Category Archives: Williston Seminary

An 1880s Williston Scrapbook

by Rick Teller '70, Williston Northampton Archivist
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George B. Wardman portrait
George Wardman in his student days. (As always, please click images to enlarge.)

Consider why people keep scrapbooks.  Are a they a repository for the ephemera of one’s life, souvenirs of things that seemed important at the time?  If so, then they can be unique windows into individuals’ lives, in a particular place, at a particular time.

Among the many student scrapbooks and albums held by the Williston Northampton Archives, that of George Wardman, class of 1889, is among the older and more comprehensive.

George Benjamin Wardman entered Williston in the fall of 1885, as a member of the class of 1888.  Born in Cheyenne, WY, April 20, 1869, he was a resident of New Orleans, LA, according to the 1886 Annual Catalogue.  How he found his way from the deep South to Easthampton is not known.  To further confuse matters, his academic transcript, in contradiction to the Catalogue, claims he resided in Pittsburgh.  In any event, he arrived in the fall of 1885, bringing with him a leather scrapbook.

George B. Wardman scrapbook.The book, now in fragile condition, measures 12 x 9 inches, bound in buckram-covered boards with a leather spine.  Inside the front flyleaf is a penciled inscription: “George Wardman.  Christmas 1884.  Mama.”  George appears to have saved the book for something special; he did not begin adding to it until the winter of 1886.  The first pages contain a pasted collage of items from the 1886 Annual Catalogue, including a rosters of the faculty and George’s classmates, his first year curriculum in the Scientific Department, and what must have been the major news of the time, the appointment of a new Principal.

George B. Wardman scrapbook. Catalogue pages.
(Click on any image to enlarge.)

Here are the results of George’s entrance exams, assigning him to the Junior Middle class (“J.M.,” equivalent to the 10th grade) and initialed by Acting Principal Joseph Henry Sawyer.  Note how items have been sewn into the scrapbook with gold ribbon.  George eventually became less fastidious about this; later items were often simply tucked between pages, without sewing or the use of oxidation-prone glue.  Ironically, this has aided in their long-term preservation. George B. Wardman scrapbook. Results of placement exams.As was customary in most schools and colleges at the time, students’ physical measurements were recorded.  George’s vital statistics indicate that he was smaller than average, standing 5’3″ and weighing 102 pounds.George B. Wardman scrapbook. Vital statistics.George B. Wardman scrapbook. Vital statistics rotated. Continue reading →

Posted in: Alumni & Alumnae, Student Life, Williston Lives, Williston Seminary

Buy! Buy!!

By Rick Teller '70, Williston Northampton Archivist
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The first Willistonian editors, 1881. (Click all images to enlarge)

Surely “cater to your customers” must be the most fundamental principle of marketing.  When Williston Seminary’s campus newspaper, The Willistonian, made its first appearance in March of 1881 (making it, 118 years later, the oldest continuously published secondary school paper in the United States), its student editors sought to finance their enterprise by selling advertising.   With a couple hundred teenage boys occupying the campus, local merchants sought to appeal to their wallets.  Logically then, we can open a window into an 1880s adolescent’s mind by examining how, away from home and parental supervision, he wanted to spend his (or his father’s) money — or how local merchants wanted him to spend it.

Early issues of The Willistonian came in an advertising wrapper.  The “front page” was actually inside.  Because the paper was also sold by local merchants, a portion of the advertising was aimed at the general public.  And industries like Glendale Elastic Fabrics — one of the late Samuel Williston’s enterprises — may have purchased space out of a sense of obligation to Samuel’s widow Emily, if not to the school.

The advertisements below are selected from the first three years of The Willistonian, 1881-1884.

The front cover of the April 16, 1881 Willistonian — actually an advertising wrapper.

“Opposite Williston Seminary” meant Shop Row, on Main Street.  C. S. Rust appealed to young men’s fashion sensibilities.

May 7, 1881
Shop Row, directly across from the campus, with the Methodist Church and Town Hall. Most of these buildings remain.

Continue reading →

Posted in: Easthampton History, Student Life, Williston Seminary

William Brooks Cabot Writes Home

By Rick Teller '70, Williston Northampton Archivist
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Recently, through the generosity of Mr. Eric Brothers, the Archives acquired two letters written by William Brooks Cabot, class of 1876, to his mother in Brattleboro, Vermont.  In August, 1874, Cabot had just arrived at Williston Seminary, and was enrolled in the Middle Class — the equivalent of the modern 11th grade — in Williston’s Scientific curriculum.   The following transcriptions retain William’s occasionally idiosynchratic punctuation and free-form sentence and paragraph structure.  He was, after all, just 16 years old and, in fairness, somewhat ahead of his peers (then and now) in matters of spelling.

