{"id":4113,"date":"2018-12-31T23:03:35","date_gmt":"2019-01-01T03:03:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/?p=4113"},"modified":"2019-02-21T11:11:41","modified_gmt":"2019-02-21T15:11:41","slug":"the-confessions-of-harlan-mendenhall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/the-confessions-of-harlan-mendenhall\/","title":{"rendered":"The Confessions of Harlan Mendenhall"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
The Rev. Dr. Harlan G. Mendenhall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the fall of 1931 the Reverend Dr. Harlan G. Mendenhall, Williston Seminary class of 1870 (Classical), visited the campus.\u00a0 Aged 80, Mendenhall was considered the \u201cgrand old man\u201d of American Presbyterianism, having served in parishes all over the U.S., risen to the highest levels of the New York Presbytery, and was, in 1931, still not retired.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Dr. Mendenhall brought with him a variety of documents from his student days, including a copy of the 1869 Salmagundi<\/em>, Williston\u2019s first senior yearbook, which he had co-edited, and a scrapbook of his student writings as a member of Adelphi, the school\u2019s literary and debating society.\u00a0 He also sat down with The Willistonian<\/em> for an extended interview, reproduced at length in the issue of October 21.\u00a0 Conversation focused on how the school had changed in more than five decades \u2013 and took a surprising turn.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
North and Middle Halls in the 1930s. When Mendenhall was a student, North Hall was new. (Click all images to enlarge.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“Williston in my day was a great deal different than your Williston of today.\u00a0 North Hall was but a few years old and was all partitioned off into three sections by thick fire walls.\u00a0 There were no bathrooms nor any central heating system, and in the winter we all had to buy our own coal for our stoves.\u00a0 We had no school dining room either and had to eat either at fraternity eating places or at the old \u201cHash Factory\u201d which stood at the corner of Union and High Streets.\u00a0 It was possible to eat for two dollars a week then.”<\/p>\n

“Students were then a great deal older than the fellows at Williston are now.\u00a0 There was one fellow named Redington who had already graduated from Yale and had come to Williston to study English.\u00a0 \u00a0As the boys were older, they were more independent and often used to have revolutions and uprisings of all sorts.”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Lyman W. Redington, class of 1866 and again, 1869. We have found no evidence of anyone else ever completing both the Classical and Scientific curricula, with a year of college separating them.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

[Lyman William Redington of Waddington, N.Y. graduated Williston’s Classical Department in 1866.\u00a0 He completed a year at Yale, left because of eye problems, but returned to Williston and enrolled in the Scientific, a.k.a. English Department, graduating in 1869.\u00a0 He and Harlan Mendenhall were the founding co-editors of the yearbook <\/em>Salmagundi in 1869.\u00a0 He became a newspaper editor in Rutland, Vt., ran unsuccessfully for Governor, took up law, and ultimately became Asst. Corporate Counsel for the City of New York, and a Tammany Hall member of the State Assembly.]<\/em><\/p>\n

“There was a fellow in school then who had received a check for one hundred dollars from home, and instead of depositing it in the bank, he took it across to Putnam\u2019s Book Store and established a checking account.”<\/p>\n

“There came a time when Ballance, that was the boy, [William Henry Ballance, class of 1870] <\/em>said that he had ten more dollars coming, and Old Put claimed that he had drawn his entire account.\u00a0 Then Ballance started an association of most of the boys in school swearing not to trade with Put until the ten dollars should be paid.\u00a0 They formed a big parade and marched down in front of Put\u2019s store and read the constitution and by-laws of the association to him.\u00a0 Some of the boys carried big banners inscribed \u2018No More Trade for Old Put\u2019 and \u2018False Weights Against True Ballance.\u2019\u00a0 The parade then marched over to the gym steps and had its picture taken.”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Main St., Easthampton, opposite the Seminary campus. The building with the arched windows was the bank; Putnam’s would have been one of the storefronts to the left.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“Old Put remained adamant in spite of all these threats, and it turned out that very little ever came of it.\u00a0 For a week or so Put received no trade from Williston.\u00a0 Then gradually the boys began to drift in again and the whole incident was forgotten.\u00a0 Put was probably right, but the boys refused to believe that a storeman could be correct when one of their own number said that he was not.”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
“Old Prex” Henshaw<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“I\u2019ll never forget the time we went to see the sun rise from Mt. Tom.\u00a0 Some of the boys wanted to go and see the moon rise, but Prex Henshaw forbade it.\u00a0 [Principal (i.e. \u201cPrex,\u201d for \u201cPresident\u201d) Marshall Henshaw, served 1863-1876.]\u00a0 <\/em>Then he jokingly said that we could go and see the sun rise if we wanted to.\u00a0 We took him at his word and started up the mountain about four o\u2019clock the next morning.\u00a0 There was no road up there then, and we had to climb over rocks that were slippery with dew in the early morning darkness which was not too pleasant.\u00a0 It was pretty cold and generally disagreeable, but we finally managed to get up there in time to see the sun come up.”<\/p>\n

