| My oldest
brother Tan (Nathaniel P.) had not finished high school before he went
to work, and Will (William R.) took a job after
graduating from high school. So when I graduated from the Central
High School in 1894, it seemed to me that I should go to work,
too. But the fact, that two of her three sons were making their
living, made things financially easier for Mother, and she made up her
mind that at least one of her sons should go to an eastern
college. I had not set my heart on going, nor did I expect it,
and did not take Mother's ideas at all seriously, even when she asked
me to prepare myself for the Yale examinations in the Summer of
1894. High school had not fitted me for three of the examination
subjects, so I procured the necessary books and learned as much as I
could. I had chosen Yale, and Mother favored it. My cousins
Charles Spencer and Philip Peck were Yale men. Two other cousins
Darius Peck and Henry Curran were entering. My Denver boyhood
friend Robt. W. Harrington was a sophomore. Wallace Winter, W.W.
Heffelfinger, and Tom
Cochrane had graduated as famous foot-ball
players; and so on. I was destined to become a Yale man, although
I believed Mother could not afford it and that I should go to work. |
I took the examinations and
was notified in due time that I had three conditions in which I should
be examined again at the University in the Fall, and if I passed, would
then be allowed to enter the University. I had chosen the
three-year course of the Sheffield Scientific School. That
Summer, Tan took me in hand. Although I played foot-ball in my
last high-school year, as at least I tried to do, I was a poor athlete,
6 feet, 1-1/2 inch tall and about 148 pounds stripped. Try as I
would to be good at some sport, I could hardly get out of my own
way. The best that can be said of me was that I had persistence
and patience without end. Tan tried me out at the Minnesota Boat
Club and was determined to make an oarsman out of me. I liked
rowing and spent much time every day, rowing by myself until the late
afternoon; then the boys would come down from work and would make up
various crews of double fours and eights. John Kennedy coached
us. I finally got established in a four with Will, Meredith
Beard,
and somebody else, and we would give Tan a hot race nearly every day in
his single shell. Harvey Simpson, who had just completed stroking
his Yale freshman crew (1896) rowed a good deal, and he helped
me. I grew stronger, and I liked rowing.
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Not until
September 1894 did it dawn upon me that I was really and truly going to
Yale. I protested but was over-ruled, and Mother went with me to
see that I got there, and to visit the Loc[k?]woods at Riverside,
Connecticut.
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I had few
friends at Yale and entered green as grass. I knew Rob Harrington
of Denver, and the Forepaugh boys and Harvey Simpson of St. Paul; and I
knew Theo. Griggs of St. Paul by sight; but that was all, and I felt
much alone among the many boys from Andover, St. Paul's and other prep
schools, who all seemed to know each other. I was asked to visit
secret societies such as T Company and Book and Snake to be looked over
critically for eligibility, and I called at these places when asked,
without fully understanding what it was all about. In the Fall I was
taken on the Sheffield School freshman crew to race the academic crew
on Lake Whitney. We lost. After thinking that I was out of
the secret society contest, I was asked by both T Company and Cloister
if I would pledge myself. I chose Cloister, and was the last man
taken in.
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In the early
part of 1895, I joined the squad trying for the freshman crew. Ed
Brewer was temporary captain. We exercised in the gym, ran
outdoors in the snow, and practiced rowing in the tank.
Armstrong, the 'varsity crew captain, and coaches often came in to
watch us. I was learning and working hard, for although I knew
that my slimness and 150 pounds were against me, I was set on beating
out stronger men and making that crew.
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One evening
after work Ed Brewer told me and Cadwalader that next afternoon we were
to report on the 'varsity squad. When my Cloister mates learned
of this, one and all from freshman to senior began pulling for me to
win out. This helped me immensely. I never said so to
anyone, but before long, I was determined to make that crew.
