1940

In 1939 I found enough time to join a group playing chess one evening a week at Robinson Hall. The group participated in the Quadrangular League Chess Tournament each Christmas holiday at the Marshall Chess Club in Manhattan. Representatives from Princeton, Yale, Harvard and Dartmouth met there to compete for the Belden-Stephen Trophy. The trophy would be retired when one team had won it five times. Harvard had the best chance, since they had won the previous four tournaments.

Most of the details of the chess meet have long faded into wisps of memory. Ike Weed researched the archives of The New York Times and found an article there in the sports section titled "Fifth Chess Victory Sought By Harvard." The Dartmouth paragraph read:

"Dartmouth, captained by Alton Thorpe, Kingston, New York, will present the following lineup: No. 1, Howard Leavitt '43, New York; 2, Thorpe; 3, John Middleton '42,Utica, New York; 4. Robert Dickson '41, Northampton, Massachusetts."

Yale surprised everyone by winning the tournament. Our group did not fare well in the competition. We did eat at delightful basement restaurants in Greenwich Village and did our Christmas shopping in the Big Apple.

A Dartmouth faculty member, Richard D. Holbrook '21, served as tournament director for the affair. The Times said he deplored the indifferent showing made by his alma mater but declared that in other respects the meeting had been one of the most harmonious in the history of the league.

4612 Mercado Drive, Sebring, FL 33 872; (863 ) 471-2 679; avt(a)strato.net