Category Archives: Williston Seminary

To taste her bunkum joys . . .

By Rick Teller '70, Archivist
Cartoon from the 1878 Caldron, a senior class yearbook. (Click all images to enlarge.)
Cartoon from the 1878 Caldron, a senior class yearbook. (Click all images to enlarge.)

There was a time, before the advent of radios and recordings, and long before the current era of individually headphoned, asocial music, when everyone sang.  Sang together, without coercion, for the sheer joy of singing.  (Anyone who sings will tell you that it is a marvelous means of community-building.)  Williston Seminary students were no exception.  There were, of course, many singing-societies and glee clubs, but any occasion or activity, from football games to debate meetings, was a cause for music.  Student letters describe athletes and spectators riding the train to away games, singing all the way.

Many of the tunes were from well-known songs of the time, but often with words unique to Williston.  Some were borrowed from college songbooks, notably those of Yale.  To disseminate the lyrics, student organizations printed song sheets and songbooks.  “Sammy,” by Pitt Johnson, class of 1905, and still ubiquitous today, made its first printed appearance in a song sheet from that year.

Detail from "Williston School Songs," 1905.
Detail from “Williston School Songs,” 1905.

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Resolved . . .

By Rick Teller '70, Archivist

Over the last several decades, formal forensic debate has led a somewhat checkered history at Williston.  Last year a new Political Awareness Club presented several well-attended and well-argued, if informal, debates.  And in 2013 members of the AP U.S. History class went all the way to the national We The People finals in Washington.  So debate is currently alive and in reasonable health.  But it doesn’t compare with what was arguably a golden age of debating, for roughly sixty years beginning around 1860.

A Gamma Sigma debate, ca. 1935. (WIlliam Rittase) (Click all images to enlarge.)
A Gamma Sigma debate, ca. 1935. (WIlliam Rittase) (Click all images to enlarge.)

There were two rival societies: Adelphi (“Brotherhood”), representing students from the Classical side of the curriculum; and Gamma Sigma (from the Greek initials for Socrates’ admonition to “Know Thyself”), drawing its membership from students in the Scientific program.  The elder society, Adelphi, was founded in 1853, and was initially open to all students.  But the growth of the Scientific program produced friction.  The Classicals arrogated to themselves a tradition that as members of the intellectually superior division of the Seminary, all positions of leadership within Adelphi should devolve to them.  Naturally the Scientifics objected.  Unable either to achieve compromise or extract an appropriate apology, in 1870 they withdrew from Adelphi and founded their own organization.  The rivalry continued unabated for decades, long after the initial slight was forgotten.

Adelphi's unequivocal motto. (Constitution and By-Laws, 1858)
Adelphi’s unequivocal motto. (Constitution and By-Laws, 1858)

In March, 1881, an attempt at reconciliation resulted in the creation of the campus newspaper, The Willistonian, to be “published by the Societies of Williston Seminary.”  Good feeling and cooperation lasted for exactly one issue, after which Adelphi published The Willistonian on its own.  (The newspaper became independent of either society in 1894.) Continue reading

Curveball

The curveball was introduced to baseball in the early 1870s, and changed the face of the game.  Pitchers, for the first time, threw strikes that moved across the plate and down, curving away from right-handed batters, frequently baffling hitters.  But were the first curveballs thrown in a high school game thrown at Williston?

mackIt’s a good story, related by none other than legendary Philadelphia Athletics manager Connie Mack.  In his My 66 Years in the Big Leagues (Philadelphia: Winston, 1950), Mack recalls, “The first man to pitch a curve-ball game was Charles Hammond Avery, Yale 1871-75, popularly called Ham Avery, and the first curve-pitched college game was played between Yale and Harvard at Saratoga, New York, June 14, 1874, the week of the college boat races.  Avery pitched for Yale and won by the score of 4-0, the first shutout ever scored against Harvard.”

Mack cites as his source of information his lifelong friend, Frank Blair, Williston Seminary class of 1876, Amherst 1880.  The two had grown up together in North Brookfield, Mass.  Mack continues, “In his first year at Williston Academy [sic], in 1873, one of Blair’s chums was Charles Francis Carter, a left fielder who went to Yale in 1874, and the following year played on Avery’s famous Yale team.  Stories began to drift back to Williston that Avery was a wonder, for he had introduced something new into baseball—a curve ball that was puzzling batters and was proving very difficult to hit.”

“One day in 1876 Blair was examining the condition of the diamond on the [Williston] campus.  He spied Carter coming up the street from the station.  Carter spotted Blair at the same moment, and vaulting the fence, shouted to him, ‘I can pitch curves!  Avery taught me!'”

“With that, Carter took a baseball from his pocket, laid aside his overcoat, and began to show [Blair] how the mystery was performed.  Carter, having passed on the instructions to Blair, picked up his overcoat and started for the train back to New Haven.  He had seemingly accomplished his mission!  Blair was eager to pass on the secret to the Williston pitcher.  The result?  Williston [Seminary] placed on the diamond the first curve pitcher used in any prep school in the United States.” Continue reading

Thanksgiving, 1885

wardman thanksgiving 1
Thanksgiving, 1885. (Click on all images to enlarge.)

Thanksgiving, a national holiday since 1863, had special significance in Massachusetts, its state of origin.  But the tradition of a school vacation is relatively recent.  In the 19th century Williston Seminary celebrated the day, but that was all. Still, Seminary students welcomed any holiday.

George Benjamin Wardman, class of 1889, kept a scrapbook of his first two years at Williston, which he entered in the fall of 1885.  It is a fascinating collection.  Wardman saved printed memorabilia of debates, theatrical events (to which he happily journeyed significant distances), ballgames, dances, musical entertainments, the occasional restaurant meal – all in all, evidence of a student deeply committed to every aspect of school life except, perhaps, the academic program.

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