1897

This month three of the classmates have sent me letters to help in the class notes. FrankNoyes sends his carefully arranged information about the Wayside Inn and the early ownership by the How family. He made a careful search of the title to the land ownership with early use of the building as a public house, including interesting little-known facts about the visit to the Inn by Henry W. Longfellow. These studies by Frank gives him the reason to say the statement that Longfellow spent long evenings before the fireplace in the Inn and there wrote Paul Revere's Ride is pure fiction.

Thankful How, born December 15, 1703, was the first child born at the old house which later became the Wayside Inn. Frank is a lineal descendant of Thankful How. My own great-grandmother, Charity How, was born in 1767. Perhaps Frank and I are distant cousins.

The unfortunate fire recently at the Wayside Inn didn't burn the little red schoolhouse, for which claim is made that it is the schoolhouse which was the setting for the nationally-known childhood song poem, Mary Had A LittleLamb.

"Pa" Rollins made quite a study of the doubt of the claim that the little red school-house, recently moved from Sterling, Mass., was the one referred to in the poem by Sarah Josepha Hale, who lived in her school days in Newport, N.H. "Pa" found that a substantial fund had been raised in Newport to erect a monument to Mary and the lamb. He was convinced that the raising of this fund, which he found was still in the bank, was evidence that the schoolhouse in Newport may have been the one about which the poem was written; the one the author of America attended as a child. The tablet at the little red school-house near the site of the recently burned Wayside Inn claims the first twelve lines of the poem were written by a young man who lived in Sterling, Mass. Mary Josepha Hale published the poem in 1830 in full. The facts about the schoolhouse need to be made clear. Perhaps Frank Noyes could find the facts, as he did those about the visit of Longfellow and the writing of Paul Revere's Ride.

Frank Johnson opened the thought waves with an interesting letter about our life in college: "When my grandson, a student at Georgia Tech, was here on his Christmas vacation, he had a copy of their daily paper in which was a song which reminded me of one we sang in our college days. It referred to the prospect of dressing a future daughter in college colors and sending her to Georgia to coach the college team, and if it were a son he would sing the uncomplimentary song that we promised our sons would sing about Amherst. So college men express themselves now somewhat as we did in those halcyon or hellish days of our youth." I think Frank's euphemistic, long-way round to say to hell with Amherst will pass the censor. I looked up his word "hellish." Frank and Bolser are spending the winter months in Porto Rico.

Rowe writes of visits with New Hampshire classmates and other friends. Also writes of recently joining the Lions Club. I suppose all new members of the club have to learn to roar.

Luncheon clubs have become quite a force in our way of living. Having the feet under the tables with a lot of fellows who get to know each other well has done a lot in keeping us on balance. The Rotary Club has helped me to build up the force of team work for boys, now fifty teams playing ball as soon as school is out - 850 boys, many of these joining teams instead of gangs. Six boys who have come under this team influence have already been awarded athletic scholarships and are going to college. Coming in touch with the mothers of these boys is one of the educational elements that has made me turn from hot dogs to "grinders." How is that for a Yankee brought up on baked beans, apple pie and dowdy? If any classmate wants the recipe for "grinders," let me know, and I might include the recipe for pizza pie also.

Secretary,Chairman,Treasurer and Bequest 114 State St., Bridgeport 3, Conn.