Detail of Cabot’s first letter, Sunday, August 30, 1874, on school stationery (Click all images to enlarge)

It was a Sunday.  William had just moved out of a dormitory and into a boarding house where he had already arranged for his meals — the school had no dining hall of its own at this time.

Easthampton, Aug. 30th [1874]

Dear Mother

I am sorry father was not at home to decide what course I should take with regard to my studies.  I shall take Geometry, Drawing, Zoology, & German, though if possible I shall take Latin instead of Zoology.

We have changed our rooms & are now boarding where we take our meals.  I only pay $5 $6.00 per week in all, which is about twenty five cents more than I paid – or rather, was to pay at the Sem.  It’s much more convenient for meals & we have carpets & towels, & do not have to do our own chamber work, as we did at the Sem.  We paid our tuition yesterday.  My bill was $26.00.

We have to attend chapel at a little before nine in the morning.   We do all our studying in our rooms, which I like very much.  At 7:30 P.M. the chapel bell rings, and we must go to our rooms immediately.  Once in a while a Prof. will happen around after dark, to see if we are all in our rooms, but we have not been honored by a visit as yet.

We are living at a Mrs. Embury’s, where there are five of us.  One is from Moline, Ill. & another from Scranton, Pa.

William’s housemates can be identified as Frederick William Keator, class of 1876 Classical, from Moline, and Edwin Hunter Lynde ’76 Scientific, from Scranton.  For a newly-enrolled kid who had, to this point, grown up in southern Vermont, these may well have seemed like exotic places.  As he would no doubt later discover, while the majority of students hailed from the Northeast, in 1874 Williston enrolled students from as far away as Louisiana, Alabama, and the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii). Continue reading →

Posted in: Acquisitions and Discoveries, Recent Gifts, Recent Gifts, Student Letters, Student Life, Williston Seminary

“Sammy, my Sammy . . .”

by Rick Teller '70, Williston Northampton Archivist
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Williston’s Song of Songs

It is sung, with varying degrees of solemnity and competence, at solemn events like graduations and hockey games.  If “Hail to Williston Northampton” is our recently adopted Alma Mater, then surely the much more venerable “Sammy” qualifies as our Alma Aviam.  (That’s “Beloved Grandmother.”  Don’t you regret not having taken Latin?  But I digress.)  At least one former Head of School thought the song and its associated traditions puerile and tried, without success, to suppress it.  “Sammy” remains the Song that Would Not Go Away.


Link: Listen to the 2012 Caterwaulers singing “Sammy!”

The music for “Sammy” — a broadside printed for Williston Academy’s centennial in 1941.

Link: A more rough-and-ready performance from Mem West, National Kazoo Day, 2019.

Venerable Williston Lore tells us that “Sammy,” our “stand-up song,” was written by Paul “Pitt” Johnson, class of 1905.  This appears to be accurate, although it seems that the memory briefly slipped Johnson’s mind after he graduated.  But in 1939, Alumni Secretary Howard Boardman asked for Johnson’s recollection.  Pitt wrote back,

Pitt Johnson to Howard Boardman, 1939

“Although  there might have been in my mind a slight doubt of the authorship, nevertheless, it was instantly removed after singing the first two measures.  I instantly recognized it as my work, which was one of the many songs I wrote during my years at the old school.”  [The full letter is reproduced at right; please click on the image to enlarge it.]

Johnson continued, “It so clearly comes to mind now how Dr. Sawyer [Headmaster Joseph H. Sawyer], upon hearing the song on the campus, called me to his office and suggested that theretofore the name Samuel had never lost its dignity and couldn’t I rewrite the song using Samuel instead of Sammy.  I remember how three or four of us tried it out but it sounded a bit brummy and didn’t cut the mustard so the song continued to refer to the founder of Williston as Sammy and I cannot recall a single instance of where Samuel Williston haunted me from the tomb because of it.”

Headmaster Sawyer

It is perhaps ironic that Johnson knew “Sammy” as his own when he heard the first two measures, since that is the one portion of the tune that he most certainly did not write.  Fans of Gilbert and Sullivan operettas will recognize the phrase as having been lifted, note for note, from the Bridesmaids’ Chorus in Trial by Jury, at the words “Wear the flowers ’til they fade.”   The show was wildly popular at the time Johnson “borrowed” the tune – and the cribbing was probably unconscious.  As for the lyrics that so bothered Joseph Sawyer, it is likely that having written “Sammy, my Sammy, my heart yearns for thee,” Johnson needed a rhyme, and settled on “and your old elm tree.”  Nothing we know of Samuel Williston suggests that he ever took an interest in trees, elm or otherwise.  Yet, as has been detailed elsewhere, from this bit of doggerel entire school traditions have risen.  (See “The Brand,” particularly toward the end of the article.) Continue reading →

Posted in: Alumni & Alumnae, Fine & Performing Arts, Sports History, Williston Lives, Williston Northampton School, Williston Seminary