Category Archives: Campus and Building History

Williston Boys at Home (1932)

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wbahcover1932.  The national economic depression was at its worst.  President Herbert Hoover, forced to defend his record, was about to receive the worst electoral whipping ever at the hands of Franklin Roosevelt, who promised a New Deal for the American People.  But even FDR’s most rabid supporters knew that recovery would take years.  And the people who managed tuition-dependent private schools weren’t sure they had years.  Williston Academy’s Headmaster Archibald Galbraith (served 1919-1949) was no exception.

To be sure, Williston was in somewhat better shape than some of its competitors.  The 1920s had been reasonably good years for fund-raising.  When the 1929 crash came, much of the school’s assets were liquid, since Williston was midway through a major construction project.  So we were less affected by the implosion of the investment market.  The construction of the Recreation Center (see previous post) proceeded on schedule, and the building was opened in 1930.  But endowment was nearly nonexistent, and the pool of academically eligible students whose families could afford boarding school was shrinking.

wbahtitleOne answer was more aggressive marketing.  Gone were the days when a combination of alumni networking and discreet ads in a few prestigious magazines was sufficient to create a viable group of applicants for admission.  Galbraith needed to cast his net wider, to appeal to families that perhaps had never considered private schools.  Among the products of this re-thinking was a 1932 pictorial pamphlet entitled “Williston Boys at Home.”

The booklet is nearly devoid of text, in contrast to the dry, text-heavy and pictureless Annual Catalogue of the time.  It manages to avoid nearly any mention of Williston’s crumbling Old Campus, although more than half the students lived there and all classes met there — in fact, whether through oversight or design, there is no reference to the academic program at all.  This Williston is a place of hockey and dancing, theatricals and swimmin’ holes.  Times are good.  Williston boys are indeed at home.

(“Williston Boys at Home” was generously donated to the Archives in 2008 by Gordon Cronin of Taurus Books, Northampton, MA.)

The sole evocation of the "Old Campus" in the entire booklet.
The sole evocation of the “Old Campus” in the entire booklet.

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Posted in: Campus and Building History, Publications, Student Life, Williston Academy

The Campus That Never Was

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Headmaster Joseph Henry Sawyer in the 1920s. (Click all images to enlarge.)
Headmaster Joseph Henry Sawyer around 1910. (Click all images to enlarge.)

At schools and colleges like Williston Northampton, one eye is necessarily on the future.  Difficult as it is to predict the educational needs of the nation and the world a decade or a half-century hence, it is essential to try.  As Williston itself very nearly learned in the 19th century, complacency is what closes private schools.  It took a Headmaster of exceptional vision and perseverance, Joseph Henry Sawyer (who joined the faculty in 1866 and served as Head from 1896-1919) to break us of the habit of constantly looking backwards.

Details of Sawyer’s campaign for “The New Williston” are for another post.  But briefly, it called for the development of the Williston Homestead property – our present campus – as the eventual replacement for the cramped and increasingly obsolete Old Campus in downtown Easthampton.  There was a complete re-thinking of the role of the school and faculty in its students’ lives, from a kind of laissez-faire paternalism to active collaboration in academic, athletic, and social activity.  To pay for all this, Sawyer sought new funding sources, notably through the then-controversial idea that a Williston education was only the beginning of an alumnus’s lifelong relationship with, and responsibility to, the school.

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Posted in: Alumni & Alumnae, Campus and Building History, Williston Academy

The Old Neighborhood, 1844

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campus 1841
“View of Williston Seminary, East Hampton, Mass., Showing Part of the Village, with Mount Tom in the Distance.” [Click to enlarge.]
The image above is of an 1844 lithograph by Edmund Burke Kellogg and Elijah Chapman Kellogg of Hartford, Conn.  The Kellogg brothers were prolific publishers of scenic, historical, and sentimental prints, active from 1830 until 1900, second in popularity only to the rival firm of Currier & Ives.  The print measures 18 x 14 inches, and was published in two states, the color lithograph shown here, and a monochrome version.  (Our reproduction leaves off the lengthy title for no better reason than the entire sheet would not fit on the Archives’ scanner.)

It is probably the earliest published image of Easthampton; certainly of Williston Seminary.  The vantage point is West Street, on the bluff above the Manhan River, which is visible in the middle foreground.  At this time none of the later construction—Shop Row, the Town Hall, etc.—had even been contemplated.  Open land, most of it the village common, ran right down to the riverbank.

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Posted in: Campus and Building History, Easthampton History, Local History, Williston Seminary

The Depot

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In 1854 Samuel Williston established the Hampshire and Hampden Railroad Company.  He and his longtime business partner, Joel Hayden of Williamsburg, Mass., initially hoped to extend the line as far as Troy, New York, but their realistic concern was to connect Easthampton and Williamsburg, both former villages that were now evolving into factory towns, with what they correctly saw as a rapidly developing national rail grid.

The H. & H.R.R. purchased the route of the defunct Northampton-New Haven Canal, an ill-conceived enterprise that had already lost Samuel a considerable sum.  The project took five years; competing railroads did their best to create obstacles.  Samuel ultimately spent $35,000 of his own money—about $820,000 in current dollars—to see the 24-mile rail spur’s completion.

His biographer, Frank Conant, points out that it was more “a matter of public service rather than for profit.”  But “the day would come when he could board the cars at Easthampton’s nearby depot and arrive in New York City a few hours later.”1

The Easthampton Rail Station in the mid-1950s, shortly before passenger service ceased.

Whether there was an elaborate rail station in the early years, or just a simple shed, has not been determined.  The present building apparently dates from 1871.  In its original state it contained a large waiting room, baggage room, and office for the station master.

The depot appears frequently in Williston Seminary lore: teams and spectators would board “the cars” for travel to away games as far away as Worcester.  The train provided quick access to the entertainment delights of Springfield.  Individual anecdotes describe torchlight processions of departing student “heroes”  down Union Street from the campus.2  Even freight service found its way into legend: witness the tale of William Peck’s double bass, retold in “Williston’s First Orchestra.”

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Posted in: Alumni & Alumnae, Campus and Building History, Easthampton History, Faculty, Fine & Performing Arts, Founders, Local History, Williston Academy, Williston Northampton School, Williston Seminary