Class of 1897

In 1794 the Vermont legislature desired to confiscate some thousands of scattered acres granted by colonial governors to a society of the remote Church of England. It voted to give this land to the schools, and since it was necessary to give a color of justice to an arbitrary act, it declared that the right of this foreign society was "destroyed by the Revolutionary War ofthe United States and us."

Vermont was as independent in 1794 as in 1936. The valley of the northern Connecticut was seized in the years 1760 to 1790 by the most scholarly of the families of Connecticut, the most religious of those of Worcester County, Massachusetts, and the most adventurous of those from southern New Hampshire. In 1777 representatives gathered at Windsor and adopted a state Constitution, but the state had no laws and the pioneers were engaged in the war for freedom. To save time some wished the laws of Connecticut to be adopted by a single act. The Bibleguided Puritans of Massachusetts held out strongly for an adoption of the laws of God, but a rugged New Hampshire pioneer, probably a Lull or a Mosher, moved "to adopt for the state the laws of Godand Connecticut, until we have time tomake better ones." This has been Vermont's attitude throughout the years.

Of 130 members of our class, 24 were born in Vermont. Twenty came to Dartmouth with such preparation as the small Vermont high schools could give. Thirteen were married in Vermont, and no graduate went back there to live.

No selective system, however carefully devised, could have brought the college a stronger group than the Vermont delegation, and I propose to be descriptive in seven cases only. In southern Vermont is a town which those to the manor born call A-thens. In northern Vermont is Corinth, and this town has its accent put explosively on the ultima.

Erdix Smith was born in this town of Corinth, where always a Smith had practiced his calling. The first doctor, Erdix's grandfather, was graduated from the Dartmouth Medical College in 1807. The second doctor, Erdix's father, was similarly graduated in 1844. Erdix, after his college degree, was graduated from the Cleveland Medical College and became the third doctor in East Corinth. The miles were as long as in 1807, but the practice was not heavy, since good treatment for three generations had produced a stock entirely immune to disease and too resilient for ordinary accidents. A second reason was that it was a thrifty Vermont town and frequently Erdix could not make a sale because "I still have some of that medicine that your grandfather gave me."

Now for many years, Dr. Smith, fellow of the American College of Surgeons and expert in fractures, has lived and worked in Springfield, Mass.

In north central Vermont is the village of Johnson. It has a normal school, two or three churches, a Masonic lodge, and a Grange Hall. It has a moving picture house and stores enough for the population and population enough for the stores. There was always there a Ward store. The first Ward traded with the Indians and took in scalps and furs and gave out tobacco and shot-guns. The second Ward sold West India rum to Christians and bought calf-skins and neat cattle. The fifth Ward was Roy's father. He was also postmaster, town clerk, agent for Buckeye mowing machines, and he sold insurance. Our classmate helped his father. He got his professional degree at Dartmouth Medical College. He was married to Mary Downing of Hanover, and his two sons are Dartmouth graduates. He lives in Worcester and is one of the first ranking physicians of the city.

Now I am going to put together Lull, Blanchard, Mosher, Gilman, and Heald. In Vermont there is a distinct class known as the Big Farmers, and to qualify one must have little money, but hired men, town position, many acres, and a home that has never passed from the family since the settlement. So in Brattleboro, Heald followed Heald, and in Sharon, Mosher followed Mosher. In Vershire, a Gilman was always moderator of the town meeting and the first bidder at all auctions. To be a Blanchard in Peacham was like being an Adams in Quincy or a Lord in Hanover.

There were always Lulls in Windsor. They settled, built houses, married, bought more acres, and died. Each generation remained in town. The only breaks were when men went to war and did not return. The county directory—that Burke's Peerage in Vermont—provides this record. "Morris Lull; Road 13; first selectmen;sugar orchard, 500 trees; breeder of Devoncattle; 400 acres."

These farmers not only bred good cattle. They bred good sons, and for many years the Blanchards of Peacham were represented at Dartmouth by at least one son. Lewis Blanchard had a strikingly successful business career and died in Omaha. He married into a Dartmouth family and left two children.

Gilman is a sales engineer with a home in New York City. His one daughter has all of the scholarship distinctions that the University of Michigan can give and is a novelist of repute.

Mosher lives in Phoenix, Arizona, not for his health but for his happiness. He is engaged in real estate operations. He has a wife and son.

Lull, executive vice president of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company, has a house in Houston and an office wherever the vice president's car takes him. His daughter married a Princeton professor and his son, a Dartmouth graduate, works in Houston in a financial capacity.

Heald is a schoolmaster of schoolmasters. He lives in Amherst and has charge of all teacher-training in agriculture for the Massachusetts State Department of Education. He has sons and grandchildren.

Dartmouth presidents from Wheelock to Hopkins have been landed proprietors in Vermont. An ancient clipping before me names the tax delinquents in Strafford, Vt., and declares that Eleazar Wheelock owed seventeen shillings, six pence, and if he did not come across by November 15, 1792, he would be subject to a tax sale and costs.

THE SENIOR FENCE

For about ten years in the eighties and nineties, each class built or caused to be built a 'section of the stone tower in the Park. It was not seemly that a man-made tower should overtop a God-made tree, and so when the tower neared the top branches of the Old Pine, and the Old Pine clearly showed that its days of growth were over, the masons stopped their work. The class of 1895 put the cap on the tower and 1896 put in the stairs. It was then the morning and evening of this day and the work was very good.

The class of 1897 then turned aside for its class gift and memorialized the early Campus Fence, which prevented parochial cows from mingling on the campus with Websters and Choates. It built a substantial Senior Fence.

Time and the elements worked indefatigably until the fence ceased to be as was the original, "bull-strong, horsehigh, and hog-tight." It was then restored, larger and better, by a later class.

This spring a modest tablet has been affixed to the Senior Fence to show that its origin was with the class of 1897.

Secretary, State Capitol, Hartford, Conn. THE UNITED STATES AND US