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

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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

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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

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fa W JOHN G. SHATTUCK, '05 Shown with the inscribed silver plate presented to him at a dinner held in 1959 at the Waldorf-Astoria by a group of alumni and faculty in appreciation of his thirty years of endeavor on behalf of N.Y.M.A. The photo in the background shows the three Shattuck boys who have fol- lowed their father at the Academy. They are Cleft to rightj Thomas, Morgan, and john, Jr. An important improvement in Academy equipment is noted in the October 16, 1907, issue of The Ramble. It appears that an urgent need was felt for a new projecting lantern to be used in connection with lecture courses, and the purchase of such an instrument was greeted with cheers by The Ramble editors. The old machine was not satisfac- tory, they felt, as it was equipped with an electrical lamp only and such a lamp is extremely uncertain . . . fP.S. The new lantern was operated by the tried and true me- dium of gas.j The need for music, especially of a martial character, is felt nowhere so keenly as at a military school, but it was not until 1906 that anything but the most informal type of musical organization was established at N.Y.M.A. In that year a drum and bugle corps was formed, and this unit furnished all of the cadet music for the next three years. In 1909, however, Harley A. Ide came to the Academy as director of music. One of his first actions was to organ- ize a school band which superseded the drum and bugle corps as the oliicial musical organization. It was due to Ide's influence that the band became at once a vital ad- junct to cadet life. He remained at the Academy for more than a decade and witnessed the establishment of other mu- sical organizations, as well as the growth of the band into a high-class unit, with cadets striving earnestly for a place in its rank. But the year 1909 is chiefly distinguished in New York Military Academy history for the fact that it marked the coming of Major, later General, Milton F. Davis to the school. Born on November 15, 1864, at Mantorville, Min- nesota, young Davis moved to Oregon with his parents a few years later and was educated in the public schools of that state. At the age of twenty, Milton F. Davis matricu- lated at the University of Oregon, and then was graduated with honors from West Point in 1890. He was commis- sioned a Second Lieutenant in the 4th U.S. Cavalry, and served successively at Fort Walla Walla, Washington, and in the Presidio of San Francisco. For the next five years he explored, surveyed and mapped Yosemite National Park, Sequoia National Park and Roosevelt National Park. In 1895, while exploring the Grand Canyon, he lost his way and wandered for days without food in a superb effort to find an outlet from the canyon. Finally he picked up a trail and by following it emerged one of the first explorers of the Grand Canyon. Davis was a notable mountain climber and in 1892 made the first ascent of a 12,000-foot peak in the High Sierras, which, in 1896, was named Mt. Davis in his honor. He also made a record ascent of Mt. Popocateptl in Mex- ico. Commissioned First Lieutenant of Troop C, lst Cav- alry, in 1897, he served at Fort Sheridan, Fort Robinson, in the Spanish-American War, and in the Philippine Insur- rection. He was awarded the Silver Star Citation for gal- lantry in action against the Spanish forces at Santiago, Cuba, July lst, 1898 . And in that same year he was ap- pointed Military Governor of El Caney during a devastat- ing yellow fever epidemic. As a Lieutenant in 1898, Davis married Elizabeth Aitken Hall, who bore him four children: Dorothy fdeceasedj, Margaret fMrs. Frank A. Pattilloj, Helen fMrs. Morton Starr Cressy of Plainfield, New jerseyj and Milton Fenni- more, jr. Davis became, in turn, Captain, Adjutant-General and Chief of Staff to General S. S. Sumner, as well as Aide on the General Staff to the Secretary of War. In connection with the Silver Star Citation the follow- ing excerpt from Theodore Roosevelt's book The Rough Riders is pertinent: Among the men who were foremost fin storming San Juan Hill, was Lieutenant Milton F. Davis of the First Cavalry. He had been joined by three men of the Seventy-First New York who ran up and, saluting, said: 'Lieutenant, we want to go with you. Our officers won't lead us.' One of the brave fellows was soon after- ward shot in the face. Page Twenty--two