1889
None of us have forgotten that several years ago, 1947, to be exact, the Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry of New York City awarded to Hardy Ferguson, our Class President, its highest reward for achievement - the Gold Medal. It was presented in recognition of outstanding contributions to the technical development of the entire industry, and received by one whose whole lifetime had been one of achievement, and whose history is, in itself, a record of the important role the consulting engineer plays in the progress of the industry. The following year he retired from business and vacated his New York offices at 200 Fifth Avenue, where, for nearly a half-century, close application to his professional work, fortified by his skill and determination to succeed, had made him one of the foremost consulting engineers in the pulp and paper industry in this country and Canada. Our distinguished classmate was born in Chelsea, Mass., November 3, 1868. He prepared for college at the high school in Newmarket, N. H., graduated from Dartmouth with B.S. degree in 1889, and received his C.E. degree from the Thayer School of Civil Engineering at Dartmouth in 1891. Four years later he married Janet M. Gill at Portsmouth, N. H. They lived in various places where professional work took him until he opened offices in New York City. They then took up residence in Dobbs Ferry, N. Y. A few years later, on July 31, 1917, Mrs. Ferguson died. Dobbs Ferry thereafter continued to be his home until he retired from business, when he moved to Maine and made his home with his daughter Helen and her husband Orin Francis Perry Jr. at 29 Ocean View Road, Cape Elizabeth, where he expects to live the rest of his life. Mr. Perry was born in Rockland, Maine, and married Helen Wilcox Ferguson, September 6, 1917. His business is crushing and supplying calcium sulphate to a large cement factory in Bessemer, Pa.
Our classmate's older son, Hardy S. Ferguson Jr. '22, lives in Hastings-on-Hudson, N. Y. He married August 25, 1927, Lucile Pauline Ward at Evanston, Ill. In recent years he has been afflicted with multiple sclerosis and unable to work. Their daughter, Ann Ward Ferguson, married John Perry Cedarholm, November 28, 1953. He is employed by the International Business Machine Company. He is looking forward to receiving a Ph.D. degree from Columbia University soon. They live in Ridgewood, N. J. The younger son of our classmate, John Gill Ferguson, is unmarried. He has been in the United States Army for more than a quarter-century, which includes nearly seven years in Hawaii. His rank is technical sergeant. He was stationed at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, at the time of the Japanese attack. He is now stationed at Fort Lee, Va. Mr. and Mrs. Orin Francis Perry Jr. had two sons in World War II: Orin Francis Perry 3rd and Hardy Ferguson Perry. Marlin Clack Martin Jr., husband of their daughter Janet Gill Perry, a graduate of Lafayette College, also served overseas. The war record of each of these three men, all veterans of World War II with commendable records, is worthy of comment here. Orin Francis Perry 3rd, married to Ruth Margaret Farman, commissioned as Ensign USNR in 1940 and assigned to battleship Pennsylvania, was at Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941, when his ship - in dry dock at the time - was damaged in the Japanese attack. Later his ship was in the Aleutian campaign. In 1943 he was transferred to the battleship California, on which he served during the Guam, Saipan, Leyte and Lingayan Gulf (Luzon) battles, and finally at Okinawa. At Lingayan Gulf his ship was hit by a "suicide bomber," causing more than 250 casualties. He is a graduate of Columbia University, an engineer, and now employed by the H. K. Ferguson Company in its New York office as a designer. This Company, a large contracting and engineering company with its head office in Cleveland, Ohio, is owned by the Morrison Knudson Company, one of the principal builders of the greatest dams in the West. Mr. Perry's home is in Dobbs Ferry.
Hardy Ferguson Perry, unmarried, an Ensign in the Merchant Marine Service, was at Casablanca during President Roosevelt's conference there with Prime Minister Churchill. He was engaged in shuttling supplies from England to France in 1944. Later he served as Second Officer on ship transporting army trucks and munitions from New York to a port in India.
Marlin Clack Martin Jr., a marine officer, left for the Guadalcanal attack soon after his marriage to Janet Gill Perry in 1942. The following year, he was invalided home. After convalescence he sailed, as a member of the Admiral's Staff, for the Pacific war zone, and was in the attack of Guam and Saipan. Today he is a Lieutenant Colonel in the Marine Force and scheduled to become a Colonel in about a year. Their family home is in a small town in Pennsylvania. Hardy Ferguson today, at the age of 87, has the distinction of being the great-grandfather of the following five children: Edward Orin Perry, born in Yonkers, N. Y., May 1, 1947, son of Mr. and Mrs Orin Francis Perry 3rd; Marlin Clack Martin 3rd, born in Coronado, Calif., February 17, 1944, Mary Elizabeth Martin, born in Yonkers, N. Y., July 17, 1946, and Helen Ferguson Martin, born in Camp Lejeune, N. C., September 9, 1947, children of Mr. and Mrs. Marlin Clack Martin Jr.; and Carol Clay Cedarholm, born in New York, N. Y., May 29, 1955, son of Mr. and Mrs. John Perry Cedarholm.
Secretary, Treasurer and Bequest 108 Mt. Vernon St., Boston 8, Mass.
Class Agent, 29 Ocean View Rd., Cape Elizabeth, Me.
