Williams College - Gulielmensian Yearbook (Williamstown, MA)

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'WILLIAMS COLLEGE CLASS BOOK I3 the years when the class of eighteen nine was in college shows that 1909 is merely another point on the same stream and not :L point on another stream. The current has been sharp, defined. It has cut a marked path through the hills of history. With the same inherited effort to have the current deep, but in a narrow channel, the college continues into the future. - Q .7 Dis -W WM' X 135. 3' . F iii? , -5 H- V07 'E' v fi iiaviggaffltllllliiizi fir f r

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12 WILLIAMS COLLEGE CLASS BOOK A history of the college of one hundred years ago can scarcely close without at least mention of the individualities that in those days as undergraduates gave evidence of their future fame. The class of eighteen nine possessed the leaders of the great Haystack movement. 'The names of james Richards, Harvey Loomis and Samuel J. Mills as the founders of a world move- ment have found places in the history of the religions of the world. Ezra Fisk, a member of the same class, was later a trustee of the college for ten years after 1823, and was then offered the presidency of the College of Vermont. Three members of the faculty were men of marked ability. Professor Olds, a graduate of the class of eighteen one, men- tioned above in this article, was a tutor at VV illiams from 1803 to 1805 and was then made professor, which office he held until the time of the rebellion in 1808. Chester Dewey, an instructor for two years after 1808, graduated with high standing from VVilliams in 1806. In 1810, at the time of the installation of a new faculty, he was made full professor. He filled this office until 1827. I Ebenezer Fitch, the first president of Williams college, devoted himself with much fidelity and with no ordinary success, as may be seen by the fact that the number of graduates at Williaiiis during its first half century considerably surpassed the number of graduates at Yale during its first fifty years. As most of the early administrators and teachers at the college, he was a graduate of Yale. After twenty years of office President Fitch gave way to Zephaniah Swift Moore, a man of less years, the second president of the institution. In 1834 he died, and thirty years later his remains were deposited by the side of the elegant monument erected to his memory in tl1e college cemetery. Pro- fessor Dewey once said of President Fitch, He was a man of fine personal appearance, of rather courtly manners and digni- fied carriage, of the purest morals, of the most benevolent feel- ings and the most exemplary religious character. As an instruc- tor he had a high reputation. I-Ie was eminently a good man. In these few pages the editors have endeavored to recall the history of Williams college one hundred years ago. The charm of the early events is, to members of the institution, decidedly personal. The scantiest knowledge, however, of the history of

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EVEREND HENRY HOPKINS, D.D., LL.D., son of Mark Hopkins, born in Williamstown, November 30, 1837, a graduate of iWilliams college in 1858, a Christian minister, soldier, citizen and seventh president of his alma mater, died in Rotterdam, Holland, August 18, 1908. Dr. Hopkins was peculiarly the president of the class of nineteen hundred and nine. Under him it passed three years of its existence, and when on the twentieth of September, 1908, funeral services were held in the Thompson Memorial chapel, six members of the class bore his casket to its final resting place in the college cemetery. Dr. Hopkins was nobly endowed by nature, and his gifts were secured to the use of the world in which he moved, by long training and faithful service. Genial toward all, having a genuine concern for the well-being of those for whom he was in any way responsible, kindly in his consideration for others, gentle in dealing with those in distress, whether their misfor- tune came through unavoidable circumstances or through thoughtlessness and folly, he made himself beloved by all. HARRY AUGUsTUs GARFIELD.