or spring of 1869, and the instructors having no place to fit him in placed him in the Agricultural Department which then consisted of a few, very few students located at Hanover. And after a brief stop here he went to Meriden where he joined the preparatory department; this was early in the spring of 1869. Dr. Gerould in his general Catalogue of Kimball Union Academy of 1880, says of him under class of 1870, page 270: "Albert Carney: b. Wheelock, Indian Ter. November 29th, 1842. K. U. A. '69-70. D. C. '71-73. Notary Public Com'r Court of Claims &c. Caddo, Ind. Ter. Pri. 1st. Lt. C. S. A " When Carney first came to Meriden in the spring of 1869 he dated himself as follows:
Albert Carney, Boggy Depot, Choctaw Nation, I. T., which autograph I now have. He wrote a nice hand and used good language. He claimed to have served as a Lieut, in the Confederate service army of the Southwest under General Sterling Price whom he held in high esteem and of whom he always spoke in glowing terms.
Goffstown, N. H.
A ZEALOUS DARTMOUTH INDIAN
Dear Professor I note in the December number of Dartmouth ALUMNI MAGAZINE an article written by you entitled "The Dartmouth Indians." In it I note in the list of Indians the name of Albert Carney, 1874. I do not find the name of my Indian classmate, Charles Alfred Carson, whom I always understood during the college period was taking a special course. You will find his name in the class of 1872 in the General Catalogue of Dartmouth College and the Associated Schools, 1769-1925. In the catalogue there is no note of any special course. I do not recall when he came to college, but feel certain that he finished his course at the same time with the rest of us. Mr. Carson is a zealous Dartmouth man and deserves recognition. I think you will find somewhere in the records of the college some statement of his connection with the Class of 1872.
S42 Madison Avenue, New York.
THE FIRING AT BUNKER HILL
Dear Mr. Clark: Dartmouth ALUMNI MAGAZINE, page 123 Dec. 1929 issue.
Daniel Simons, 1770 did hear the cannon at Bunker Hill, happening to be lying asleep on the turf. The noise awoke him: he called it to the attention of Laban Ainsworth, 1778, who listened in and heard it, not in the air but in the earth.
I believe it: Tell Kelly.
657 Congress Street, Portland, Me.
TRIBUTE TO E. N. LIBBY '92
Editor, Alumni Magazine: A long obituary of E. N. Libby '92 has already appeared in the N. E. Journal of Medicine, substantially that which appeared in the Dartmouth ALUMNI MAGAZINE. The following is an unusual if not unprecedented tribute from his fellow members in the Massachusetts Medical Society, which is composed of 8 District Societies. The Norfolk District is the one to which Dr. Libby belonged by reason of the location of his residence.
IN MEMOKIAM
To say little and do much seemed to have been his motto, and those who knew him best would have him so remembered. That physician loved, honored, respected by all seemed best to have exemplified Stevenson's beautiful passage in his Dedication to Underwoods: Generosity, tact and discretion—all were his, though he would have erased these words to write in "humble."
To the memory of the late Dr. Edward Norton Libby, Teacher—Advisor—Friend, on behalf of his many friends and associates in the Norfolk District Medical Society.
(Dec. 12 issue of New England Journal ofMedicine.) M. V. SAFFOHD '90 Health Dept., City Hall Annex, Boston, Mass.
INTERESTED IN OUR INDIANS
Dear Mr. Clark: Enclosed is a copy of the American IndianMagazine in which the article on the Dartmouth Indians is reproduced.
The editor of this magazine tells me that he is compiling a list of Indians who went to Dartmouth and are not on this list and also some additional information about some that are listed. I do not know whether you will want this but if he gives it to me I will send it along.
With best wishes for the New Year.
The Tulsa Tribune, Tulsa, Okla.
CREW IS THE BUNK!
Editor Alumni Magazine: I do not know how serious all this talk about a crew at Dartmouth is, but I do not like it at all. Dartmouth has no place among its athletic activities for crew either from a financial or physical standpoint.
In the first place crew costs more to run than any other sport (when run properly) and does not return but a few cents to the treasury. I happen to know what I am talking about as I have been connected with institutions for the past seven years where crew is a big sport.
