150 Faces of Peddie

FACES OF PEDDIE

Peddie Chronicle Sesquicentennial Issue

FACES OF PEDDIE

In celebrating our sesquicentennial, Peddie School is proud to present the stories of 150 Faces of Peddie. It was as true in 1864 as it is in 2014: Peddie’s story is best told through the faces of the men and women, boys and girls, who shaped its existence over a century and a half.

The best way to tell the story of this school — from its fledgling creation as a Baptist school during the Civil War through to its current position as one of the finest independent schools in the nation — is through such vignettes.

Thomas B. Peddie, Walter Annenberg and Finn Caspersen are faces of Peddie, to be sure. But so, too, are Wilson Hall, the Ala Viva, and the Chronicle itself.

Even those with a strong sense of our long history will learn something from this special sesquicentennial edition of the Chronicle. Do you know who the Haas twins were, and what set them apart from each other? Do you know who painted the murals in Annenberg Hall? Who wrote the school song? What Ala Viva means?

Have you heard about the school’s macabre legends of ghosts, buried bodies and scattered ashes? Do you know that we have had three graduates named Cameron Van der Veer?

The 150 Faces of Peddie has been written to share compelling and entertaining stories of individuals, that taken collectively represent the history of Peddie and faces that shaped it.

We know 150 Faces of Peddie are only the beginning. When the 150th Committee began its work two years ago, 150 seemed like a big number. When we began whittling down a list of 150 Faces of Peddie, the number seemed too small.

Each alumnus profiled represents thousands more who have achieved remarkable success, found happiness and fulfillment in unique circumstances, or given back to Peddie in transformative ways. Each trustee in this publication embodies the same tireless dedication and service to the school as hundreds of others both before and after. Behind each faculty member whose story is told are scores more who inspired students, gave their lives to the institution and shaped a generation — sometimes two generations.

To be sure, we could fill this Chronicle twice, three times over, or even more. When Peddie School proudly celebrates its next milestone, the same will be true — 200 Faces of Peddie will not seem enough.

We invite you to enjoy the stories herein; together they tell the inspiring tale of a remarkable institution.

He was a successful manufacturer of leather goods, a patriot, a faithful Baptist, and an influential politician, but he is known to most at Peddie School simply as the man who saved the school.

During the school’s early years, at a time when it was in debt and perennially at risk of closure, Thomas B. Peddie of Newark was convinced by his pastor to join the Board of Trustees of the New Jersey Classical and Scientific Institute in Hightstown.

Peddie, who emigrated to the United States from Scotland at age 25, had started a trunkmaking business in Newark which expanded to leather valises and traveling bags. During the Civil War, his fortune grew as he supplied knapsacks to the Union army.

Soon after Peddie joined the board, a resolution was adopted in which it was offered that any person who donated $25,000 to the school could rename the institution. Having made a healthy profit selling leather satchels to the Union army during the Civil War, Peddie gifted the school $25,000 in one payment. A resolution of the board on March 15, 1872, accepted “with profound gratitude this munificent gift to the cause of high Christian education,” and renamed the school the Peddie Institute.

“I make this offering not for the resolution to name the school after me, but because God has granted me the money and the institution needs it,” Peddie said at the time. Peddie would continue his generosity to the school with several additional gifts, personally paying for necessities as they arose — gymnasium equipment, uniforms for Peddie cadets and radiators for dorm rooms. In his will, he gifted the school an additional $40,000. Upon the death of his wife, Sarah, the school received another $100,000.

Peddie’s generosity in gifts was matched by his service to the school. He was president of the board of trustees for 16 of his 22 years, serving until his death in 1889 at age 81.

“He was not himself a man of learning, but had struggled to the front against many obstacles that would have discouraged men less resolute,” Principal John Greene said at the time of his death. “He was a man of unswerving integrity, just in dealing with himself and others, scrupulously careful that the rights of workmen should be as carefully respected as his own.”

His integrity as a businessman was often noted, including when he was elected to the state legislature in 1863–64 and to two terms of mayor of Newark, serving from 1866–1869. In 1876, he was elected to the United States Congress, representing Essex County, and served one term. Rev. W.W. Boyd of the Baptist church in Newark delivered the eulogy of Peddie, calling him “incorruptible, faithful, true, pure, public-spirited, lover of God and lover of man.”

“He was a Scotchman through and through. Firm almost to stubbornness, social in disposition, guided by intuitions, clear in his convictions of right, patient, industrious, plodding and frugal, the qualities of his natural mind were of such an order that with a liberal education he would have been indeed a great man in any sphere of human action. But without early advantages, by the sheer force of native strength, from the humblest beginnings, he slowly and laboriously worked himself up to the foremost rank of successful business men,” Boyd said.

As was said of Abraham Lincoln, it may be said of him: “He was a true child of the people.” There was in his heart an inexhaustible fountain of tenderness, and from it sprung that longing to be true, just and merciful to all, which made the people love him. This deep, large humanity of his soul that gladdened us all, was the source of his moral and religious principles. In this sense, I do not hesitate to declare that Mr. Peddie was a great man. For a great man is a large man — large in soul. He was not a scholar, he was not an orator, he was not a statesman; but he was great and better than one or all of these; he was a man of absolute moral integrity of purpose and of life; he was an honest man. Every dollar of his great fortune is a clean dollar.

He was a just man in dealing with himself and in his dealings with others. He was just because he loved justice; right, because he loved righteousness.

He was a kind man; generous with debtors who were poor but honest, though from his innate sense of justice, keenly sensitive to any attempt to fraud him. He was a benevolent man, as his abounding private charities and his magnificent public benefactions abundantly testify.

He was a liberal man in his sentiments and utterances. A Baptist from conviction and consistently attached to his denomination, he yet held that a Christian was a title of far larger, deeper significance, and nothing

pained his humane heart more than any manifestation of a sectarian spirit.

He was a social man, retaining to the last a great fondness for society, especially for the companionship of young people. Not a trace of asceticism could be detected in his large, loving nature.

He was a man of ardent sympathies. The blessings of the poor whom he befriended are his laurels. His workmen rise up to call him friend. During his whole business career of more than half a century, no general strike occurred among his employees. To secure their rights first, his own afterward, was his motto. Expecting every man in his employ to do his duty, he meant to do his whole duty to them.

He was a patriot; loving his adopted country with all the ardor of deep affection, he sacrificed for her interests in the hour of national peril, was the patron of her brave soldiers during and since the war, and was to the end of his life the steadfast friend and promoter of good government. He loved his city, served her in public offices, contributed by his successful career and princely benefactions to her glory, was jealous of her fair fame and was first and foremost in every wise effort to increase her commerce or to improve her beauty, health and morals.

Excerpts from the eulogy of Thomas B. Peddie by Rev. W.W. Boyd

2 Charter Trustees

Early in 1864, a dedicated group of Baptist men met to direct the creation of the Hightstown Female Seminary, and their first recorded meeting took place on May 4, 1864. Later that year, they voted to incorporate as a coeducational institution and their charter was approved by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey on March 17, 1865.

The Charter Trustees of the New Jersey Classical and Scientific Institute were:

Rev. I. Butterfield, president Enoch Allen

E.T.R. Applegate R. Chamberlin Sidney C. Denise Enoch A. Ely

Horatio Ely Joseph S. Ely

John C. Fisher

Samuel Fisher D.P. Forst

E.B. Hall

Archibald F. Job

Jonathan Longstreet James C. Norris James Paxton

Olmstead H. Reed Matthias Rue

Rev. Joshua E. Rue J.H. Walters Daniel M. Wilson John Woolley

All of the men were residents of Hightstown except Wilson, Longstreet, Forst and Horatio Ely, and only three of the men had themselves attended college.

3 Julia Gurr

On January 30, 1864, the Hightstown Baptist Church passed a resolution to approve the use of “the room above the lecture room” to establish a school for Christian education for girls in its brick meetinghouse. Julia Gurr was soon employed as the first teacher of the school that would be known — at various times — as the Hightstown Female Seminary, The New Jersey Classical Institute, The New Jersey Classical and Scientific Institute, The Peddie Institute, and The Peddie School.

“They appreciated education and were willing to make sacrifices that others might obtain it,” Rev. O.P. Eaches wrote of the charter trustees in 1916.

This group of men faced not only a widespread feeling against higher education but a deeper feeling against any special education for girls, he wrote.

The original charter called for two-thirds of its members to be regular members of Baptist churches.

For 150 years, the names of the trustees (sometimes known as corporators) have changed — as did the name of the school itself — but the charge to govern, lead and protect the school has remained.

Eaches, the school’s first unofficial historian, wrote, “The trustees as a whole were men who stood by the school in a loyal manner. They did not betray their trust, did not barter it off or neglect it. Having received it from their brethren as a trust, they kept it secure and transmitted it to their successors. They gave of their time and their substance.”

Original 1864 minute book

The Baptist Church

Peddie quite simply would not exist without the Baptist Church.

So dedicated to education were the church faithful — not only in Hightstown, but throughout the state — that they supported the birth of the school and raced to its rescue numerous times.

