PARKHURSTS GIVE NEW TOWN HALL

A BRAND NEW Town House, under construction for over a year, was presented to the town of Weston, Vermont, recently by Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Parkhurst '78, of Winchester, Mass. Mr. Parkhurst has been interested in Weston since 1874, when, as a freshman at Dartmouth, he first went to that village as a teacher in the public schools and there met Emma Wilder, a teacher in the same school, who later became his wife.

Since graduating from Dartmouth, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, Lewis Parkhurst has become well known throughout New England as a former representative and Senator in the Massachusetts Legislature, and as former treasurer of Ginn and Cos., Boston, text book publishers. He served as a Trustee of the college for 33 years and was senior member of the Board at the time of his retirement last year.

Mr. and Mrs. Parkhurst's other gifts to Weston include the Community Church, the Wilder Memorial Library, many of the restorations of the Farrar-Mansur house and extensive improvements along the banks of Cold Spring brook.

In the small entrance hall of the new building is a bronze plaque commemorating Mr. and Mrs. Parkhurst's gift to the town. It reads as follows: "Lewis Parkhurst, a freshman in Dartmouth College and Emma Wilder, daughter of Judge Wilder of Weston, taught the village school in the building adjacent to this in the winter of 1874-75. In due time they became husband and wife, and in 1940 celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary at Winchester, Massachusetts, their home for many years. In 1940 they purchased this village land and dedicated it for all time to be used as a playground for the children, and a Town House for this community. In 1941-42 this building was erected and the land and building presented by them to the citizens of Weston."