New York Military Academy - Shrapnel Yearbook (Cornwall on Hudson, NY)

Page 24 text:

ll? .. .. . - I 3 . N. Y. M. A.'S UNBEATEN CREW-1899 Captained by Frederick Pa Lord fextreme left on benchj. of the Achievement Alumni Award in their senior years. The third second-generation Shattuck-Thomas I..--will be graduated from N.Y.M.A. next year. In 1905 the brothers Driggs-Spencer and Cornelius- both of the Class of 1906, finding themselves in need of ready capital, decided to become promoters. To this end they negotiated the purchase fno one knows how, of a pair of gamecocks and allowed it to be known among the cadets that a main would be fought in the Ramble on a certain afternoon. The stated price of admission was twenty-five cents. A large part of the corps assembled at the stated time and place and paid their fee to see at least part of a cock- fight. Unfortunately, there was one spectator who had not been invited-Captain William Muldoon. The net result of Captain Muldoon's interest in this ancient sport was the receipt of 100 demerits each by promoters, spectators, and all others connected, however remotely, with the project. About this time Colonel Jones once more revived in- terest in the dramatic club and took a personal hand in its annual productions. One of his star performers was Wil- liam Harrigan, '05, Harrigan came from a family of the- atrical folk and his inclination toward the stage was there- fore not surprising. After leaving the Academy, he con- tinued his study of the drama, and has been associated with the theatre ever since. Fencing, now a compulsory exercise at the Academy, was first introduced at Cornwall in the fall of 1906, when Captain Louis Vauthier arrived to take charge of the ac- tivities of an informal fencing club. Captain Vauthier was also fencing master at West Point and had achieved noted success with his teams there. The new sport met with an enthusiastic response at N.Y.M.A. and Captain Vauthier was able, within a few years, to turn out some of the best amateur swordsmen in the country. It was in the fall of 1906 also that the Academy pro- Page Twenly

Page 23 text:

.jr lilly nu I-I -ll if -I ll 1' l-I - ll -L , Saturdays were always good days because we were al- lowed to go into town, but if it happened to be a Satur- day when the football team won, we really had a time. The whole corps would form a torchlight procession and march down into the middle of town. Then the 'new guys' would be forcibly called upon to entertain with speeches, songs, and dances. It was on Saturday nights also that the weekly danc- ing classes were held. Miss Foote fl can't remember her Grst namej, the teacher, would come down from New- burgh in a horse-drawn carryall with a bunch of girls, and some more girls would come up from Cornwall. Of course, the big social event of the year was the mid-winter show and dance. We used to give a minstrel show each year which was attended by our girls and some of the parents. The big dance would follow the show and how we were chaperoned! No one was allowed to leave the immediate vicinity of the dance floor all night except to go home at the end of the party. I guess we were pretty well taken care of, all right. Looking back now, I know that we were certainly well-fed even if we did kick about the food most of the time. Oc- casionally the kitchen would seem to get a run on one dish -fried eggs, for instance-and then we'd simply go on strike until the menu was changed. This was a pretty mild demonstration, though. Why, I went to West Point with the football team one time and we ate with the cadets there. Waiters came in with large platters of pancakes and those disciplined West Pointers made a shambles of the place by throwing pancakes from one end of the room to the other. Shattuck recalls that the steady growth of New York Military Academy during this period was already taxing the capacity of the main building. There were only about forty-five rooms available for dormitory space and some of these would accommodate only one cadet. With eighty-six boys housed there in 1904, it was impossible to find room for a single additional person. Shattuck, a member of the board of trustees of the Academy for several years, has sent three of his sons to Cornwall. John G. Shattuck, jr., was graduated in 1935 and I-Iarold Morgan Shattuck in 1936. Both were winners THE RAMBLE AS IT APPEARED 50 YEARS AGO Page Nineteen

Page 25 text:

599 ,X V.: Z' f lx! il liar 1 1 ln: ARTILLERY DRILL IN UNAUGHTY-NAUGHT judge Lee Parsons Davis, '00, between the cannons. duced what was probably the greatest football team in its history. Captained by Walter Bortz and coached by Ernest L. Bragg, this team was not only unbeaten but it was unscored upon and rolled up 258 points in the course of the season. The team played eight games and only two of them were at all close. High spots of the season were an 89-0 victory over Poughkeepsie High School, defeat of the Groff School by 25-0 at the Polo Grounds in New York, and a grand climax when Peekskill Military Academy, tradi- tional rival of N.Y.M.A., was beaten 21-0 in the final game of the year. Here is the complete record of the 1906 foot- ball team: N.Y.M.A.-58g Catskill High School 0 N.Y.M.A.-18: Faculty 0 N.Y.M.A.-893 Poughkeepsie High School 0 N.Y.M.A.- 63 Pratt Institute 0 N.Y.M.A.- 4: DeWitt Clinton High School 0 N.Y.M.A.-23: Groff School 0 N.Y.M.A.-39: Poly Prep 0 N.Y.M.A.-21: Peekskill Military Academy 0 Totals 258 0 Members of the varsity squad, in addition to Bortz, were Herbert Gerst, jesse Rinehart, Robert Smith, Edward Rhodes, William Gradi, Bradford Manning Qpresident of the Alumni Association, 1938j, Leslie Walker, Merrill Staples, Warner Day, Newton Sholes, Amos Crooks, Lang- don Leslie, Richard Beebe and Isador Levy. The next year Headmaster Charles Sumner Havens was succeeded by Artemas D. Dimmick, who carried on as headmaster until 1910. An important addition to the scholastic stature of the Academy was inaugurated in 1907 when a four-year Tech- nical Course was included in the curriculum for the first time. There had previously been only two college prepara- tory courses, Latin Scientific and Academic. Inclusion of this third course, with its emphasis on the subjects necessary for admission to the great engineering schools of the country, placed the Academy in the position of being able to offer complete preparatory training for any college or university. The Technical Course immedi- ately became, and has remained, one of the most popular at the school. The first rifle range also made its appearance during the school year of 1907-08. Captain William Muldoon, '02, an enthusiast of this sport, organized a rifle club and coached the cadets daily. Page Twenty-one