Being a weakling compared to most of the others, I concentrated upon
endurance, which was my best asset. My main idea was to pull my
hardest, then reverse my muscles' actions and get in a rest between
strokes. A fault common to nearly all oarsmen was to keep too
tense with all muscles in action. This I could not afford to
do. I kept plugging, and my society and classmates egged me
on. My co-freshman Cadwalader was sent back to the freshman squad
but I remained. Members of the previous year freshman crew were
dropped here and there, but I was kept on.
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In March we
moved down to the boat-house and got out in working boats. There
were two 'varsity eights and two freshman eights. I rowed in the
2nd 'varsity and was occasionally tried out in the 1st on the right or
on the left. It was a bit unusual, but I did not mind being
changed from one side of the boat to the other.
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All the 'varsity
men were back but stroke, and many men were tried for that
position. Simpson, the previous year freshman stroke, was at
first the most likely candidate. He had the power but was
inclined to be short and erratic in his timing, which did not suit this
crew of big men, pretty near the heaviest crew that Yale ever
had. Dater and Longacre, former 'varsity men, were tried, then
Miller, Patterson, and Campbell, and myself, my position at stroke
becoming more frequent. My classmates and Cloister mates were
rooting for me hard with their encouragement and evidence of interest
which I appreciated more than they ever dreamed of, for I was being
worked hard, and when I got back to my room rather late in the evening,
I was pretty tired. Bob Cook finally came to New Haven to take
charge of the coaching, and he tried me at stroke, then others, and
finally kept me there, although many thought I was too young (19) and
light (160) for such a heavy crew of veterans.
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By the time we went to New London in June, it looked as
though I would be a fixture at stroke, and evidently I was, for I rowed
in the race against Harvard, and we gave them an awful trimming.
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Yale and Harvard
had been quarrelling with each other about athletics, and no boat-race
was scheduled for 1896, so Yale entered for the Grand Challenge Cup at
Henley on the Thames, England. But this crew didn't click.
Bob Cook was drinking too much and kept changing style so much that the
men did not know where they were at. The worse we got, the more
erratic Cook became, and the crew could not get anywhere. Finally
in June 1896 we sailed for England on the steamer, "Berlin,"
and had
our quarters at Marsh Mills a little below Henley. The crack
crews Leander and New College, Oxford, attracted a fine lot of men to
meet the "Yankee invaders." Cornell had preceeded us at Henley
and were not only beaten but much disliked. We were careful,
diplomatic, and popular. Cook drank
himself to pieces, and the crew simply got
worse and worse up to the day of the race. The boat had no life,
and
we were beaten before we started. We drew
the two best crews, Leander and then New College for our first and
second heats and were beaten handily by Leander who beat the other
English crews. I stroked this crew at 170 pounds. We
were
well entertained by sportsmen and royalty, and it was quite a social
event, but it was a flop from a rowing standpoint.
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Here's
another page on the 1896 Henley Regatta with pictures and an eyewitness
account by Constance Cary, the very literary and principled wife of
Burton Norvell
Harrison, a famous 1859 Yale College graduate.
