Category Archives: Williston Northampton School

Thou shalt not . . .

by Rick Teller '70, Williston Northampton Archivist

A new school year is upon us, with all the annual rituals that accompany it: friends to be made, rooms decorated, class schedules to figure out.  An essential opening-of-school tradition is our attempt to instill into all our students’ consciousnesses the concept of “A Certain Minimally Consistent Standard of Behavior,” also known as “The Rules.”  Yes, friends, this is when Alma Mater actually asserts her rights in loco parentis.

When I began to compile this essay, it occurred to me that it was a great topic for alumni input.  A brief and wildly unscientific sampling of Facebook friends elicited many responses, some of which are reproduced here.  But Amy Goodwillie Lipkin ’77 noted, “what I thought was ridiculous in my mind as a 16-year-old, I may not see as ridiculous now as an adult.”  It’s a good point, one with which most parents or deans, if not every teenager, might concur.  On the other hand, alumni recollections suggest that sometimes, even after many years, passions, or at least the memories of outrage, run high.  It is also a reminder of the essential conflict between common sense and regulatory detail.  Even today, the idea of having, say, a simple conceptual dress code of “neat, clean, and appropriate” is utterly impractical in a community of approximately 700 students and adults, who will voice as many opinions over exactly what that means.

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Track and the Camera

Photo by Rachel Deena ’13. Click images to enlarge.

Preparation for the inauguration of the Williston Northampton Athletic Hall of Fame — whose first class will be enshrined on Reunion Weekend, June 6-8 — has involved looking at a great many photographs.  I hadn’t thought about this much before, but it has recently occurred to me that some sports are more photogenic than others.  Before I sink my own ship by suggesting that, for example, all field hockey photos look the same (they don’t!), or that golf images tend to be ruined by golfer’s outfits (can I get back to you?), let me go out on a limb and suggest that one of  the sports that has produced an awful lot of really exciting photography over the years at Williston is Track and Field.

Golf, late 1930s. Those checked trousers and two-tone shoes have never gone out of style. (William Rittase)

There are undoubtedly reasons for this, some of which, truthfully, may reflect this writer’s prejudices.  I mean, preferences.  So we won’t delve too deeply into the psycho-sociological issues of why, for example, from the photographer’s point of view, helmets and sticks can both be dealt with, but not usually at the same time.

(Yu Chen Wang ’15)

OK, let’s be serious.  Is it that track and field athletes, perhaps more than any others, achieve pinnacles of effort and passion that are concentrated in the briefest of durations, perhaps a few seconds, perhaps even less?  Yes, this happens in other sports, but I submit — without meaning to diminish any athlete’s accomplishment — that most of the time the brilliant goal-out-of-nowhere, the impossible catch, is reactive.  For the track and field athlete, successful execution is entirely studied.  And the great jump, the winning acceleration derives from someplace deep within the athlete’s psyche, a place where the soul is quite alone, where all that remains is abandonment to the moment.

(Yu Chen Wang ’15)

Or perhaps this is nonsense.  But the camera has captured some extraordinary track and field moments.  The older images on this page are the work of William Rittase (1894-1968), a Philadelphia-based photographer who specialized in industrial images, but who did some very special catalog work at both Williston and Northampton School in the 1930s and ’40s.  His photos are even more remarkable when one considers that he favored a large-format camera that was not conducive to “action” photography at all.

(William Rittase)

As many are aware, there is a photographic tradition at Williston Northampton.  Bob Couch ’50 mentored student photographers beginning in the 1960s and began to teach photo courses in the ’70s.  That program is now in the capable hands of Edward Hing ’77, himself a Couch protégé.  We offer seven different photography and film courses plus evening lecture programs that bring world-class photographers and photojournalists to campus.  And wherever one looks on campus, there are talented kids with cameras looking back.  We’re proud to feature some of their work here as well.

(Rachel Deena ’13)
(William Rittase)
William Rittase
(Yu Chen Wang ’15)
(William Rittase)
(Rachel Deena ’13)
(William Rittase)

We welcome your comments and questions!  Please use the reply form below.

The Depot

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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