The Baptist Church opened its first school in America in 1745 in Hopewell, N.J. Although that school closed about a decade later — as did two other efforts to establish Baptist schools in New Jersey — church members remained determined to provide a quality education under their denomination.

The Presbyterians had established a school at Blairstown, the Methodists at Pennington, and the Dutch Reformed Church at New Brunswick.

By 1863, the members of the statewide Baptist community were determined to establish a first class, well-endowed, and permanent school for their children in New Jersey. The New Jersey Baptist Convention resolved to locate it in the first community to raise $10,000 towards the project, according to the Rev. Thomas S. Griffiths, an early trustee. The Rev. J.C. Hyde of the Hightstown Baptist Church raised the funds, and in 1864 the convention gave its “hearty approval” and pledged its “hearty support” to the school.

Peddie’s ties to the Baptist faith continued for a century. Until 1964, all of the school’s headmasters were Baptists, and many of them were ministers of that faith. So, too, were varying proportions of the trustees. Although students of other faiths were admitted, important school events were held in the Baptist church.

Today, Peddie is an independent, non-denominational school.

5 The Civil War

When Peddie was founded in 1864, the country had already been at war for three long and bloody years.

At about the same time that the school was reorganizing as the New Jersey Classical Institute, Ulysses S. Grant was settling in for his siege of Petersburg. Most of the major battles had already passed; the Mississippi was under Union control; Sherman was headed towards the sea; and Robert E. Lee’s army was fighting for its very survival. The death knell was sounding for the Confederacy, but the gray army would not go quietly. Despite the staggering cost of the war thus far, it would drag on for another year, finally ending in the early summer of 1865.

The Civil War serves as a backdrop to the school’s founding, but the determination of the Baptists in New Jersey to charter a school is an example of how life continued throughout the nation despite the war.

Geographically, New Jersey was relatively safe, under no threat from the Rebel armies, and suffered no damage as a result of the war.

Economically, however, the entire nation suffered both the inflation and economic uncertainty that is often persistent during and following wartime. In its earliest years, many of the subscriptions promised to raise capital for the new school went unfulfilled, putting the institution on shaky financial ground from the start.

Fortunately — and ironically — Thomas B. Peddie was able to amass a great fortune dealing in leather goods for the Union army, which he would use liberally to fortify the school’s finances.

The Borough of Hightstown

Long before the New Jersey Turnpike was constructed, Hightstown was an important waypoint of the throughroute between New York and Philadelphia. Early records show an Indian trail through the wilderness which later evolved into Old York Road, that serves as one of Peddie’s borders today.

In 1721, John Hight purchased most of what is today Hightstown. A stopping point on the first stagecoach route across the colony of New Jersey, Continental and British troops also marched through the town during the American Revolution. Seeing promise in the area, Captain William Smith purchased a large tract of land in 1778, built Hightstown’s first store, rebuilt the old mill with stone, and dammed up Rocky Brook to create a pond for it. Today, this pond is Peddie Lake.

It wasn’t until the first train service passed through Hightstown that downtown business began to fully flourish,

however. In 1833, the first steam locomotive, the “John Bull,” came down the tracks with much fanfare. By the mid 1850s, due in large part to the varied religious influences in the town, schools began to take hold. Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross, began teaching at the local Cedar Swamp Seminary; the local Presbyterian church established schools for each gender; and the Baptists began an all girls’ school in their church building. The Baptist school founders couldn’t have known at the time that their little school would long outlast its competitors and grow to be one of the most respected college preparatory schools in the nation.

As the school grew and Hightstown continued to develop and evolve, the relationship between the two remained entwined. Four Peddie students would later become Hightstown mayors: Milton Cunningham, Class of 1936; Ernest Turp, Class of 1944; Skip Cox, Class of 1950, and Scott Caster, Class of 1968.

Edgar and Edwin Haas

Twin brothers Edgar and Edwin Haas served as co-principals of the New Jersey Classical and Scientific Institute during its first four years.

Edgar Haas signed on as principal before the start of the 1864-65 school year, and before long he convinced his brother to follow. Edwin Haas resigned his position as principal teacher of Burlington Public Schools on January 24, 1865, and joined his brother six days later.

Born in 1827, the twins were the sons of a wealthy merchant from Chestnut Hill, Pa., and both became teachers. Many of their former pupils followed them to Hightstown, giving the school an immediate enrollment boost when it opened.

“Though twins, and very similar in appearance, Edgar and Edwin were of very different personality. One was harsh and severe in his methods, the other gentle and persuasive. Between them, they were able to cope with all kinds of boy and girl nature,” according to a 1916 Chronicle

Edwin Haas was put in charge of the male department and taught philosophy, natural sciences, elocution and rhetoric; Edgar Haas, a math teacher, was responsible for the female department.

One other characteristic also set them apart from each other. In a hand-written note on the back of the 186465 school catalogue, perhaps in Edgar’s own hand, was a description of when Edwin joined the school. It contains this note, written a few months after Edwin Haas arrived: “Expects to have his arm amputated today, the 26th of April.” No explanation was given.

The Haas brothers surprised the trustees in March, 1868, when they unexpectedly resigned to open a new school in Bordentown. And the trustees would begin their search for a principal anew.

When the New Jersey Baptist Convention pledged its support to the first community to raise $10,000 for a new school, Enoch Allen was among the first to pledge his assets in order to bring the school to Hightstown.

A deacon at the Hightstown Baptist Church, he reportedly donated several thousand dollars, and mortgaged the full value of his Hightstown home. It was written by the

9 The Ward Family

The Ward family owned most of the land south of Rocky Brook to what is now Etra Road. The school founders knew the single room in the brick church was not adequate space for their grand plans.

In the spring of 1865, the founders spent $8,000 to purchase eight acres of land from John Ward and they would use the land to build a new home for the school.

Several years later, John Ward sold another parcel including his family residence to Peddie. That house, built in 1832 and now the oldest on campus, was later named Kalomathia House.

But Kalomathia House is not the only legacy of the Ward Family on campus.

Just behind the Swig Arts Center on the slope leading to the power plant is a low stone wall bearing the in scription, “Ward Burial Plot.” It contains the remains of three generations of Wards.

John Ward’s great-grandfather, Michael Ward, died and was buried in the small family burial ground

school’s early historians that Allen “lived for many years almost in poverty to see the plan succeed.”

One of the founding trustees of the Hightstown Female Seminary, Allen was appointed treasurer when the New Jersey Classical and Scientific Institute was incorporated in 1865, a post he held until 1875.

on his estate in 1760. His son Benjamin was also buried there after his death in 1797, as was Benjamin’s son Ex who predeceased him as a child in 1778.

The four-times great grandson of Michael Ward, Ward Rue, graduated Peddie in 1901. He died during his sophomore

Original deed granting 8.22 acres to the New Jersey Classical and Scientific Institute

10 Class of 1869

By 1869, the New Jersey Classical and Scientific Institute was ready to graduate its first students.

The Class of 1869 had but two members, Samuel V. Hulse and James H. Hyatt. A “public examination” of the students was conducted by a committee of the board of trustees to determine if they had mastered courses such as Astronomy, Civil Engineering, History of Civilization and Moral Philosophy. Two diplomas were conferred but their two lives would take vastly different paths.

Hyatt, named as the class poet, was ordained as the pastor at the Dividing Creek Baptist Church in southern New Jersey that same year and served churches in New Jersey and Pennsylvania throughout his life.

Hyatt was the first alumnus to send his own child to Peddie as a student. His daughter Lilly V. Hyatt enrolled in 1889, followed several years later by son Howard Martin Hyatt.

Hulse, meanwhile, remained connected to his school — with scandalous results. Hulse went on to study at Harvard University and as an attorney practicing in Newark, he was appointed treasurer of the school’s endowment fund by the trustees. After serving that role for ten years, Hulse raised the suspicion of the finance committee when they asked to review financial records and he refused.

He was arrested August 15, 1907, for embezzling at least $65,000 from the fund — estimates that later grew to as much as $170,000.

By February, 1908, as a grand jury in Newark was considering the charges against Hulse, newspapers reported that the former treasurer was confined to the Essex County Asylum for the Insane in South Orange.

11 Simon Van Wickle

Simon Van Wickle is a prominent figure among the early trustees, noted for donating large sums and his tireless labor to keep the school afloat during its darkest days in the 1870s.

Joining the board in 1869,Van Wickle served as vice president of the board from 1873 until his death in 1888.

Fellow trustee Rev. T.S. Griffiths counted Van Wickle as

“It is considered doubtful by the physicians attending him that he will live to see the world outside the asylum again,” the New York Times reported. No further stories of a trial were reported.

The 1920 census records show Hulse, aged 73, still living in the hospital. No record of his death could be found.

among the most important influences in keeping the school solvent. “Wise in council and generous in large gifts,” Griffiths wrote.

Although a layman,Van Wickle was an important member of the Baptist community in New Jersey, serving as vice president of the Central Baptist Association and treasurer of the statewide association.

Hiram Alden Pratt

After the Haas brothers abandoned the principalship in the midst of a school year, the trustees scrambled to find a suitable replacement.

