Class of 1878
Memorials to eminent members of the class continue to be reported. A copy of the June number of the Long Trail News (published bi-monthly by the Green Mountain Club), received from Mrs. Charles S. Caverly, contains the following with reference to our class scholar: "Someof the friends of Dr. George Holley Gilbertrealized after his death last year that theDorset Trail, which he so largely helpedto create, was needing work and care tokeep it in fit condition for tramping. Thesefriends felt they would like to perpetuatehis memory by an organized plan for takingcare of the trail. . . . In 1928 Dr. Gilbertwrote 'The Dorset Trail,' giving the storyof the trail, illustrated with photographsby Carl Ramsay, and information aboutthe peaks, and the paths leading over them.
"Dr. Gilbert also published a map of thetrail, through the generous support of amember of the 'Dorset Society of NaturalScience,' organized by Dr. Gilbert to arousewider interest in the out-door world. At theautumn meeting of this Society it was votedto assume responsibility for caring for thetrail, as a memorial to Dr. Gilbert, and acommittee was appointed to have chargeof this work. ... It is purposed duringthe coming summer to make a special occasion of naming one of our peaks for Dr.Gilbert, with appropriate ceremonies."
The idyl of the singer in the June MAGAZINE must touch a responsive chord in every Dartmouth man who recalls how aspiration awoke within him as the songs of that day floated out over the campus. Doubtless the singer as portrayed by Dr. Bartlett was something of a composite rather than a literal portrait, but members of '78 cannot fail to recognize in it the features of our lamented Clarence Burnham.
W. D. M. Smith of Charleston, W. Va., spent some weeks in New England during the summer, his first visit for many years. Parkhurst entertained him at luncheon at the Union Club, Boston, August 17. Other guests were Rev. T. C. H. Bouton of St. Petersburg, Fla., Alfred P. Sawyer of Lowell, Mass., and W. D. Parkinson of Fitchburg. Smith's stock of reminiscences is abundant and varied.
A. H. Carpenter of Stockton, Calif., was at his summer home in Vermont for a short time during the summer, but his attention was so absorbed in matters of litigation that college associations escaped him.
W. D. Parkinson is playing the role of the cat in a strange garret. He was elected in July to fill out an unexpired term as president of the Fitchburg Chamber of Commerce, and is wandering to and fro trying to learn what it is all about.
The list of errata for our "Narrative of Fifty Years" continues to grow. At the bottom of page 320, in introducing the quoted description of the introduction of curve pitching, the editor, never a ballplayer, ventured his memory as a spectator in saying that "the rules required pitching to be under the shoulder in those days." He is now informed that at that particular time the rule required the ball to be delivered from below the hip, that it was not until later that the limit was raised to the waist, then to the shoulder, and finally removed altogether.
The Manchester (Vt.) Journal of September 1 contains an extended account of the dedication on August 27, by the Dorset Society of Natural Science, of "Gilbert Lookout" in honor of the founder of that society and the Dorset Trail. The exercises included the reading of several of Dr. Gilbert's own poems and of one written for the occasion by his son Wilfred ('14), who seems to preserve undiminished the poetic strain of his father.
The Lookout is a rocky promontory of Owl's Head Mountain, to which Dr. Gilbert was accustomed to lead his friends as a vantage ground from which to view the whole Dorset valley. The portion of the mountain which includes this cliff has been purchased by the Dorset Society, so its preservation unspoiled is assured.
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