Members of the Board
The fourth in the series of biographical sketches of the members of the Dartmouth Board of Trustees appears below.
Edward S. French '06
EDWARD S. FRENCH 'O6, one of Dartmouth's five Life Trustees, has been "selling transportation" successfully for thirty-odd years, during the past 15 as president of the Boston and Maine Railroad and for the past 13 as president of the Maine Central.
Under Mr. French's guidance, the century-old B&M, in which Dartmouth men have a particular interest as frequent patrons in their undergraduate years, has become a progressive railroad, operating together with the Maine Central some 4800 miles of track that serve Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts and a part of New York state. During Mr. French's presidency the Boston and Maine and the Maine Central pioneered in inaugurating the first railroad-owned air line in the country, establishing the first door-to-door, railroad-owned truck pick-up-and-delivery system, and the first railroad bus and train connections. Mr. French was, therefore, the first railroad president in the nation to head a complete transportation system, rail-air-bus-truck. The B&M also introduced to New England the first streamliner east of the Mississippi.
In the process of transforming the Boston and Maine, Mr. French also turned his Yankee enterprise toward helping revitalize industrial and recreational New England. Dartmouth and the North Country were naturally sym- pathetic toward the impetus given the newly aroused interest in skiing and winter sports by the B&M's famous Snow Trains that travelled north regularly until the war curtailed pleasure excursions.
In recognition of the services rendered New England by the two railroads of which Mr. French is president, the Boston Herald awarded their management and personnel its first Distinguished Business Leadership Certificate in 1937.
Mr. French's background is both New England and railroad. Born in Portland, Maine, in 1883, the son and grandson of railroad officials, he attended schools in Somerville, Mass., before entering Dartmouth with the Class of 1906. During summer vacations and after graduating from the College, he worked for the B&M in various capacities, later going to the White River Railroad to become its president in 1920. From then until he became president of the Boston and Maine and Maine Central, Mr. French was head of several northern New England railroads. He is chairman of the New England Railroad Presidents' Committee, chairman of the Board of Jones and Lamson Machine Co., director of The First National Bank of Boston, Saco- Lowell Shops, Oxford Paper Co., National Life Insurance Co., Rock of Ages Corp., and other business organizations. He is also a trustee of the Foundation for Infantile Paralysis.
He was married in Vermont in 1911 to Helen Campbell, Wellesley '11, who died in 1919. He has three daughters: Helen Campbell, the youngest of the three; Betty, now in the WAVES; and Janet (Mrs. Robert S. Gillette).
While he was a student at Dartmouth, Mr. French managed the basketball team. A favorite sport is fishing and he accompanies President Hopkins on fishing trips when their busy schedules permit.
Always active in alumni affairs, Mr. French has been president of the Dartmouth Boston Alumni Association, and was an Alumni Trustee from 1935 until his election in 1941 as one of the College's five Life Trustees. In the latter office he serves as well as a member of two of the Standing Committees of the Trustees: the Executive Committee and Committee on Investments. He received an honorary Master's degree from Dartmouth in 1935 and an especially resounding "Wah Hoo Wah" from the ALUMNI MAGAZINE in 1938 for "completing what has been talked about for 30 years, a new station at White River Junction," an action characteristic of his energetic and progressive spirit.