Hiram Alden Pratt was recruited by his friend, Henry C. Fish, a trustee of the school. Leaving a business position in Cleveland, Pratt served as principal from 1869 until 1875 — a period of highs and lows in the life of the school.

Pratt’s task was daunting, and the school’s finances constantly interfered with his work as principal. The school was already in debt from its plans to build a school building, yet housed in the brick chapel of the Hightstown Baptist Church he was unable to recruit new students due to lack of space.

Early records show Pratt was expected to be teacher, supervisor to other teachers, bill collector of term bills, manager of the bookstore, superintendent of the commissary department, court of appeals in disciplinary matters, and publicist.

Under Pratt’s tenure came Thomas B. Peddie’s $25,000 gift, as well as the school’s move to its new location. With a reduction in the school debt and an increase in its enrollment (from 75 students in the brick church to 211 in the new

building), Pratt was able to refocus his work.

One of his pupils, Enoch Perrine, remembered him as “a strict and effective disciplinarian.”

“He cherished a high ideal; he knew how fleet-footed time is; he appreciated the demands of life — and because he was anxious for the success of his pupils, he could brook neither the slack attention nor the slovenly result,” Perrine said.

13 Rev. Owen Phillips Eaches, D.D.

The Rev. Owen Phillips Eaches was named to the school’s board of trustees in 1869, the same year he assumed the pastorship of the Hightstown Baptist Church.

One of the school’s earliest historians, he served as the board’s secretary for 23 of the 39 years he served as a trustee, a diligent keeper of the school’s early records.

A prominent Baptist minister in New Jersey, Eaches was a member of the Baptist Education Society of New Jersey, and a trustee of Crozier Theological Seminary.

Eaches was born in Pennsylvania and attended Lewisburg University, later known as Bucknell. While at Lewisburg, he briefly served in the Union army during Robert E. Lee’s second invasion of the North.

On the occasion of the school’s semi-centennial, Eaches delivered an address on the history of the school, having been involved with the school for nearly all of its 50 years; original records of the address remain among the best sources on the school’s early history.

“He was and is and ever will be a great part in the history and life of our school,” Headmaster Roger Swetland said of Eaches in 1916. “No man ever served this school more faithfully, more untiringly, more unselfishly, more devotedly, than he.”

At the time of its 50th anniversary celebration, Eaches saw a bright future for the school he had watched blossom from a struggling institution to one of prominence.

“It is in accordance with the fitness of things that Peddie should aim to be, not a good school, not the equal of the best, but ‘the best boys’ school in America,’” he said. “Fifty years ago, our fathers lighted this candle. By God’s grace it has been kept shining steadily, though at times dimly. It belongs to us and our children to see that this light shall never be extinguished.”

For more than a century, Wilson Hall was the face of Peddie.

As early as 1865, steps were taken to build a proper school building, with the charter trustees asking the state Baptists to raise $60,000 for that purpose. On June 14, 1866, the cornerstone of the future Wilson Hall was laid, but it would be more than three years before it would be completed — with work on the structure stopped more than once.

Soon after plans were drawn and the walls partly up, trustees balked at the “inferior” image the building presented. “Put that old factory picture out of sight,” Daniel M. Wilson, president of the board, declared. The walls were torn down, new walls built, and the costs soared.

No sooner was the foundation poured and the first story constructed of hammer-dressed brownstone than work stopped again — this time due to financial burdens. Months passed, during which time the co-principals abruptly abandoned their work at the institute, moving to Bordentown where they attempted to start another school.

The trustees were as determined as ever to save the school, and in addition to their own great financial sacrifices, they called upon the citizens of Hightstown to ensure that the school would remain. In the June 11 issue of The Hightstown Gazette, area residents were invited to come out and support the school. “The crisis has come! Shall the work go forward or be abandoned? This is a practical question to which the people of Hightstown and vicinity must give immediate answer,” the paper declared.

That Sunday, the people of Hightstown arrived, raising $9,500 in one day, with more donations coming later. The trustees combined that generosity with $21,000 raised from

other sources, and construction resumed a month later.

Frugality prevailed, however, and the brownstone was changed to brick for the remaining four stories.

The imposing building — at a total cost of $140,000 — was dedicated on October 29, 1869, in grand fashion with a procession, speeches, prayers, and an appeal for more donations. Although the institute finally had its own building, it also now had $60,000 in debt.

It would be ten years before the school would be debt-free, but with the completion of the building, enrollment soared from 16 students studying in the meeting house in January to 211 students by the end of the first year it was dedicated.

The price of board, tuition, room, fuel and the washing of ten articles per week was $250 for the year.

The Hightstown Gazette declared the institute building “Unquestionably, both in appearance and accommodations, the finest school building in the state.”

Originally unnamed and simply known as the Institute, in 1905 the building was named in honor of dedicated trustee Rev. William Wilson, who was credited with rescuing the school from bankruptcy.

Impractical to repair for use as a school any longer, the aged Wilson Hall was torn down in 1978.

Even then, the school lacked the funds to remove the debris after the demolition, and the remains of Wilson Hall were buried on campus.

The green between the Swig Arts Center and the Kerr Dormitories remains vacant, where Wilson Hall stood for 109 years.

15 Enoch Perrine, Class of 1870

Like many of Peddie’s earliest students, Enoch Perrine was a Hightstown native, “born within a few stone’s throw of Wilson Hall.”

“As a boy, I roamed over the spacious fields that now comprise this expansive and beautiful campus. There never was a more glorious place in which to play hide-and-seek than in the vast caverns of its cellar that remained so long without a roof,” he wrote of the as-yet-unfinished Wilson Hall.

When he was old enough to enroll at Peddie, he was the founding co-editor of the Chronicle and active in all aspects of school life. After graduating, he attended Brown University and became the editor of two different newspapers in New Jersey.

In 1878, he became the first Peddie alumnus to return and take a teaching job. He taught Latin and German from 1878 to 1886, during which time he also earned his master’s degree from Brown. After leaving Peddie, he took a position at Bucknell University as the John P. Crozer Professor of Rhetoric, but still maintained close ties with the school, serving as president of the alumni association. In 1892, he received a doctorate honoris causa from Gettysburg College. He remained at Bucknell teaching English and literature until his death in 1920.

Perrine was involved with Peddie throughout his life; he gave numerous lectures and eulogies and was one of the school’s earliest chroniclers. “As a student, I attended the first chapel exercises ever held in Wilson Hall,” he wrote. “As an instructor, my lot brought me here at the turn of the tide when prosperity set in to roll on and ever since; as an alumnus, I have personally known all its principals, the large majority of its teachers, and many of the students. It is a proud memory of mine that each of its benefactors, whose portraits adorn the walls of the chapel, was my personal friend.”

On the occasion of the school’s 40th birthday, Perrine wrote a letter of congratulations to be read at the Founder’s Day celebration. “The fact is that, unlike other aged spinsters, the older she grows, the fairer she is,” he wrote.

“Alumni, Peddie is, of herself, nothing. She is and will be just what directors, instructors, graduates, students, and friends wish and determine her to be. Let’s all covet for her the best gifts, be these material and intellectual and spiritual; and let’s bestir ourselves until she possesses and illustrates all these gifts in larger measure than ever before.”

16 LaRoy Griffin

LaRoy Griffin was named by the trustees as the third principal in 1875.

Griffin, a graduate of Brown University with a master of arts degree, was a scholarly man and experienced teacher at the Peabody Institute of Natural Sciences and Phillips Andover Academy. He remained in Hightstown only one year, however.

Griffin later served for twelve years as professor of physical science at Lake Forest University.

17 Reverend E.P. Bond

The Reverend Emmons Paley Bond, already a teacher at Peddie, was promoted to principal in 1876.

Bond graduated from Brown in 1851, and then from Hamilton Theological Seminary in 1853. He became principal of the Connecticut Literary Institute (now known as Suffield Academy) in 1865.

In 1873, he joined the newly-renamed Peddie Institute as a teacher of Latin, Greek, and Intellectual and Moral Philosophy.

He was appointed principal in 1876, but when September came in 1877, the school’s ability to open remained so uncertain that none of the boarding students arrived in time for the start of school.

Students trickled back but by the end of the first quarter, the trustees voted to close the school.

Also mourning the death of his wife, Bond resigned.

18 The Lower School

From the very beginning of the school’s founding, a lower school was offered for primary education of young boys and girls.

At a cost of $5 per 10 ½ -week quarter for instruction, the primary school “includes the elementary principles of education,” according to the school’s first catalogue in 1864. Spelling, reading, defining, penmanship, geography and arithmetic were taught, generally for students under age 12.

“Students persisting in being indolent and inattentive to their studies, or in violating the principles of morality, and rules of good order, will be promptly dismissed as being unworthy of a place in the Institute,” the catalogue warned.

The lower school operated largely apart from its high school counterpart. When the school secured the Ward residence in 1898, it was used as a dormitory for the junior school. In 1928, Austen Colgate House was constructed for the purpose of housing lower school students.

