1895
I have been reading the 1889 class column in the June MAGAZINE, wherein Secretary Ralph S. Bartlett compares present-day Commencement with Commencement in his day.
Customs and conditions in his collegiate career, as he describes them, were, in general, the same as we '95 men found them.
Published with the current column of '95 notes, you will see a reproduction of a poster advertising the presentation of David Garrick at our Commencement. "Thereby hangs a tale" and here it is.
Not long ago memories of our commencement in June, 1895, were deeply stirred. An interesting thing happened. As I was driving from White River Junction to Lebanon, about the middle of Jul) , I passed an old building which was being demolished to give room for a better building. On the front of this building appeared a poster announcing the presentation, by the Dartmouth Dramatic Club, of the play David Garrick. It was to be given in the old gymnasium on June 25, 1895..
I was pleasantly startled when I saw this poster. Accordingly X stopped in front of the building and when I had read the poster I recalled, with upsurging memory, that I was the impersonator of David Garrick in that very performance of the play.
This poster was evidently pasted up on the front of the building at the time it was being erected and was left there when the building was finished with clapboards, etc. So when the wreckers of the building removed the clapboards on the front of it, there was the poster, well preserved. I knew it would be hopeless to try to detach the poster from the boards, so I subsidized one of the men to saw off the boards upon which the poster appeared and let me have boards and all.
This memento is now in the College Archives. I had preserved a photograph of the cast of the play which is also reproduced in this column.
How many '95ers saw this play, I wonder.
According to a clipping from the CoosCounty Democrat, of Lancaster, New Hampshire, Classmate Fred Cleaveland will have retired by the time these notes are in circulation. Below is the notice of Fred's retirement:
Hon. John R. Goodnow, Chief Justice of the Superior Court, has just announced the resignation, effective October 1, 1948, of Fred C. Cleaveland as Clerk of the Court which was submitted on July 28, the fiftieth anniversary of Mr. Cleaveland's admission to the New Hampshire Bar. Mr. Cleaveland succeeded Moses A. Hastings on June 15, 1917, shortly after the United States entered World War I during which period he was the executive head of the Local Draft Board having jurisdiction of all of Coos County. After a service of ov«r thirty-one years he is retiring as the dean of all the clerks of the state.
Mr. Cleaveland is a native of Lancaster. After his graduation from Dartmouth College he studied law in the office of William H. Shurtleff and Edmund Sullivan and practiced law here for 19 years.
In 1898 he formed a partnership with Attorney Sullivan until it was dissolved by mutual consent in November 1901' and Mr. Sullivan went to Berlin to practice. Mr. Cleaveland practiced alone until June 15, 1917, when he became Clerk of Court.
Besides his work on the draft board in World War I, he was also a member of the board in the past war. In his community he has served 30 years on the school board, has been a selectman one term, and a precinct commissioner several terms. He served as justice in the Municipal Court for many years. He is a Democrat.
BY A STRANGE TWIST OF FATE, the well-preserved poster above, announcing the Dromct'c Club presentation of "David Garrick" on June 25, 1895 was spotted by the leading actor. Class Secretary Roland E. Stevens '95, as he drove past an old house being demolished near Hanover (see '95 column). Mr. Stevens and other members of the cast are shown (right) in an old photograph taken 53 years ago.
Secretary, White River Junction, Vt. Treasurer, Eagle Hotel, Concord, N. H.