Secondly, crew will go a long ways to lower the caliber of the winter and spring athletic teams to say nothing of what it will do to football, the sport for which Dartmouth has long been famous. Dartmouth has not the enrollment to stand a crew.
Let me explain further how crew will hinder the other teams. Remember that I have seen it work.
Crew demands big men, the biggest and most active in the place. There go the big men who otherwise might be used in wrestling, boxing, basketball and water polo in the winter. Also the track team will sorely miss the big men for the weights and goodness knows that Harry Hillman has a tough enough job as it is, having to make his own weight men, without having what little material he might otherwise use taken away from him. Lacrosse needs big men too. Right there is a good chance of six sports being hard hit. Crew must work in the winter, you know.
Perhaps you say, "Well, I can't see where it is going to bother football." All right, listen. Football is becoming a more open game as the years go by. The premium upon speed and more speed is paramount. We must have it in every position on the football team. Consequently we should do everything in our power to help those men gain speed and agility. Crew will not do this. It works in the opposite direction. Any one of the other sports mentioned above will aid the football man, especially track and lacrosse.
Last year I wrote to some of the leading football coaches of the country inquiring what they would have their football men do in the off-season. Track and lacrosse carried the day. One man said, "Crew—;it makes their backs strong." Later he was beaten by a team coached by a man who said, "Track." Evidently it takes more than strong backs to play modern football. Glen Warner was the man who said "crew" but now that Stanford is talking of putting crew back, I understand that he is fighting it tooth and nail. Well, that's that.
There is one more angle, however. A student should learn to play some game in college that he can carry on with when he gets through. Very few men will be able to join a boat club or have a boat of his own to exercise in after he leaves college. He should take up tennis or golf for his summer exercise and handball or racquets for his winter workout. These are sidelines which he can pick up in the slack months and from which he will receive much enjoyment in later years, and at small expense to himself.
As I have said, I know little about the plans at Hanover for a crew. It sounds great and perhaps a bit romantic to the uninitiated, but it really is the "bunk." Few crew men make the starting lineup of the football teams at Navy and Yale. None of the leading football teams of the country have crew as a competitor. With my contentions and this latter fact it should prove that there is no place at Dartmouth for a crew.
Incidentally, I do not like the idea of "The Green." This makes it 4-3 in favor of "The Big Green." It always has been "The Big Green" and, no matter what reformers and futurists try to do, it always will be "The Big Green" to the majority of Dartmouth men now living. The love of a Dartmouth man for his college, its various functions, its teams and it's color is Big and will always be so. Therefore, it should rightly be called "The Big Green."
Navy Track Coach. 571 West Street, Annapolis, Md.
TWO MORE INDIANS
Editor Alumni Magazine May I burden you with a few additional notes about "Dartmouth Indians," apropos of your article in the ALUMNI MAGAZINE?
"1876 R. K. Adair. No record." Rollin Kirk Adair came to Hanover in the fall of 1874 from the Cherokee Nation. He was fitted for nothing but the N. H. College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts, now evolved into the University of New Hampshire, but then filling a very humble place as the Agricultural Department of Dartmouth. I knew Adair fairly well. He remained through the three years' course, and graduated in 1877. It was said some years after, that upon his return to the Nation he had gradually reverted to the blanket. Perhaps the University of New Hampshire people may have some further record of him.
In the fall of 1876 Walter Howard Luckadoe came to Hanover from Richmond, Va. He was a prepossessing fellow, probably not of entire Indian blood. He likewise was taken on by the Agricultural College, but my impression is that he did not stay through the year. I should like to know what became of him.
In my freshman year there was an Indian senior, Robert Hawthorn, '74—whom I knew only as I saw him on the campus in football games. He was decidedly Indian in appearance. He came from Kansas, and I think I used to hear that his education was financed by somebody in that region. I doubt if his classmates ever heard anything about him after they separated. At least nothing appears in the history of the class.
Chelsea, Vt,
TWO INDIANS
Editor of the Alumni Magazine:
A few issues ago I mentioned the apparent omission of occasional names in a catalogue of the students of Indian blood who had attended Dartmouth College, citing especially DeWitte Clinton Duncan of the class of 1861, whom I had understood to be a full-blood Cherokee. Since that time I have had a letter from one of the survivors of that class, Major E. D. Redington, which indicates that Duncan was only one-quarter of Indian strain, although he hailed from the Indian Territory, as it was then called.