The lower school continued to operate throughout most of Peddie’s history, although younger grades were gradually phased out. For many years, only an eighth grade year was offered. In 2005, grade eight was eliminated, making Peddie a secondary school only.

Rev. Eleazar James Avery

After 13 years of struggles, it looked as if Peddie Institute’s days were over. The trustees had voted to close the school and released its principal and all its faculty.

They were to make one last effort.

Rev. Eleazar James Avery, a 62-year-old former teacher who had arrived at Peddie as a steward a year prior, was called to a meeting of the trustees. Avery’s own diary capably relays his story:

“November 12, 1877, I went to Jersey City to meet for the first time the trustees of Peddie Institute. Rev. O.P. Eaches extended the invitation. At this meeting, Prof. Bond resigned his principalship. I was invited to succeed him. Two days later, the second quarter began and there was no Head engaged to take charge of the school. The entire number of pupils was 35. The mortgage on school property, some $35,000, was foreclosed. Peddie Institute had gone into the hands of a receiver; and the whole property was soon to be advertised for sale.”

The board offered him $500 to continue to lead the school for the year, an offer he was reluctant to accept.

“But in the midst of these dark circumstances there was one, at least one, ray of hope. These trustees in this baffled,

soul-trying crisis resorted to prayer — their first attempt toward deliverance,” Avery wrote. “Their circumstance gave me the courage to assume the charge of the school, although I had no money myself.”

Avery would lead the school through the next four academic years, increasing enrollment from 35 to 135. Then, days into the start of the 1881 school year, Avery died unexpectedly.

According to Rev. O.P. Eaches, a trustee at the time, Avery was among those who saved the school. “If W.V. Wilson was the savior of the school on the financial side, Mr. Avery was its savior on the teaching side,” he wrote. “At personal sacrifice, with economical management, long hours of teaching, with but little financial help, he not only kept life but fostered growth.”

Avery’s dedication to Peddie extended to his family. His wife, Eunice, joined him at the school as matron, and continued at her post after his death until 1888. Daughters Mary and Kate both attended Peddie, and both later returned as faculty members.

Rev. William V. Wilson

December 28, 1878 was, perhaps, Peddie’s darkest day. Deeply in debt and no longer able to hold off its creditors, Peddie Institute was foreclosed upon and put up for auction at a sheriff’s sale. In a scene worthy of Hollywood writers, Rev. William V. Wilson miraculously raised $10,000 (including reportedly selling his own property), arrived to see the sheriff just in time, slapped $10,000 down and personally purchased the school at auction. He then promptly sold the school back to the trustees for twenty-five cents.

With the dawn of December 29 came a new era for Peddie; its debts had been eliminated and the long struggle to keep the school alive was finally won. While the school would experience hardships in the future, its pure existence has never been threatened again.

Appointed to the board of trustees in 1873, Wilson served for thirty-five years until his death in 1908. He was treasurer from 1879 to 1897 and president from 1898 to 1908. His hard work to alleviate the crippling debt facing the school did not go unnoticed by his peers. In March of 1879, the trustees passed a motion stating: “Voted, that this Board expresses its grateful appreciation of the services of the Financial Secretary, Brother W.V. Wilson, in the conduct

of the duties of his office and hereby tenders to him our heartfelt thanks for the patience, self-sacrifice, and devotion with which he has sustained his trust.”

In 1905, the board further honored him by naming the institute’s main building Wilson Hall.

“He gave time, money, himself, unreservedly to this work,” The Old Gold and Blue yearbook stated following his death. “He was the recognized savior of the school.”

Rev. John Greene

Rev. John Greene, a graduate of Colgate University, led Peddie during its first period of expansion from 1882-1889.

During his principalship, Peddie was for the first time free of financial and enrollment crises and Greene brought stability to the school. Remaining for seven academic years, he was the longest-serving principal since the school’s founding.

Greene dedicated himself to reinvigorating the curriculum and faculty that had suffered under the financial crises. When Greene began in 1882, the faculty numbered eleven with a student body of 162; by 1889, the faculty had grown to 16 to support the 220 students enrolled.

It was during Greene’s administration that Peddie had its first endowment fund through the generosity of Jonathan and Mary Longstreet, who gave $16,000 to build a library. In 1889, Greene left Peddie to become principal of Colgate Academy in Hamilton, N.Y. Upon his resignation, the Chronicle honored Greene:

“If the students at Peddie, those who go and those who remain, could control things, we would have married Principal Greene to Peddie until death did them part,” the magazine wrote. “These years have been of faithfulness and growth in every direction. The faculty has been enlarged — the course of study has been extended — the facilities for work in the sciences have been multiplied. The school now has an endowment of $75,000. The Longstreet library building is now going up. Of this enlarged growth Principal Greene has been a large factor.”

Rev. John Greene, second from left (seated), with his faculty in 1884

Finimus Pariter Renovamusque Labores

In 1865, the board of trustees resolved to adopt “In God We Trust” as the school motto, and place it on a school seal. Unable to locate the original die a decade later, the board passed a motion to create a new motto and seal.

First appearing on the cover of the school catalogue for the 1880-81 school year, the seal proclaims four Latin words every Peddie student learns: Finimus Pariter Renovamusque Labores or “we finish our labors only to begin anew.”

The seal features a “sower of seeds,” or farmer, in front of a bundle of wheat with the sun rising behind mountains in the background.

Students and faculty alike often quote — and live by — the motto. Longtime math teacher Tim Corica says he takes note of the words etched above the entrance of Annenberg Hall each time he enters. “It’s who we are, and to a significant extent why I’m here,” Corica said.

23 YMCA and YWCA

When the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) founded a chapter at Peddie in 1885, it was the first chapter at a preparatory school in the United States.

When Peddie’s young women formed their own chapter of the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) a year later, it was reputed to be the first in the state.

The “Y” at Peddie was primarily focused on religious study, sponsoring various lectures and speakers for the student body, but also emphasized strong moral citizenship through charitable works and fundraising.

Rev. James Ramsey Swain, class of 1890, was one of the first members of the organization and in 1916 returned to Peddie as a YMCA preacher.

Preaching Biblical passages about love, Swain told the students in 1916 to be thankful for their alma mater.

“While we were students here, we did not realize what Peddie Institute was doing for us, but in our after years, as we have looked back, we have seen as we could not see before, what we owe to her ideals and her training,” Swain said. “And we come back to thank her, as well as to serve her, because of what she has done for us.”

Rev. James Ramsey Swain, Class of 1890

Sarah Ogden Peddie

When Thomas B. Peddie died in 1889, his widow, Sarah Ogden Peddie, was appointed to fill his seat on the board of trustees, becoming the first woman on the board. She continued to play an active role in the school until her death in 1893, when the second female board member, her daughter Elsie, would be named to fill her seat.

In addition to the numerous donations made by her husband, upon her death, Sarah Ogden Peddie left an additional $100,000 to the school.

25 Elsie Peddie Sauvage, Class of 1885

Elsie Peddie was the only daughter of Thomas and Sarah Peddie, and she entered Peddie Institute in 1881. She shared her parents’ love for the school. In 1893, upon her mother’s death, she was elected to the board of trustees, a position she held until her own death in 1936. In 1898, She married Thomas “Tonzo” Sauvage, a Welsh organist and son of the choir director at Peddie Memorial Church in Newark.

In addition to her parents’ numerous contributions to the school, Sauvage herself was instrumental in purchasing land across the lake, and to the south of campus, as well as renovating and furnishing Kalomathia House.

When she died in 1936, she asked that her ashes be spread over Peddie’s campus.

Vivian Sauvage, Elsie’s oldest son, wrote a letter to the school following his mother’s death. “Mother asked me to scatter her ashes — together with a few branches of ivy as a symbol of everlasting life — from an airplane above the Peddie School on a star-lit night; to be done, in her own words, ‘without previous announcement of date or spectacular sensationalism, which would cause revulsion to any one’s feelings.’ The reason for this request, again in her own words, was that ‘the Peddie School is now the best beloved location to me.’ I am planning to carry out her instructions on the first suitable opportunity.”

Elsie Peddie, seated in middle row at right, with her 1885 classmates

For 150 years, Peddie Lake has been a defining characteristic of the campus, a facility for recreation, and a source of romance.

The school, nicknamed early on as “the school on the millpond,” centered much of its recreational activities on the lake — sailing and swimming in the warmer months, and hockey and skating during the winter.

The lake itself was formed long before the school was born, when the Rocky Brook was dammed by nearby mill owners, and listed on deeds as Job’s Pond. The picturesque bridge was built in 1896 to extend Ward Street across the lake, spoiling the excuse of young students who would row their dates across to the Peddie Grove.

Still a popular fishing spot used by locals (and still reportedly a spot for courtship among Peddie students), Peddie Lake remains an important campus feature.

27 Alice W. Vose

Alice W. Vose served for 22 years as preceptress, the job of overseeing the female students at Peddie Institute. Working under the principal, the preceptress was in charge of all aspects of the female students’ lives, including their wellbeing, their course of study, extracurricular activities and manners.