“After that hard climb, the boys were in no hurry to go down again, and consequently we did not get back to the campus until about noon.\u00a0 We were all completely exhausted but happy to think that we had put one over on the Prex.\u00a0 He was fighting mad when we finally did arrive, but we explained that we had done no more than take him at his word, and no punishment was inflicted on us.”<\/p>\n

“The founding of Gamma Sigma was involved in a lot of strife and so-called political intrigue.\u00a0 At first Adelphi was the only society in school.\u00a0 Fellows from all departments, English, Classical, and Scientific attended it, but it was always an unwritten law that a senior from the Classicals should be elected president.\u00a0 One year, however, the English students got together with the the Junior Classicals and put one of their own men, L. W. Redington, into the office.\u00a0 There was nothing that could be done about it as he had been legally elected, and so the Classicals had to be content.”
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
From The Willistonian, October 21, 1931, reporting Mendenhall’s memories and gift.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“Then came the time for a new election, and the English fellows, in conjunction with the Middle Classicals this time, again plotted to put one of their own men into the president\u2019s chair.\u00a0 The Classicals, however, contrived a scheme to get one of their men in.\u00a0 Just before the meeting they rounded up a deciding number of Englishmen and offered to take them out to a cider mill.\u00a0 The Classicals took their unsuspecting victims out to the mill where they immediately left them and hurried back to the election.\u00a0 One of the Classicals was elected, and the meeting was just adjourning when the \u2018kidnapped\u2019 Englishmen suddenly put in their appearance.”<\/p>\n

“They raised such a fuss that the faculty, who were meeting in a nearby classroom, rushed in to see what the trouble was.\u00a0 The Englishmen were so angry at being duped in this manner that a special meeting of the faculty had to be called later on to see what could be done.\u00a0 It was decided that the rival factions were so antagonistic that they could no longer remain in the same society; therefore, either Adelphi must be abolished or a new society must be formed.\u00a0 Gamma Sigma was then established for the fellows in the English department.”<\/p>\n

[There is no question that the students in the Classical course had little respect for the Englishers (or Scientifics; the terms were interchangeable).\u00a0 Fundamentally, the Classicals, who dominated Adelphi (a debating and literary, as well as social, organization), considered their counterparts to be a gang of ignorant farm boys and manual laborers.\u00a0 Gamma Sigma rose from the Englishers’ efforts to prove them wrong.\u00a0 Joseph Sawyer, in his <\/em>History of Williston Seminary (1912), tells the tale somewhat differently, but the essentials remain.\u00a0 The bitter rivalry transcended the founding of <\/em>The Willistonian in 1881, which survived as a joint venture for exactly one issue, but also produced some brilliant joint debates until well into the 20th century.]<\/em><\/p>\n

