Alumni to Honor Richard Hovey

ON May 4, 1957, which would have been his 93rd birthday, Richard Hovey '85 will be honored by fellow Dartmouth men, to whom he has long been "Dartmouth's Poet Laureate."

Following a luncheon meeting, a bronze plaque set in a boulder of New Hampshire granite will be unveiled at Hovey's grave in the Ridgewood Cemetery, North Andover, Mass. For some years an alumni group, in which George E. Liscomb '07 has been prominent, has wanted to have a permanent Dartmouth tribute at the poet's resting place; and under the sponsorship of the Dartmouth Club of Lawrence, Mass., a Hovey birthday program, featuring the plaque unveiling, will be carried out on May 4.

The luncheon at noon that day will be held at Thompson's, north of Andover, Mass., at the junction of Routes 125, 114 and 133. Albert P. Pettoruto '38, president of the Lawrence club, is in charge of this event, and reservations for alumni and wives are being made with him (address: Central Building, Lawrence, Mass.). The program at the nearby Ridgewood Cemetery will begin at 2:30.

The Rev. Clinton W. Carvell '18 of North Andover will be master of ceremonies and Judge Louis S. Cox '96 of Lawrence will represent the College. The quartets of the Classes of 1907 and 1909 will join forces to sing several Hovey songs.

The plaque to be unveiled at Hovey's grave will read:

RICHARD HOVEY Poet Laureate of Dartmouth College Class of 1885 "The granite of New Hampshire keeps a record of his fame."

Funds for this Hovey memorial have been contributed by Philip S. Marden '94 of Lowell, Mass., former Trustee of the College. The design and preparation of the granite marker are being done by The John Swenson Granite Company of Concord, N. H., of which Omar Swenson '03 is president, Arthur Swenson '09 vice president, and Guy Swenson '12 treasurer.

The location of Hovey's grave, where the May 4 ceremony will take place, was unknown to his friends and to the College for nearly forty years. The poet died in New York on February 24, 1900, and even classmates who served as pallbearers at his funeral were uninformed as to the spot where his body was sent. For some years it was assumed that he had been buried in Arlington National Cemetery, beside his father, General Charles E. Hovey, Dartmouth 1852, of Civil War fame. The Hoveys had lived in Washington after the war, and General Hovey had practiced law there.

This assumption about the poet's resting in Arlington National Cemetery had to be discarded for two reasons. There was no record of his burial there, and furthermore Arlington makes no provision for the burial of the relatives of military heroes. The only other logical burial place for Richard Hovey, it was felt, was Normal, Illinois, where he was born in 1864. But again there was no record of his grave there.

And so the mystery continued until the late 1930's when the Rev. Clinton W. Carvell '18, pastor of the North Andover Trinitarian Congregational Church, who will be master of ceremonies at next month's program, happened to be walking through the Ridgewood Cemetery in North Andover. He came upon a tall headstone engraved simply, "Richard Hovey," with the dates 1864-1900 in Roman numerals. This could only be the grave of the Dartmouth poet, and the reason for his being in North Andover was soon learned.

The explanation was quite simple - in fact Hovey had given the clues in his autobiography. His mother "was born in Nantucket, 1834 —spent her childhood in North Andover, Massachusetts." Hovey was born in Illinois, but spent his childhood "in Washington, spending the summers at North Andover, at old Spofford place there, owned at that time by my grandfather." Mrs. Hovey had buried her son in the place where she grew up and where he had spent his summers.

Appropriately enough, Hovey wrote a wry poem describing the finding of his grave. He pictured his "drunken headstone" and imagined that a

spectacled old man shall drive the birds A moment from their song i' the lonely spot And make a copy of the quaint old words They will then be quaint and old - and all for what? To fill a gap in a genealogy.

For Dartmouth, the finding of Hovey's grave meant more than the filling of a gap. It meant the location of a sort of Dartmouth shrine, for Hovey had left the College a priceless legacy of poems and songs, absolutely unique among the colleges of America. To appreciate what Hovey contributed to his alma mater, think how much poorer Dartmouth would be today without Men of Dartmouth, EleazarWheelock and the Hanover Winter Song, all the robust expression of Hovey's love for the College and his rare understanding of its free spirit and place loyalty.

Some years ago, in an article about college songs in general, Morris Bishop wrote in The New Yorker that Dartmouth is fortunate to have Hovey's songs, for they "make a garland which no other American college can attempt to match."

In 1898, Edwin O. Grover '94, who in the following article writes of his memories of Hovey, was responsible for the publication of the first edition of DartmouthSongs. This included the first publication of "The Stein Song," often called the most popular college song in America, which came from the long poem, Spring, read by Hovey at the 63rd annual convention of Psi Upsilon fraternity at the University of Michigan in 1896.

Mr. Grover, in 1924, also published the collection of Hovey's Dartmouth Lyrics, containing poems as well as songs with a Dartmouth or college spirit. In his poems, as in his songs, Hovey in vigorous rhythms sings the praises of Dartmouth life and the North Country in all seasons. Representative of the spirit of these exuberant utterances by Dartmouth's poet is the opening stanza of Comrades, read by Hovey in Hanover in May 1893:

Again among the hills!

The shaggy hills!

The clear arousing air comes like a call Of bugle notes across the pines, and thrills My heart as if a hero had just spoken.

Again among the hills!

The jubilant, unbroken, Long dreaming of the hills!

Far off, Ascutncy smiles as one at peace; And over all The golden sunlight pours, and fills The hollow of the earth, like a god's joy.

Asrain among the hills!

The tranquil hills That took me as a boy And filled my spirit with the silences!

At the graveside of this unique Dartmouth son, other Dartmouth men next month will pay homage and place the marker, too long missing, that will attest Dartmouth's proud claim of him and accord him, in bronze as it long has in song and spirit, the title of "Poet Laureate of Dartmouth College."

Richard Hovey as a Dartmouth undergraduate. Prominently seen is the pin of Psi Upsilon, for which he wrote some of his poems.

The discovery of this headstone in North Andover. Mass., cleared up a 40-year mystery about the last resting place of the poet.