1889
The Hanover Inn has reserved for our use a sufficient number of rooms to accommodate those who are able to attend our 60th anniversary reunion June 10 to 12. This includes all members of our class-family group. Those desiring accommodations' should notify your secretary not later than June I—earlier, if possible.
Hardy Ferguson, on a business trip taPensacola, Fla. in late fall, proceeded further South and spent several days with the Frosts at their winter home in St. Petersburg. Soon after going South for the winter, Harry became indisposed and entered a local hospital for a check-up. His condition now is much improved.
Mrs. Burt H. Redfield is with friends in Wilmington, Del. this winter. She remained at her camp in the White Mountains until early November and plans to return there in May.
Henry Blair, while in college, served during summer vacations as a counselor at Camp Chocorua on Squam Lake in New Hampshire. Some of us will recall the interesting description of the camp and its varied activities he gave our entire class in one of Prof. Charles F.Richardson's ("Clothespin's") English courses. Camp Chocorua was the first boys' camp in this country. It was started in 1881 by ErnestBerkeley Balch, a Dartmouth non-graduate of the class of '83. Associated with him was Charles C. Applegate '79. From this camp and the spreading of the idea has grown the summer-camp-for-boys movement. These summers spent at Camp Chocorua was an experience Henry Blair wished to make possible for others. In 1898 he organized St. Mark's Choir Camp at Cornfield Harbor on the lower Po- tomac, where it empties into Chesapeake Bay, near Point Lookout in St. Mary's County, Md. It was one of the first, if not the first, Choir govs' Camp in America. At the beginning there was some delay in getting interested cooperation in starting the idea. St. Mark's Church was not a strong one, financially, and Blair, in the early days after graduation, was not able to make up the deficit over what the church could raise, as he did since then as long as the camp existed. From the Fourth of July to Labor Day each year, usually between 30 and 40 choir boys attended this camp from 1898, the year it was organized, until 1942, when it was closed due to war conditions. The trip to camp was made by steamboat from Washington to St. George's Island, thence, there being no roads, a sailboat took the choir boys to the camp site. The wild nature of the country and its inaccessibility made those pioneer campers feel that they were many more miles distant from home than they actually were. The appointments of the camp were primitive. Its main buildings consisted of two long-abandoned oyster houses whose doors and windows had long ago disappeared. Its food was plain, yet plentiful, and the discipline was strict, but it had values of such lasting worth to impart to the hundreds of boys who attended the camp that they now look upon this experience as one of the high points of their early life. What they treasure most of all is their association with our late classmate. These former choir boys—many now holding positions of honor and trust—are scattered far and wide. The Right Reverend Angus Dun, Bishop of Washington, D. C., who conducted the funeral services at St. Mark's Episcopal Church, stated that, when his ship docked at Southampton on a recent trip to the Lambeth Conference in England, he was greeted by one of the officials from the American Consulate, whose first question was—as he anxiously asked, "How is 'Pop' Blair}" The choir boys habitually addressed their leader as "Pop"Blair, and he seemed to get keen enjoyment out of their doing so.
Secretary and Treasurer, 108 Mt. Vernon St., Boston 8, Mass.
Class Agent, 12 Clinton Ave., Dobbs Ferry, N. Y.