“Miss Vose has shown herself to be a woman of unusual executive talent as well as a thorough and efficient teacher. Her standards are high, and she has high ideas of the importance of promptness and carefulness on the part of the students in preparing their special tasks,” Principal John Greene wrote of Vose in a report to the board of trustees in 1884. “Her force of character makes discipline an easy task to her.”

Vose retired in 1905, and in 1908 the job was eliminated when the school ended coeducation.

28 Fraternities

Extracurricular organizations have always been an important part of life at Peddie. Two gender-based literary societies, Academia and Kalomathia, were the first clubs on campus, but soon Greek letter fraternities organized on campus around the turn of the century.

Peddie’s fraternities functioned much like their collegiate counterparts, complete with secret initiations and handshakes, and flourished in the 1910s and 20s. In 1937, however, Headmaster Wilbur Saunders decided that their presence was a detriment to school life and decided to abolish Greek life on campus.

Replacing the fraternities was the Gold Key Society, whose membership is still one of Peddie’s most prestigious honors.

29 Omar Palmer

For 27 years, Omar Palmer knew the Peddie campus inside and out. Hired in 1886, Palmer held various positions, including janitor and night watchman. One of Palmer’s tasks for more than 20 years was ringing the bell through the corridors of Wilson Hall at meal times. Never married, he died in 1916 at age 59 shortly after retiring.

Walter C. Black, Class of 1886

So dedicated to his community was Walter C. Black that he served 133 years of public service, holding as many as four positions at the same time.

Black’s family operated a nursery in Hightstown, one that is still in operation since its founding in 1853. Though he was put to work at the nursery at an early age, his mother also made certain he went to school, first to public primary school, then to Peddie Institute.

“When I started at Peddie, I discovered that there were many things to learn that did not appear in books. I found that there was a bigger thing in life than merely fighting for a living. I will never be able to repay the debt I owe to those years at Peddie.” Black said.

But repay the debt he did, indeed.

Black joined the board of trustees at Peddie at the same time he began a 54-year stint of service on the local public school board in East Windsor.

On the Peddie board, he served from 1915-1954 and during the Great Depression was the treasurer of the body. He described the task of adjusting teacher salaries during the depression as “one of the worst jobs I ever had, for I always contended that teachers were underpaid and advocated increased salaries.”

During his service, Black also became a partner in, then the sole proprietor of, the family’s nursery business. He retired from the business in 1957, at age 90, but not before dedicating a generous portion of his farmland to Peddie for use as a golf course.

One of Black’s last visits to Peddie was for his 75th reunion celebration, where he was photographed with his great-grandson, Donald Ticknor ’63. “He has inherited his enthusiasm from both of his parents and his love of Peddie from me,” Black said.

Walter C. Black died at the age of 95 in 1962.

Walter C. Black (standing) with the class of 1886

Longstreet Library

Jonathan Longstreet and his sister Mary Longstreet gave the school a gift of $16,000 in 1888 that has left a lasting mark in one of the campus’ iconic buildings.

Equivalent to about $400,000 in 2014, the gift was given upon Jonathan’s death for the purpose of building a library and science classroom for the school.

Jonathan Longstreet of Holmdel was a charter member of the board of trustees, and although he served only one year as a trustee, he maintained a strong interest in the school until his death. His sister Mary shared his love for the school, and maintained close ties with it as well.

Completed in 1890, Longstreet Library’s first floor was designed to hold 20,000 volumes and included a well-lit reading room filled with the best magazines and periodicals. The second floor served the science department as classroom, museum and laboratory space. To top it all, an observatory with revolving dome was installed in a tower 12 feet in diameter. A $600 telescope, donated by F.R. Morse, completed the new building.

In the school’s 1890 catalogue for prospective students, it boasted of the exemplary new science facility. “The result is a splendid structure, an ornament to the campus and a most valuable addition to the equipment of the school,” it read.

“It is but just to say that Peddie Institute now occupies a position in this respect unexcelled by few, if any, academies of the land, and the fullest opportunity will be given to all

students to use the books freely and to gain the greatest benefit possible from these exceptional opportunities.”

In the decades that have followed, Longstreet Library has been used for a myriad of purposes, including as a student center and canteen, special events venue, dormitory, guest house, and faculty residence.

Perhaps its most eventful day was April 8, 1970, when, at 6 a.m., a group of students seized the Longstreet canteen to protest what they saw as a range of unacceptable administrative practices. They demanded a new school constitution, a joint student-faculty disciplinary committee, and the abolition of dress and appearance codes.

After several hours, popular English teacher Donald Roberts climbed in through a window and persuaded the students that their point had been made and nothing good would come of prolonging the protest. After cleaning the canteen and paying for the food they had eaten, the students disbanded.

Headmaster Albert L. Kerr met with students that afternoon, and laid the groundwork for a new student constitution which is still in use today, although with revisions.

When 21 girls were admitted to the school at the start of the next school year, Kerr gave the Longstreet protest credit for solidifying the decision to embrace a return to coeducation.

Everest Family, Classes of 1889, 1914, 1922, 1925, 1928 and 1950

Frank Fort Everest, Sr., Class of 1889, traveled all the way from Iowa to attend Peddie, unusual during the school’s early history.

He returned to Iowa and attended Grinnell College as a member of the Class of 1893 to continue his studies and play fullback on the college’s football team. He made his living in real estate, and served as president of the First National Bank in Council Bluffs, Iowa.

Despite the distance from Iowa to New Jersey, he also sent four sons to Peddie.

Folsom George Everest, Class of 1914, practiced law and served in the Iowa National Guard for twenty nine years. Following active service during World War II, he retired from military service in 1946 with the rank of brigadier general. He accepted a Judgeship in Iowa in 1961.

Frank Fort Everest, Jr., Class of 1922, attended West Point

after Peddie and made a career of the military, first with the Army Air Corps and then with the Air Force. He was a career officer, rising through the ranks during World War II and the Korean War. In 1957, he was appointed commanderin-chief of the U.S. Air Forces in Europe and promoted to the rank of general.

Charles Blake Everest, Class of 1925, served in Italy and Africa during World War II and rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel.

Jack Mason Everest, Class of 1928, the youngest of the second generation, was born in 1910 and returned to Iowa after graduation to attend the University of Iowa. He died in 1935 at the age of 25. His brothers dedicated a pew in the chapel to both Jack and their father.

The third generation of Peddie Everests, Frank III, graduated in 1950.

Frank Fort Everest, Sr. Class of 1889

Folsom George Everest Class of 1914

Frank Fort Everest, Jr. Class of 1922

Charles Blake Everest Class of 1925

Jack Mason Everest Class of 1928

Frank Fort Everest, III Class of 1950

33 Herbert E. Slaught

Herbert Slaught came to Peddie as a young mathematics teacher in 1883 after graduating from Colgate University. Principal Greene relied heavily upon the young Slaught, and often left him in charge of the school in his absence.

As a result, when Greene resigned in 1889, Slaught was the logical choice and was offered the job as the school’s seventh principal. He was 27.

Still the youngest head of school in Peddie’s history, Slaught left in 1892 to become a graduate student at the newly opened University of Chicago. He would later write that he loved his time at Peddie. “She had my whole heart and life-blood for nine years of devoted service,” he said.

34 Rev. Joseph E. Perry, D.D.

Joseph Perry, the eighth principal from 1892-1898, continued to expand the school.

Under his tenure, the school’s endowment grew, including a $100,000 gift upon the death of Sarah Peddie, further ensuring its future stability. New facilities were added including an expanded dining hall and Octagon House, and new equipment for various departments was purchased. In addition, Perry helped to renovate the current facilities, build a gymnasium, and expand the athletic fields into Peddie Grove (now Armellino Court).

Perry was a man of learning; he was valedictorian of his graduating class at Bucknell University and graduated with distinction from Crozer Theological Seminary. Prior to taking on the principalship at Peddie, Perry was the chair of ethics at Bucknell.

He continued this dedication to academics while principal of Peddie. In 1868, Perry resigned to accept a position with the Baptist Board of Home Missions.

35 Harold B. Wells Sr., Class of 1894

Harold B. Wells Sr. of Pemberton graduated from Peddie in 1894, and he went on to graduate from Princeton University as a member of the class of 1898. He began his law career in 1902, later establishing his own firm in Bordentown. He was elected to the New Jersey State Senate in 1916, representing Burlington County, where he served for five years. After his tenure in the Senate, Wells served as county solicitor and county judge before joining the Court of Errors and Appeals and Court of Pardons in 1930, where he sat for eighteen years until his retirement.

In 1943, Judge Wells wrote a letter to Headmaster Saunders describing his time at Peddie. “I spent four happy years at Peddie in the golden nineties and look back upon those four years with pleasure and satisfaction and regard them as a splendid foundation upon which to build a future,” he wrote.

Even after retiring from public service, Wells continued to be active as president of the Board of Child Welfare and as a trustee of the Bordentown Military Institute. He died in 1961.

Henry Uber Coleman

A prominent Baptist and businessman from Trenton, Henry U. Coleman was appointed to the board of trustees in 1894 and was voted president in 1911.

