1897

The class of '97 seems to have little blind spots in its reports covering the years shortly after graduation. I want to take you on a little trip to Mrs. Timothy Lynch's rooming house at 10 Pinkney Street where "Hiram"Tuttle, Maurice Brown, "Kid" Folsom, and I had our rooms. Mrs. Lynch, who ran the house, didn't bother much with our affairs, t suppose some sweeping was done but not of the serious kind. I was surveying on the State line between Massachusetts and Rhode Island, locating the boundaries in latitude and longitude. "Hiram" had been selling typewriter ribbons and ink for the Carter Ink Co., and a good salesman he was, before he went into engineering on concrete work. Maurice Brown was designing bridges in the Boston Bridge Co. "Kid" Folsom was climbing the ladder in the textile business with the Wellington-Sears Co. "Jerry" Simpson had a temporary job in Boston.

Here at 10 Pinkney Street, our classmates would gather Saturday nights after the shows. The crowd would come to our room and sit on the beds and on our four or five chairs, and we would open bottles of beer or tap a keg and have a rarebit and sing. I was in charge of the chafing dish and, while the recipe has long since been famous at the New' York high spots, it was simple. If I may draw the picture of making a rarebit as it really was, I think it will fill in this blind spot a little in our class records. "Jerry" Simpson, "Kid" Folsom, and I —"Kid" in the middle—each had opened a bottle of beer, "Jerry" and I each had mugs. "Kid" with his arms around us, couldn't hold a mug, both hands being busy holding us together. We had to pass our mugs, first one and then the other to "Kid" to give him a drink, while we sang:

"I've roamed this wide world over from Barrington to Dover, and I've been down on Old Greenland's Coral Strand; once there in a moment of pleasure I discovered a girl to hug."

The second verse was like the first, so we sang the first again. We were forced to drink the beer to get the bottles in which to beat the eggs. We had three eggs and eventually three empty bottles, and with some dexterity punching a hole in both ends of each of the three eggs, we proceeded to blow one into each of the three bottles, shaking them up for use in our rarebit as we sang our song. Our recipe called for cheese, thinly sliced and melted in butter, a little mustard, a little Worcestershire sauce and thoroughly cooked, with beer mixed in from time to time until the whole mess when lifted up on a spoon would string down long and hairy. Then the eggs from the bottles which had been well shaken were poured in and stirred thoroughly, until we had a granular rarebit fit to eat without spoiling digestion.

I think the songs had a great deal to do with the success of our parties. Maurice was a good singer, "Jerry" was pretty good. Some of our visitors were real singers, and with the beer and the rarebit, we revived the college spirit. The policeman on the beat was mystified. He didn't understand why the men came nearly every Saturday night to this house, and only after Ned Woodworth and Billie McFce came and sang with us at a keg party was he convinced that these were joyous occasions by boys who were having a good time and not the gambling house he suspected it was. Ned's wonderful baritone and Billie's fine tenor apparently satisfied him, and he didn't bother watching the house so much. We met the cop socially at Mrs. Lynch's wake among the candles with regulation drinking of a little whiskey together. After this, there was no watch on Number 10.

Among the visitors were most of the classmates in Boston, those studying law at Harvard and Boston University. "Hiram" and I had the front room with two beds, a great big easy chair on which we kept all of our pants with the legs down in the front and the suspenders overback hanging to the floor. Leaning against the pants kept them in press. There were about ten pairs on the chair. Number 10 Pinkney is located just north of Louisburg Square and Chestnut St., where lived the "Chippendales" of "accepted ecological intrinsic nexus." NOT E: (Refer to Land Use in Central Boston—Harvard Univ. Press). Maurice and "Kid" had the back room with two beds and some chairs. There was a lavatory between the two rooms and a bathroom of sorts downstairs. "Jerry" had a small room near the bathroom.

I was the first to leave, taking a job in New York which I wasn't sure I should like, so I left my trunk and dress suit and white shirt and shiny patent leather pointed shoes to be sent down in the trunk if I decided to stay. The trunk reached me by express-collect at my new home on the third floor of a New York boarding house located between the wholesale market section on the south, and the slaughter house section to the north known as Hell's Kitchen. To the east of us was the Tenderloin, where Bill Devery (the best New York Police Chief) made his great speech and started the "New Deal" at a saloon, on 28th St. near 7th Ave., called the "Pump." This was his headquarters. He was running for mayor against Seth Low and his speech was short and to the point, but it was the heart of the "New Deal" born in the Tenderloin of New York. His speech was, "The downtrod shall be up lift and have their say." When I opened my trunk, I found Number 10 Pinkney St. had at last been cleaned of everything not wanted. Old shoes, and clothes, all the empty bottles that lacked return value, a string of "derby hats," mv very pointed shoes and my dress suit and white shirt on top. All were there. Think of the incongruity of sending "derby hats" to New York where all the Hall Room Boys, of which I was to be one, wore "toppers" with bell-shaped Prince Albert coat and carried swagger canes.

There were a bunch of '97 fellows in New York, Gibson, Thyng, Mosher, Gilman, Pillsbury and just across in Jersey, Boardman, also several '96 and '98 men whom we knew. But New York is another story which I shall try to picture after consulting with "Gibby" on some details.

A NINETY-SEVEN TRIO OF SONG-BIRDS: Looking as though they might burst into song at any minute, the three young men shown here shared Mrs. Timothy Lynch's dusty rooms at 10 Pinkney Street, Boston, after their graduation from College. Would you recognize them today .... Jerry Simpson, "Kid" Folsom, and Bill Ham?

Secretary, 886 Main St., Bridgeport 3, Conn Treasurer, 53 State St., Boston 9, Mass. Class Agent, 862 Park Sq. Bldg., Boston, Mass.