“We had only one system of punishment then.\u00a0 All miscreants were put in the old English schoolroom in Middle to study overtime under supervision.\u00a0 That was considered a severe punishment and the boys did their best to avoid it.”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Teacher Joseph Sawyer, young, single, and possibly a bit territorial over Mount Holyoke girls?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“I don\u2019t suppose you have ever heard of the \u2018Great Rebellion.\u2019\u00a0 It all started because four fellows wanted to go to a dance at Mount Holyoke.\u00a0 Old Prexy forbade them to, but they went anyhow.\u00a0 Joe Sawyer, who was then a teacher and later became principal, went to the dance himself and saw the boys.\u00a0 [Joseph Henry Sawyer joined the faculty in 1865 and served until 1919 — an astounding 54 years, including two appointments as Headmaster, 1884-86 and 1896-1919.\u00a0 While his behavior here might justifiably be considered hypocritical, it should be noted that at this time Sawyer was young and single, and no one had forbidden <\/em>his being there.]\u00a0 <\/em>He reported them, and they were immediately suspended.\u00a0 Old Prex demanded an apology, and the boys refused.\u00a0 Six more boys sided strongly with them, and let Prex know it.\u00a0 Because of their failure to apologize, all ten were expelled.\u00a0 The rest of the students considered this an injustice, so when the time came for \u2018the immortal ten\u2019 to leave, two coaches and a brass band were hired.\u00a0\u00a0 Five of them went in once coach and five in the other while the brass band marched ahead.\u00a0 The whole school turned out and marched down to the depot with them.\u00a0 A long poem entitled \u2018The Departure of the Immortal Ten to the Happy Hunting Grounds\u2019 was written ‘as witnessed from Mount Tom by Big Nathan Ranney,’ who was the school janitor.\u00a0 This poem was a clever take-off on part of Dante\u2019s \u2018Inferno,\u2019 and a cartoon was gotten up showing Joe Sawyer driving a carriage labeled \u2018Williston on the road to ruin.\u2019”<\/p>\n

Perhaps it should be no surprise that records corroborating the Great Rebellion are hard to come by.\u00a0 It is even uncertain when this took place.\u00a0\u00a0 When they can be identified, the names hinted at in the poem “Departure of the Immortal Ten” (reproduced at the end of this post) are all members of the classes of 1869 and 1870.\u00a0 But all are absent from the rosters in the Annual Catalogue<\/em> of 1870, and none of the names appear in the Annual Exhibition programs \u2014 i.e., graduation \u2014 for either year, except Lyman Redington’s in 1869.\u00a0 Mendenhall does not appear either, and one is tempted to assume that he was expelled with the others.\u00a0 My best guess is that the mass expulsion took place in the early Spring of 1869.<\/p>\n

But what of Harlan Mendenhall?\u00a0 It turns out that he was not expelled; he resigned voluntarily in March of 1869.\u00a0 There is a letter of reference from Marshall Henshaw attesting to Mendenhall’s good character.\u00a0 But I wonder if he withdrew voluntarily, in protest over the treatment of his friends.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Letter of reference for Harlan Mendenhall, from Marshall Henshaw.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So why would a distinguished man of the cloth tell such stories after 55 years?\u00a0 Could it have been a kind of gleeful vengeance?\u00a0 We’ll probably never know.<\/p>\n

Mendenhall’s gift to the school included an album of writings, primarily for the Adelphi magazine The Oracle, <\/em>but also a selection of other writings that included poetry.\u00a0 He had a gift for parody versification, which lends credence to the possibility that “The Immortal Ten” is from Mendenhall’s pen.\u00a0 Alas, the cartoon of Sawyer driving on the Road to Ruin has not survived.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
“The Immortal Ten” — possibly by Mendenhall himself.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the fall of 1931 the Reverend Dr. Harlan G. Mendenhall, Williston Seminary class of 1870 (Classical), visited the campus.\u00a0 Aged 80, Mendenhall was considered the \u201cgrand old man\u201d of American Presbyterianism, having served in parishes all over the U.S., risen to the highest levels of the New York Presbytery, and was, in 1931, still … Continue reading The Confessions of Harlan Mendenhall<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[140,53,125,453,25],"tags":[503,499,504,339,255,340,500,312,501,244,498,256,502],"class_list":["post-4113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alumni-alumnae","category-campus-and-building-history","category-easthampton-history-2","category-student-life","category-williston-seminary","tag-503","tag-499","tag-504","tag-adelphi","tag-bad-behavior","tag-gamma-sigma","tag-harlan-g-mendenhall","tag-joseph-henry-sawyer","tag-lyman-w-redington","tag-marshall-henshaw","tag-memoirs","tag-practical-jokes","tag-william-henry-ballance"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4113"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4113"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4200,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4113\/revisions\/4200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}