During his 18 years on the board, Coleman was integral in planning the “Greater Peddie” expansion and fundraising initiative of Headmaster Swetland.

The first dormitory constructed under this plan was completed in 1912, the same year Coleman died, and it was named in his honor.

Coleman Dormitory was advertised as modern and fireproof, a necessary precaution since a fireplace was located in the study of each room. The building was designed to house as many as thirty students, and two masters.

It still serves as a dormitory.

37 Henry Trask

Henry Trask served as the principal of the South Jersey Institute from its founding in 1870 until it closed in 1907. Located in Bridgeton, N.J., it was something of a partner to Peddie, serving the Baptist communities of South Jersey.

Unfortunately, having two Baptist schools in close proximity resulted in competition for students and funds. Peddie, with its central location and strong endowment, proved to be the more soundly-established school and long outlived her sister institution. Trask dormitory, built in 1914, was named in remembrance of Trask for his role as principal and for facilitating the absorption of the South Jersey Institute into Peddie. The dormitory is the only building on Peddie’s campus that is dedicated to someone not directly affiliated with the school.

Octagon House

Built in 1857, the Octagon House has long been shrouded in mystery. Generations of Peddie students and alumni have told tales of ghosts, hidden jewels, and a secret room whose window is visible from the outside, but which cannot be accessed from the inside.

According to local lore, the Octagon House was the scene of an unsolved murder in the late 1800s. According to a 1950s article in The Peddie News, a woman named Carrie Hutchinson lived alone in the house in 1892. While on a trip to Europe, an Italian gentleman fell in love with her and followed her back to Hightstown when she returned. It was reported he was often seen standing on the street outside her house. Hutchinson had brown shades installed in all of her windows to keep her secluded from her admirer’s prying eyes.

One day shortly thereafter, a maid found Hutchinson’s body in the music room, the front door reportedly wide open. Although less dramatic accounts of her death suggest she was an invalid who died of natural causes, her jewels were missing upon her death and never discovered. There has been talk of ghosts ever since.

Purchased and donated to the school in 1897 by Hiram E. Deats, class of 1891, Octagon House was first used as the headmaster’s residence.

Designed to enclose maximum space with minimal material, octagonal shaped houses were popularized by architect Orson Fowler. Though hundreds were built, Peddie’s Octagon House is the last remaining house of this style in the Delaware Valley.

Many modifications have altered Octagon House from its original shape; a rear annex was added by Headmaster Roger W. Swetland around the turn of the century. By 1950, the house had been subdivided and used as a combination of dormitory and faculty residence.

Today, it is used exclusively as a faculty residence. And as for the hidden room, if it ever existed, it has long since been lost to one of Octagon’s many renovations. The current resident faculty members report no signs of either ghosts or hidden jewels.

Roger W. Swetland

Peddie’s longest serving headmaster, Roger W. Swetland, executed his “Greater Peddie” program, expanding every aspect of the school over 36 years.

Earning a bachelor’s degree, and later a master’s and an honorary doctorate from the University of Rochester, Swetland taught at several schools in Pennsylvania and New York before becoming principal of the Cook Academy in New York.

Swetland arrived at Peddie when only three buildings — Wilson Hall, the dining room, and Longstreet Library — sat on 25 acres.

There was no electricity; students were charged for lamp oil. Enrollment in 1898 was 129 students, including the music and art department, and the faculty numbered twelve. The endowment stood at $170,000.

By the end of Swetland’s 36 years, eight major buildings were constructed: the Alumni Gymnasium (1904), the steam plant (1909), Coleman House (1912), Trask House (1914), Roberson Infirmary (1918), Avery House (1920), Memorial Hall (1923), and Austen Colgate Hall (1928).

Seven other houses were purchased to serve as dormitories or faculty housing, and the athletic field and track, and golf course were constructed.

The campus stood at 240 acres. Enrollment also increased, averaging 350 by 1934.

The student body changed greatly during Swetland’s term. Though he tried for years to stave off the move, Swetland ended coeducation in 1907 when the nation’s preference

for single gender education made the change inevitable. The faculty was also expanded under Swetland, but more importantly, the headmaster was able to retain faculty and staff for decades, rather than a few years.

The looming depression in the 1930s threatened the school and forced austerity measures upon students and faculty. In 1932, Swetland was dealt the devastating blow of the loss of his wife. In 1934, Swetland himself was struck by severe illness; he died just a few days before the school opened in 1934, dealing the Peddie community a severe blow.

John D. Plant, Class of 1906

John Plant was a man of humble origins. Born in Staffordshire, England, in 1878, his family immigrated to Trenton when he was a toddler. His father died when Plant was quite young, and he worked in the potteries of the city to support his family. He had very little formal schooling.

He was, however, a natural athlete, and came of age at the dawn of the sport of basketball. The first professional basketball league was created when Plant was 20, and he made a living as one of the first professional basketball players in history. It was at one of his games that Plant met a Peddie alumnus, who encouraged him to get in touch with Headmaster Swetland. Swetland admitted Plant to the junior school in 1901 at the age of 23, perhaps leading to Plant’s nickname as “The Old Roman.” With great effort, Plant passed his courses and moved to the upper school from which he

graduated in 1906. While at Peddie, Plant continued playing pro basketball and also led Peddie teams to victory in football and baseball.

Plant returned in the fall of 1906, and would act as the school’s athletic director for the next twenty years. He also coached basketball, football, and track. His record in basketball was legendary, as he led the Peddie basketball team to six preparatory school titles in seven years.

Plant was a true sportsman — both in his conduct and in his physical appearance. His motto was, “Win if you can, but play fair.” He believed that all students should take part in athletics, advocating that there should be “a Peddie sport for every boy,” and stressed participation for all.

In 1926, Plant was recruited by Bucknell to serve as their athletic director, basketball coach and track coach. His belief in participation for all led him to create an intramural program at Bucknell University that was emulated by many other colleges. He served at Bucknell until 1947.

Plant was posthumously inducted into the Bucknell Sports Hall of Fame in 1982, and to the Peddie Sports Hall of Fame in 1987.

Elmer Hess, M.D., Class of 1907

Elmer Hess, a native of Millville, N.J., was an athlete at Peddie, playing varsity football and basketball and captaining the track team. He also must have fancied himself an artist, serving on the Old Gold and Blue’s board of editors and contributing several cartoons to the 1907 yearbook. He attended medical school at the University of Pennsylvania, opening a private practice in Erie, Pa., after graduating in 1911.

During World War I, he served with distinction in the Army Medical Corps in France, rising to the rank of captain and receiving commendations from both the French and United States armed services.

Upon his return from the war, Hess was chief of the urological departments for several hospitals in Erie, and held the presidency of several state, regional, and international medical associations before being elected president of the American Medical Association from 1955-56. Following his post as the AMA president, Hess served on several committees relating to healthcare. He became known throughout the medical community for his strong stance against government involvement in healthcare after President Eisenhower’s enactment of the Social Security Act.

In 1957 he became a member of Peddie’s board of trustees, a position he held until his death. While on the board, he was loyal in his support of the science department, and was involved in planning a new science building, now the Caspersen History House, despite not living to see it constructed. He died in 1961.

42 Horace Roberson

Horace Roberson was a prominent lawyer practicing in Bayonne, N.J., when his third daughter died tragically at the young age of 13. In her honor, Roberson donated funding for the Florence A. Roberson Memorial Infirmary.

The building was completed in 1918, was described by the school catalogues as, “a model school hospital and infirmary…Every modern facility for the care and comfort of the sick is included in its construction.”

Roberson was named to the board of trustees in 1921, and acted as its president for 26 of the 35 years he served.

The infirmary has long since been modified to be used as a dormitory, and sits nestled between Caspersen Dormitory and Caspersen History House on the south end of the campus.

Romeyn H. Rivenburg

As head of the Peddie math department in 1914, Romeyn Henry Rivenburg published a workbook for high school students to brush up on the algebra they had learned earlier in their high school years. It cost 36 cents.

Still available (with an Amazon list price of $7.99) nearly a century after Rivenburg left Peddie, the book offers a way for high school seniors to review algebra in preparation for college entrance exams.

Students, Rivenburg wrote in the introduction, learn by working through mathematical problems. “He should be encouraged to think his way out wherever possible, however, and to refer to the textbook only when forced to do so as a last resort,” he wrote. His classroom, records show, was also known to challenge students and leave them well-prepared for further studies.

Rivenburg, who taught at Peddie from 1898 until 1923, was heralded as “keen, concise, accurate, painstaking, enthusiastic, with perfect talents” by Headmaster Roger Swetland. When Rivenberg resigned in 1923 to become the dean at his alma mater, Bucknell University, Swetland called him “one of the best teachers it has ever been my good fortune to work with at Peddie.”

John J. McCloy, Class of 1912

Although Harper’s Magazine called him “The most influential private citizen in America,” John J. McCloy’s name rings few bells outside the circle of those intimately familiar with post-World War II Europe.