George, III
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In 1897 we
arranged to race the University of Wisconsin at Lake Saltonstall for
two miles, and then Cornell and Harvard at Poughkeepsie for four
miles. I had gotten up to 175 pounds by this time, and it was
thought I would do better at No.7 with Harvey Simpson, my St. Paul
fellow townsman, at stroke. I had beaten him out for the
place in 1895 and 1896 to his keen disappointment, but although
quick-tempered and quarrelsome, he never once was in any way unfriendly
to me, and so I in turn felt a warm regard for him. So when he
was placed at stroke in 1897 and I behind him at No.7, I gave him the
best I knew, and, at his request, advised him frequently of such faults
in his style that seemed to need correcting. But Simpson had been
disappointed in a love affair and was not himself. The crew did
not take well to his stroking and did badly. Bob Cook criticized
him sarcastically and placed him at bow with myself at stroke,
whereupon the crew did much better. Cook, who was drinking
heavily again, should have let well enough alone, but he was determined
to have me at No.7 and put Simpson back at stroke again, where he was
so erratic that the crew went all to pieces. After confiding in
me that he felt himself responsible for the crew's poor showing, he
simply quit and resigned. This stirred up such a rimpus that
others quit and Yale had no 'varsity crew. Meanwhile the time was
approaching for the Yale-Wisconsin race, and so I got hold of Phil
Bailey, Paine Whitney, and W. Griswold, and we started things up again
in time to get in about a week of training before the race. I was
placed at stroke. The U. of Wisconsin men were very unsociable,
and we enjoyed giving them a bad beating over two miles on Lake
Saltonstall. Then we got into Harkness' steam yacht in June and
were taken up to Lake Poughkeepsie on the Hudson River. We had
rotten quarters. The course was so much faster than we were
familiar with that it bothered us greatly, and we got very few trial
rows because of the roughness that prevailed. Harvard, coached by
the famous English amateur coach Lehman, was touted as our most
dangerous opponent, but Cornell, with Courtney coaching, won, we
finishing second. To me, this was a most unsatisfactory race, for
because of the fastness of the course and our unfamiliarity with it, we
thought we had not gone much over three miles when we crossed the
four-mile line, and finished comparatively fresh, having not done the
best that we were capable of. That, of course, was our error and
did not detract from Cornell's performance, but I was so disgusted that
I got back to New Haven as fast as I could and would not join my
classmates next day in our Class Day exercises. That ended my
college rowing, for I graduated from the Sheffield Scientific School
that June, 1897.
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It was a pity
that my brothers Tan and Will were denied the college experience
reserved for me. Will married young and stepped out of the
athletic picture. Tan rowed with the Minnesota Boat Club and
played base-ball. Both brothers were excellent foot-ball and
base-ball players, and both were much stronger than I. Tan won
many races in single, double, four and eight oar racing, and would have
been an excellent man for a college crew, given the chance I had.
I rowed with him in the Minnesota Boat Club eight against Duluth and in
the senior four against Winnepeg - both races at Minnetonka - during
vacation from college, and we won both races. But I left St. Paul
in March, 1898 to go to work, and that ended my rowing.
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I did not get to
New Haven again until 1900, my tricentennial. I spent a day or
two in New Haven and then went up to New London the day before the
Yale-Harvard race. There I ran into Julian Curtis, who made me an
umpire for Yale. Mumford served in a like capacity, and we both
stood in the bow of the referee's launch, where we had a good view of
the race. The Harvard stroke had been injured a few days before,
and a substitute was put in. He collapsed after three miles, and
Yale ambled on to a hollow victory. Yale still stuck to her
amateur coaching for a long time, and finally the Minnesota Boat Club
coach John Kennedy was put in charge with poor success. Not until
Ed Leader became coach more than twenty years later did I feel any
great interest in Yale rowing. In 1924 while preparing business
experiments in Brooklyn, New York, I made a particular point of getting
up to Nwe Haven to see the early Spring rowing at Derby. Rockefeller
the captain motored me out to the course where I met Ed
Leader and followed the crew in a launch. I knew none of the
boys, but I met the son of Payne Whitney, with whom I had rowed in 1896
and 1897, and with whom I had roomed on the "Berlin"
when we
crossed the ocean to Henley. Leader's methods and the crew's fine
action amazed me, and I had so much to say in their praise that it
reached the ears of Jack Goetcheus 1896 and Payne
Whitney 1897 who were
taking an active part in the management of Yale rowing. I did not
see either of them before I returned west, but Jack wrote asking me to
write him my views. We had considerable correspondence wherein I
regretted exceedingly that the University was not to be represented
among the aspirants for Olympic honors in Paris. Yale suddenly
entered, won over all American aspirants, and beat all other nations at
the Olympics in Paris. It appeared to me that Jack and Payne had
put the bug in the ears of the crew men and Leader, who then appealed
to the University authorities for permission to file their entry, which
they did, I understand, only a day or two before the time was up.
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