1889

Class President Hardy S. Ferguson reports that he is in good health and enjoys living in his new home on the Maine Coast. He continues to serve as consulting engineer, his clientele operating pulp and paper mills. In December he was called to Florida for consultations and was planning to go there again late in January. It is good to know that one members of our Class remains actively at work. All others have retired.

Our classmate Willis Earle for many years was head of the English department of Eras- mus Hall High School in Brooklyn, N. Y. He died at his home in North Thetford, Vt., April 4, 1944. It may be news to some of our living members, that he left a will containing be- quests to Dartmouth College. The sum of $lO,OOO was bequeathed to the Trustees of the College "as a Trust Fund to be known as the Willis Earle Trust, the income only to be used for the benefit of a Dartmouth College stu- dent, or students, specializing in the .study of English, and, if possible, said students to be residents of the State of Vermont." To the Trustees of the College he also bequeathed "such pictures, either oil, water color, or etch- ings, that the Director of the Dartmouth Col- lege Art Museum may select for actual hang- ing in the gallery of said Museum,. .. also, the Sheraton sofa and my mahogany desk, if the Director deems them worthy additions to the furnishings of the Dartmouth College Art Museum."

In addition to receiving the $lO,OOO bequest, the College accepted the bequest o£ the Shera- ton sofa and the mahogany desk, and several of the better pictures were taken by the Direc- tor of the Art Museum and hung in the Mu- seum.

There is an interesting side-light on the be- quest of the Sheraton sofa. Earle and our class- mate Rev. Arthur Chase were roommates in College. The first two years they roomed at "Mr. Russell's," and, beginning junior year, in Thornton Hall. A part of their room fur- niture was the Sheraton sofa, which was con- tributed by Chase. It originally had belonged to his grandfather, Bishop Carlton Chase, the first Bishop of New Hampshire, who gradu- ated from Dartmouth in the class of 1817. Upon the death of the Bishop the sofa went to his father, Arthur Chase, and later was taken to Hanover to help furnish the room of his son, Charles F. Chase, of the class of 'B5. As our classmate entered Dartmouth the fall after his brother graduated, the sofa fell to him and, accordingly, was used to help furnish the room occupied by him and Earle. When Chase went out to teach school the winter of 1887-8, he left the sofa with Earle. Upon his return from teaching, President Bartlett would not permit him to continue with his class in Col- lege, claiming that in his teaching engagement he had violated certain regulations. There- upon Chase, letting his sofa remain with Earle, entered Trinity College and graduated there in the class of 'B9. Meanwhile his father died, the family home in Claremont, N. H., was broken up, and the sofa continued to remain with Earle in Thornton Hall. When Earle graduated, he took the sofa to his home in North Thetford, Vt., and it was left in his possession the rest of his life. Commenting upon the matter to your secretary, Chase said that Earle acted naturally and properly in do- ing what he did, that in later years he had many times seen his sofa in Earle's home in Vermont or his apartment in Brooklyn, N. Y., and was glad to have it go to Dartmouth. After Earle's will was probated, Chase wrote the story of the sofa's history and sent it to an offi- cer of the College, who thanked him and said it was exactly what was wanted for the Col- lege archives.

It perhaps should be recorded here that Bishop Carlton Chase, 1817, original owner of the Sheraton sofa, was appointed to give the Philosophical Oration at the Commencement Exercises when he graduated. He and his classmate James Marsh (afterwards President of the University of Vermont) were tied for first place. Marsh was appointed Valedicto- rian and Chase Philosophical Orator.

Secretary, Treasurer and Bequest Chairman, 108 Mt. Vernon St., Boston 8, Mass.