Press

Following are excerpts from an article ofreminiscence about the late Col. Henry N.Teague '00, who recently bequeathed the summit of Mt. Washington and the cog railroadto Dartmouth College. L. G. Treadway '08wrote the article for The Berkshire Eagle, Pitts field, Mass.

I first met Henry Nelson Teague in the fall of 1904 when I entered Dartmouth College as a scared freshman. Having arrived in Hanover with only enough money to make a down payment on my tuition and room, my problem was to earn money for food. I applied to Mr. Teague who was comptroller of the Dining Association who hired me as a waiter at 17 cents per hour. After a few weeks I shifted to washing dishes because the pay was 20 cents per hour. Shortly after that, I took up cooking at 25 cents per hour early demonstrating to me the economic axiom that the more I earned the better I could eat.

Mr. Teague fired me once because I didn't show up for work but when he found I was in the hospital as a result of a freshman-sophomore fight he reinstated me at 30 cents per hour. He was quick of temper but as fair a man as I ever knew.

Mr. Teague was born at Mount Desert, Maine, and as he frequently said, "never saw a train of cars till I was 14." He never married so was always free to come and go as he pleased, and it surely pleased him to go. He had a great memory for names; he always said, "Any one can remember faces, but it takes concentration to call a man by his name."

After making and losing several fortunes he found himself president of the Mount Washington Railroad. The Boston & Maine had originally owned it but couldn't make it pay so they sold it to Henry Teague. By hard work and many ingenious schemes he put it over. One publicity stunt was a race up Mount Washington between two one-legged men. This story was news all over the country. Old "Pepper Sass," the engine that carried the cars up the mountain, was featured in his ads and written up to such an extent that thousands of visitors from every state in the Union felt that they hadn't seen New England till they had visited his Tip Top House on Mount Washington.

How he did chuckle when I visited him a few years ago and he showed me all the passes that had been issued to him by every railroad in America. "You see, I send them a pass on my railroad and common courtesy requires them to reciprocate," he said, and with another chuckle, "and do I use 'em!"

One of the great things he did was to help poor boys get through Dartmouth. I know of dozens; sometimes it was only a $10 gold piece. (He used them for tips if he liked the service of a waitress.) Sometimes a check for $100. Frequently, he would pay tuition for four years. All he asked was that the boys behave themselves and pass their subjects.

I never had but one real quarrel with Henry and that was when I first took over the Williams Inn. I decided to simplify the breakfast menu which in every American Plan house in the country offered broiled chicken, lamb chops, steak, broiled fish and at least two kinds of potatoes. I changed it to bacon and eggs, ham and eggs, etc., but no other meats and no potatoes. Henry said I was crazy and there were times when I thought I was. But I stuck to my guns and have lived to see the majority of the traveling public fall in line. Henry was a big eater and he hated to see me make a fool of myself with such new-fangled ideas.

There has passed on a great man with a heart of gold. I am sure, wherever he is, he is still selling the Berkshires and his beloved Mount Washington.