Born in Philadelphia on March 31, 1895, McCloy grew up on the unfashionable side of the so-called “Chinese Wall” — the stone viaduct bisecting the city erected by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1893. His father died when McCloy was six, and his mother worked as a hairdresser for the wealthy in order to earn a living. She felt it was important for her son to receive a proper education, and when McCloy was 12, she enrolled him at The Peddie Institute. A Presbyterian, her only hesitation was that Peddie was a Baptist school. She told her son to “be a Presbyterian and don’t let those Baptists convert you.”

McCloy spent five years at Peddie, and would later credit John D. Plant as one of his greatest influences. Plant coached McCloy in the game of tennis, so well that McCloy became captain of the tennis team in his senior year. He also gave him advice that McCloy used both on and off the courts. Plant told McCloy, “John, always run with the swift.You might someday come in second.” McCloy later said, “It was good advice. I took it to heart in all things.”

McCloy graduated from Peddie in 1912, and then went on to attend Amherst College and Harvard Law School, but interrupted his studies to join the army in 1917 as the war heated up in Europe. Upon his return from military service, he finished his law degree and dedicated over ten years

to investigating the “Black Tom Island” sabotage case, which later became a landmark in international law. McCloy’s greatest influence on the international scene came during and after World War II. McCloy was one of the few men who had a direct hand in creating the post-war political landscape in Europe, and played a pivotal role in building bridges between the United States and her former enemy, Germany, after the war. From 1941-45, McCloy served as the Assistant Secretary of War under Henry L. Stimson, where he served as an advisor on the economic plan for the rehabilitation of Europe. He was named president of the World Bank in 1947, and served as the first civilian high commissioner of Germany from 1949-52.

During his long career, McCloy did not escape criticism. McCloy, in his role in the War Department, supported Japanese internment during World War II. In the 1960s, he acted as legal counsel to the “Seven Sisters” oil companies in their negotiations with the OPEC oil cartel, skirting U.S. antitrust policies, receiving special dispensation from the Department of Justice to act as legal counsel for more than one major oil company.

McCloy retired from government service in 1953, moving on to non-governmental positions as the chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank and chairman of the Ford Foundation, but continued to serve as a presidential advisor from the 1950s through the Reagan years. Over the arc of a career spanning seven decades, McCloy is remembered for his influence during the post-war years and his dedication to serving his country. He died in 1989.

John McCloy’s entry from his 1912 yearbook.

Hiram Edmund Deats, Class of 1891

From the very first day he arrived at Hightstown on a train from Flemington, N.J., in 1888, Hiram Deats chronicled every day of his life at Peddie.

In daily journal entries, Deats recorded the weather, his travels, his illnesses, his grades, his thoughts on his roommate, and his love life — an 1888 version of a current Peddie student’s Twitter feed.

In his diary, Deats wrote of the first time he met fellow student Eva Taylor, at the first student reception of the year, noting “I enjoyed myself very much and venture to say that Miss Taylor did also.” Taylor graduated in 1890; he in 1891. They married in 1893.

Deats was both the youngest member ever elected to the board of trustees — at age 21 in the year following his graduation from Peddie — and later became the oldest member to serve on the board. In 1961, after he served more than seven decades, the board of trustees elected the 91-year-old Deats an honorary member for life. He died in 1963.

In 1961, Headmaster Carrol Morong called Deats “one of Peddie’s grand alumni.”

“If it was a gesture of faith when the board of trustees seven decades ago elected a man so young to their membership, that faith has been more than vindicated in the passing years, for Hiram Deats has been a most faithful, loyal and helpful member of our board,” Morong said.

In addition to his service to Peddie, Deats was a member of the board of trustees at Bucknell University and a member of the Raritan Township Board of Education. Deats was the volunteer librarian of the Hunderton County Historical Society from the year of his graduation from Peddie until the year he died.

His passion for diary and record-keeping led him to a lifetime of historical research about New Jersey, and Hunterdon County in particular. Today, The Hiram E. Deats Memorial Library in Flemington holds the largest collection of Hunterdon County historical and genealogical material, much of it collected and donated by Deats himself.

Sample entries from Hiram Deats’ journal from his first term at Peddie

September 11, 1888

Took train to Hightstown. Got to Peddie 2:45.

September 17, 1888 My roommate came in, but I don’t like him for a cent.

September 18, 1888 Made a bargain with Everest to trade roommates.

September 18, 1888 Everest came down tonight and Ludlow went out September 21, 1888 Reception for new students 8-11…Introduced myself to Miss Eva Taylor. I managed to stay by her side most of the evening.

October 2, 1888

Lessons very hard…had exam in geology and probably got 45.

October 10, 1888

Flunked geology…had sociable tonight.

October 16, 1888 Met Miss Taylor again and had an excellent time. We indulged in ice cream and soda crackers. I spent 40 cents.

Hiram Deats (third row, far right) with the Class of 1891

Walter Annenberg (left) and Hiram Deats

For more than a century, William Wyckoff’s name has been synonymous with the school’s highest achieving students.

First created and funded by Wyckoff in 1905, the Wyckoff Honor Prize remains the school’s top honor to a graduating senior.

Wyckoff himself was a model of academic success. Born to a poor family and raised on a farm, he suffered from asthma so severely that he slept sitting up.

He worked to pay for his education, first at Peddie and then at Brown University.

While at Brown, he taught night school, tended the furnace at a rooming house in exchange for his board and worked in a department store.

He often told the story of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. visiting him at his room at Brown but the two young men had to sit together on the bed, as Wyckoff couldn’t afford a chair in his room.

“This is a man who did everything himself,” said his daughter, Elizabeth Wyckoff Anderson. “All those years at Peddie and later at Brown, he only got $70 from his father, a farmer who went broke.”

After college, Wyckoff taught Latin and Greek and coached football at Peddie for two years. Because he was also supporting his parents, he supplemented his income working summers at a hotel on the Jersey shore.

Starting as a bell boy and working his way up each summer, he soon became the summer manager. He left his teaching

47 Francis Wayland Ayer

job at Peddie to work full time in the hotel industry, eventually buying The Peninsula Hotel in New York City.

All the while, his children said, a photo of Wilson Hall hung permanently in the family home. He served as a trustee from 1924 until his death in 1947, when his daughter and son-in-law continued to support the prize. In 1994, they generously endowed the prize.

“It was Peddie that had gotten him off the farm and had enabled him to go to college. I think the Wyckoff Prize was the result of his great sense of loyalty to the school,” Anderson said.

The Wyckoff Honor Prize continues to award a cup in his memory to the member of the senior class who “unites in the highest degree the three most important elements of success — ability, character and attainment.”

A successful businessman who revolutionized the advertising industry, F. Wayland Ayer had a reputation as truly honest in his endeavors, even refusing certain clients whom he felt were dishonest or impure.

Ayer, a devout Baptist and president of the New Jersey Baptist Convention, was focused on secondary education, serving on the board of the South Jersey Institute in Bridgeton. After the institute closed and was absorbed by Peddie in 1907, Ayer was elected to Peddie’s Board of Trustees, serving from 1908 until his death in 1923. Ayer was influential in Peddie’s transition from co-education to an all-boys school, a controversial move that was seen as saving the school from slumping enrollment. Indeed, enrollment rose from 80 to 330 students after the end of co-education.

After his death, the school’s original chapel inside Wilson Hall was refurbished by Ayer’s daughter, Anna Ayer Fry, and dedicated as the F. Wayland Ayer Chapel. When plans were drawn for a stand-alone chapel decades later, Fry again honored her father by donating $60,000 toward its construction. The Ayer Memorial Chapel, dedicated in 1951, remains a landmark and important gathering space on the Peddie campus, in lasting tribute to Ayer.

Daniel I. Messler, Class of 1902

Daniel Messler came to Peddie in 1900, and graduated in 1902 as valedictorian and president of his senior class. After earning a bachelor’s degree from Princeton in 1906, he returned to Peddie in 1908 to teach German and was appointed head of the department the following year. In 1919, he took over the duties of business manager, and in 1935 he was elected secretary of the board of trustees.

Messler witnessed the tremendous physical expansion of Peddie and helped guide its progress. His 45-year career spanned three headmasters — Swetland, Saunders and Morong. He was a major architect of the “Greater Peddie” plan under Headmaster Swetland that defined Center Campus, and saw the erection of Memorial Hall, new athletic fields, the golf course and Ayer Memorial Chapel. He died on January 1, 1954, only six months after his retirement.

49 Jacob Walter Reeves

J. Walter Reeves loved a good argument. Soon after arriving to teach drama and public speaking at Peddie in 1912, Reeves published a book, The Fundamentals of Argumentation and Debate, to develop what he considered to be critical skills for high school students.

“In view of the fact that the endeavor to convince and persuade is so universal and so much a part of our everyday

life, it behooves us, if we are not to be handicapped in the competition which results in the survival of the fittest, to make ourselves proficient in this important art,” Reeves wrote.

During the 41 years he taught public speaking and served as the coach of the drama club at Peddie, he also led the annual speaking contest, one of the school’s oldest traditions.

The speaking contest dates to 1891 when Byram Winters, Class of 1883, funded a prize for the winner. After Winters’ death, the contest was renamed the J. Walter Reeves Speaking Contest.

