{"id":4182,"date":"2019-02-19T15:39:30","date_gmt":"2019-02-19T19:39:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/?p=4182"},"modified":"2019-02-22T15:35:33","modified_gmt":"2019-02-22T19:35:33","slug":"founders-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/founders-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Founders’ Day"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
The cover to a Founder’s Day invitation, 1895<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

According to most evidence, Williston Seminary began to celebrate Founders’ Day shortly after Samuel Williston’s death in 1874.\u00a0 The original tradition was to commemorate the Founder on or close to his birthday, June 17.\u00a0 Typically it was one element\u00a0of Senior Week, which culminated with graduation exercises.\u00a0 It was a major event.\u00a0 The oldest surviving program, from 1895, presents a full afternoon of wreath-laying and speeches.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Founders’ Day program, 1895.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Some form of the event survived into the 1970s.\u00a0 \u00a0By mid-century, it had been moved to a date earlier in the spring.\u00a0 The school assembled at the Williston gravesite in the Main Street Cemetery, where either the Headmaster or Dean A. L. Hepworth would talk about the Willistons, and typically many of the other former heads and faculty interred nearby.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
At the gravesite, probably 1970. Headmaster Phillips Stevens and Chaplain Roger A. Barnett.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
May, 1966. Teacher Peter Rowe lays a wreath on Emily Williston’s grave. Other identifiable faculty include, from left, Frank Putnam, Yves Couderc (center, behind Mr. Rowe), Daniel Carpenter, A. L. Hepworth, Wilmot Babcock (partially obscured), and Alan Shaler (on the right margin).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In 2016,\u00a0during Williston Northampton’s 175th Anniversary celebration, Founders’ Day was revived, now as a February event celebrating the tradition of giving that was so much a part of who Samuel and Emily Williston were.\u00a0 It has become a major element in the School’s annual Advancement effort.\u00a0 On February 20, 2019, our goal\u00a0was to inspire 1,178 donors \u2014 for Williston’s 178th year.\u00a0 Achieving that participation target triggered an additional $75,000 challenge grant, while several classes and the Williston Parents created\u00a0incentives of their own.\u00a0 By the end of the day we had vastly exceeded expectations, as nearly 1,400 alumni, parents, faculty, students, and friends realized almost $400,000.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Joesph Sawyer, ca. 1909.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For Headmaster Joseph Henry Sawyer, who joined the faculty in 1866 and led the school from 1884-1886 and 1895-1919, Founders’ Day was especially meaningful.\u00a0 After all, he had known Emily and Samuel Williston personally, as well as most of the other major figures from the school’s early years.\u00a0 In 1911 his friend Herbert M. Plimpton, class of 1878, published several of Sawyer’s Founders’ Day addresses.<\/p>\n

June 17, 1909, fell on the same day as Commencement, so much of the traditional Founders’ Day speechifying was curtailed.\u00a0 But Sawyer, in his graduation remarks to the senior class, included a few words \u2014actually, more than a few \u2014 about Samuel Williston.\u00a0 While the religious element Sawyer evokes is de-emphasized in 21st-century Williston Northampton, much of what Sawyer had to say seems especially relevant for students and alumni today.\u00a0 The text, from Plimpton’s compilation, is reproduced below.\u00a0 (Please click the images to enlarge them.)\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>x\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“He gave for those who were to come after him and who should live when he was no longer living. His works do follow him.”<\/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":[138,12,43,25],"tags":[507,312,5],"class_list":["post-4182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-founders","category-williston-academy","category-williston-northampton-school","category-williston-seminary","tag-founders-day","tag-joseph-henry-sawyer","tag-samuel-williston"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4182"}],"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=4182"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4182\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4205,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4182\/revisions\/4205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}