Major Redington adds interesting details of Duncan's career. He recalls him as being "as fine a specimen of a man, physically, mentally and morally, as I have ever known in a prolonged life. In a crowd of students he was always 'princeps inter principes.' He came to college with less than the usually required preparation and was the oldest member of '61 graduating at the age of 32. He easily ranked among the first ten students in a class of 59 members. After graduation he became a teacher, studying law in his spare time in Wisconsin and lowa. He was married in Charles City, la., to (I think) an Anglo-Saxon wife. He became mayor of Charles City, and as I recall the facts, owing to some controversy between the Government and the Indians concerning their treatment, he spent much of his time in the defense of their tribal rights both in the courts and through the press."
Duncan died in 1909 in Vinita, Okla. Evidently I had seen him later than Major Redington (who last saw his classmate in the years when the major was living in Kansas) because I distinctly remember his visiting my father—also his classmate—and staying at our house, as an incident to making an address on wrongs done the Indians, which he delivered in one of our local churches. I remember him as a fine figure of a man, not so dark of skin as most Indians and yet with the Indian type of face, whose outstanding peculiarity of dress was that he resolutely refused to wear any necktie, even on formal occasions.
Major Redington calls attention in his letter also to another member of '61 as being of Indian blood—Albert Barnes, who in the General Catalogue is stated to have been in the Chandler Scientific school, but as to whose subsequent career little or nothing seems to be known. Major Redington recalls him as of darker skin than Duncan.
Lowell Courier-Citizen, Lowell, Mews.
A CHINOOK INDIAN
My dear Professor Kelly: In reading your interesting article on The Dartmouth Indians in the December ALUMNI MAGAZINE I noticed the omission of the name of Archibald Isaacs who entered college with the class of 1900. His name was listed next to mine in alphabetical order and we sat next one another in chapel and in some classes. Because he was of Indian blood he interested me greatly and I asked him many questions concerning himself and his tribe during the course of our freshman year. He was a Chinook from the state of Washington. I have an impression that he was not a full blood although in appearance he was very definitely Indian, having the straight black hair and copper-colored skin of that race. He prepared at some high school in the state of Washington and came to Dartmouth because as he told me, it was established as an Indian school. My recollection is not entirely clear but I think he left college at the end of freshman year.
A fair student of unusual intelligence, he could talk very entertainingly of his people, their traditions and customs. One statement of his which stands out very clearly in my memory was that among the vague traditions of his tribe was one to the effect that they had originated in lands beyond the Pacific and had reached their present territory from the north. The class secretary appears to have no record of him since he left college but something might be learned from the Dean's files of 1896-7.
It might be of interest some day to prepare an article on the Dartmouth graduate for whom a president of the United States was named, Rev. Stephen Grover of the class of 1796. I have never seen it mentioned anywhere that Grover Cleveland was christened Stephen Grover for the Presbyterian minister in Caldwell, New Jersey, who was a close friend of his parents. He later dropped the Stephen and is known to history only as Grover Cleveland. Even Cleveland's biographers do not seem to know the origin of his name and his own daughter, Mrs. Amen, told me that none of his family knew for whom "Stephen Grover" stood except that he was a friend of her grandfather. But Cleveland was born in Caldwell at a time when Stephen Grover was minister there and his parents were devout Presbyterians.
81 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass.
YET MORE INDIANS
Dear Mr. Clark Referring to Mr. Eric P. Kelly's most interesting and exhaustive article in the Dec. number of Dartmouth ALUMNI MAGAZINE, "The Dartmouth Indians," permit me to state that there was an Indian graduate in '61, a DeWitt Duncan. Duncan was a fine specimen, tall, stately, scholarly, and a highly respected member of his class.
I knew him fairly well as he and I were members of a class in French in the winter of 59-60, which was his sophomore year and my freshman winter. I do not know his tribe. An Indian named Samuel Morris entered '62 in freshman year. I do not remember much about him. Cummings, in his history of our class, mentions him. I have the impression that he came to us from Penn. At least I associate him with that state.
129 East 3rd St., Long Beach, Calif.
