Since 1865, when the class of 1815 had its 50th reunion, one member of nearly every class has written and delivered a speech called an annalist letter. These half-century annalist letters portray and preserve how college life at Hamilton has changed over its two-hundred year history. We have compiled a few of the funniest and most interesting quotes from these years of letters.
L. Vincent Strully, Jr. ’69, delivered 2019:
The College administrators of 1965 would not be surprised to learn of all the achievements of the Class of 1969. They knew they had recruited a special group. As irrefutable proof of that fact, I offer the following statement given to The Spectator early in our freshman year from the aptly named Hadley Depuy, associate dean. And I quote: “This gross immaturity, demonstrated by the freshman class, represents what one would expect to find in a kindergarten. No riot whatsoever is justified. The whole purpose of a Liberal Arts Education is to teach young men to solve their problems rationally.”
Guy W. Gordon, class of 1907, delivered 1957:
The gym floor was almost always active during the winter months. There was the Chess Club, the Whist Club, the Royal Gaboons, the trips to Utica to see Julia Marlow, Grace George or Richard Mansfield, and the long trip back to the Hill with a flat pocketbook. Of course, we could punctuate our walk to Clinton with a dip in Oriskany Creek as was done by some sturdy men in January of our Junior year. At times water and snowball fights were poplar, and enthusiasm mounted to the point that windows were shattered, and other damage done. In that case, the College repaired the damage and added the cost to our term bills.
William N. Yeomans ’55, delivered 2005:
Who can ever forget “Bobo”? Just the mention of the name brings on smiles and stirs the emotions. Robert Barnes Rudd, Class of 1909, Hamilton B. Tompkins Professor of English Literature, was eccentric in all the ways a college professor should be. He had a thirst for life and loved fraternity parties. Wearing his cape he rode his horse from house to house, and at least once rode right into a house, Theta Delt, I believe. He would have a few drinks and then ride on to the next. Considering there were 12 fraternities including Squires, he had a long liquid night ahead of him. We were allowed to miss three classes a semester, but Bobo gave himself unlimited cuts. One day when he was on the way to class he encountered his department head who said, “Robert, I’m told you have missed your last two classes.” “Yes,” Bobo replied, “let’s make it three in a row,” turned and marched back home. But he was worth waiting for. In class, he was magnificent. He could transport a room full of college hot shots to another world as he reverently read Shelley or Keats, pausing to stare out the window, tears in his eyes, moved by the beauty of the words.
David Ambler Holbrook, class of 1844, delivered 1894:
In those days the country was poor. Students lived on $150 a year. There were but two inhabited buildings. North college was unfurnished. The students mostly boarded in clubs at an expense of less than $1.50 a week. The Classes of 1844 and 1845 had no College honors. Through the influence, as we students understood, of Tutors Bradford and Dwight the honors of valedictorian and salutatorian were abolished, as furnishing an unhealthy stimulus. This streak of consciousness lasted ten years. In 1855 they were restored. Loren E. Havens would have been valedictorian and Leonard Lathrop salutatorian of our class.
Gerrit Smith, class of 1818, delivered 1868:
At the principal corner in the village stood the tall stone, on which were inscribed the name of Moses Foote and the year when he and his fellow immigrants began the settlement of Clinton. Foote was still alive, a tottering old man in the midst of his numerous descendants. Between this corner and the farm of the celebrated missionary, Kirkland, at the foot of College Hill, there were probably not more than a dozen dwellings. This farm was then, and, for a long time after, occupied by the widow of Kirkland, and his daughter Eliza, who was so much admired for her personal graces and literary tastes. It was on this farm and by Kirkland’s grave that we (mostly College students) buried Skenondoah, the great Oneida chief, whose warmest desire was to rise at the general resurrection by the side of his beloved teacher. In all the way up College Hill, and for nearly half a mile farther on, there were but six or eight dwellings.