Reeves graduated from Wooster College in 1911 with a degree in English, Emerson College of Speech and Oratory in 1912 and received his master’s degree in philosophy from Princeton University in 1914. He is the author of numerous books on speech, debate and parliamentary procedure. In addition, he was a long serving member of the New Jersey Education Association and president of the Peddie Fathers Association. Though he officially retired in 1953, Reeves continued to assist Peddie as an admissions recruiter and as a substitute teacher.

When the school auditorium was renovated in 1960, he and fellow teacher Carl Geiger were honored when the building was dedicated as Geiger Reeves Hall.

Robert A. Higgins, Class of 1914

On Thanksgiving Day in 1919, Robert Higgins ran 92 yards for a Penn State touchdown, catapulting him into the school record books and the College Football Hall of Fame.

The 92-yard reception is the still the longest pass play in the school’s history and led to a 20–0 victory over Pittsburgh. Higgins was a three-time All-American.

At Peddie, “The Hig” had been captain of the 1913 football team and the hockey team, and was a member of the basketball, track and baseball teams. In his senior year at Peddie, his football team outscored its opponents 440 to 15 and routed Blair 60-0.

Higgins played two years of professional football with the Canton Bulldogs. His coaching career included stints at West Virginia Wesleyan and Washington University in St. Louis, before he returned to Penn State in 1928 as a coach. He was the head coach for 19 seasons, including in 1947 when his team was unbeaten in the regular-season and tied Southern Methodist, 13-13, in the 1948 Cotton Bowl.

Higgins died in 1969 at the age of 74.

51 Austen Colgate

Austen Colgate was elected to Peddie’s Board of Trustees in 1913 and was highly dedicated to the school’s well-being until his sudden death in 1927.

Born in 1863 in Orange, N.J., Colgate graduated Norwich Academy and Yale University. Upon graduation, he entered the family business, Colgate and Company, the maker of Colgate toothpaste. He rose to the position of vice-president of the company, which he held until his death. He was commissioned as a colonel in the New Jersey State Militia and served on the staffs of Governor John Franklin and Governor Woodrow Wilson.

“He endeared himself to his fellow members of the board by his thoughtful kindness, his unfailing interest, his quiet humor, his gracious spirit and his Christian courtesy,” The Chronicle reported in 1928. “Tactful, modest, steadfast, wise, cheerful and open-hearted, always ready to join in any plans for the advancement of the interests of the school.”

Upon his death, Colgate left a large bequest to be used for scholarships and construction. Part of his gift paid for the construction of a new dormitory to house the Lower School students on center campus. Austen Colgate Hall’s unique feature is its basement recreation room, which since its 1929 dedication has reportedly always included a billiards table.

52 Arthur Watkins Crisp

The Arthur Watkins Crisp murals on the walls of Annenberg Hall are among the hidden treasures of Peddie. Arthur Watkins Crisp was born in 1881 in Ontario, Canada and proved himself a talented artist early on. He began his formal artistic studies in Canada, and then moved to New York City in 1900 to study at the Art Students’ League. He later became the director of mural painting at the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design and was an instructor at both the Art Students’ League and the Cooper Union Institute. Crisp found success both as a commercial artist and as a painter and muralist. His murals can be found in the Roxy Theatre in Rockefeller Center, the Canadian War Memorials, and the House of Commons in Ottawa.

53 Starr G. Cooper

Starr Cooper arrived to teach in the lower school in 1915, but his years teaching were interrupted when he left to serve in World War I, during which he rose to the rank of major.

Upon his return, he taught Latin and math before becoming the secretary of faculty and school psychologist. In 1926, he founded the Cum Laude Society, an honors society modeled after the collegiate level Phi Beta Kappa. But Cooper was equally interested in teaching the brightest students and the struggling boys.

In a 1919 issue of Educational Review, Cooper authored tips on “Teaching Students How to Study,” in which he argues that “we can develop even the most discouraging pupils into students.”

He urges tact and incentives to concentration. “I offer my boys, as an incentive to the preparation of their spelling lesson, that I will excuse the class at once, without holding them for reading, any day that the entire class has a perfect lesson,” Cooper wrote. “Practically, it does not average once a month that the reading lesson is omitted. On the other hand, it is seldom that any boy misses more than two words. Not only have the boys the incentive of the reward for

By the 1920s, Crisp was a well-known and established artist in the United States, and during the construction of Memorial Hall (now Annenberg Hall), Crisp was hired to complete a series of murals depicting different phases of student life. Each class from 1922–1932 contributed funds for one of the murals, for a total of twelve scenes in rich tones of blue, gold, red, and green that ring the lobby of the hall. Themes include athletics, mathematics, history, drama, justice, militant idealism, service and sacrifice, music, the fine arts, literature and science. Above the front door of Annenberg Hall is a painting containing the school’s seal.

themselves, but they do not like to be the cause for the rest of the class losing a privilege.”

Cooper retired in 1934 but still remained active in the Peddie community, often mailing newspaper clippings about former students to the alumni office.

Named Memorial Hall in honor of the 502 Peddie boys who fought in World War I, Memorial Hall was the largest building project undertaken by Headmaster Roger Swetland as part of his plan for a “Greater Peddie.”

Dedicated in 1925, at a cost of $500,000, it was renamed Annenberg Hall in 1992.

The exterior strongly resembles a Roman temple with four large Corinthian columns beneath a pediment. The frieze contains the school’s motto in Latin: Finimus Pariter Renovamusque Labores — We finish our labors only to begin anew.

Upon the building’s dedication, special tribute was given to those Peddie graduates who had given their lives in World War I (then known as the “Great War.”). A dedicatory tablet still hangs in the lobby of the building, while the Ayer Memorial Chapel now serves as a memorial to veterans of all wars.

The hall currently houses administrative offices, classrooms, the Annenberg Library and the subterranean home of the technology department.

55

Blue Star Boys and Gold Star Boys

When the first World War broke out, families of United States service members began a tradition of displaying a banner with a blue star representing each family member in service. Gold stars were added for each casualty who died in the war.

During World War I, hundreds of students, faculty, and staff would leave Peddie to heed the call to service. The school’s 433 Blue Star Boys, 16 of whom were tragically turned to gold stars, were recognized when Memorial Hall (later renamed Annenberg Hall) was built following the war.

In World War II, Peddie would again be called to serve, with a staggering 1,891 participants; 63 would not return home.

In 1951, the Ayer Memorial Chapel was dedicated in their honor.

Photographs of all the Gold Star Boys from all wars since World War I hang in the narthex.

Headmaster Saunders, during the dedication, said, “How shall we make a place for them — now and always — at their school? How shall the sacrifices and spirit of the 63 who did not return be a constant light to the boys who follow? How shall we write the names of the 1,828 who did return on the Peddie roll — and how shall we give thanks for their return? The answer has come back again and again from alumni, parents and friends… ‘Let us build an everlasting memorial of the most inspiring school chapel in America.’ That is what we are going to do.”

Service banners were hung on Wilson Hall throughout World War II representing the number of Blue Star Boys and Gold Star Boys in service from Peddie. As the number of Peddie boys and alumni increased, stars were added to the banner. In the final image, as the number of deaths grew, the stars were replaced with a numeral. At war’s end, a total of 63 Gold Stars would be registered with 1,891 Blue Stars.

56 Eva Townsend

For 37 years, Eva Townsend nursed and comforted sick students and faculty alike.

Arriving at Peddie in 1921, Eva took up residence as the first nurse in the newly-built Roberson Infirmary. Both during her tenure and after retiring in 1958 at age 70, she maintained a wealth of correspondence with alumni who were grateful for her care while at Peddie. She wrote about 100 letters every month to Peddie alumni, or as she called them, “her boys.”

“She went far beyond the call of duty in expressing a personal interest in students and alumni,” Headmaster Carrol Morong wrote at the time of her retirement. “As I travel around to visit alumni, I find most frequently expressed, regards for and interest concerning Miss Townsend.”

Freshly graduated from Yale University, Earl C. MacArthur arrived at Peddie to teach English and coach football in 1910.

Years later, in an article he wrote for The Saturday Evening Post in 1938 titled “Prep-School Coach,” MacArthur credited Headmaster Roger Swetland for helping him to see “the real significance of preparatory school football.”

“I don’t care if you never win,” said Swetland. “I want a coach who doesn’t teach dirty football and who has a decent influence on boys.”

MacArthur more than satisfied Swetland’s desire in his 24 years at the helm of Peddie football. With genuine concern for the mission of the school and the development of each boy, MacArthur built a tremendously successful program, fielding nine state championship teams. Several of his players earned All-American recognition (Navy’s Russell Lloyd, Class of 1925, and Colgate’s Bruce DuMont, Class of 1925) and many were impact players on some of the top college

programs in the country. Larry Kelley, Class of 1933, went on to play for MacArthur’s alma mater and won the Heisman Trophy in 1936. The Newark Star Ledger honored MacArthur as the best New Jersey coach of the decade, 1910-1919.

In 1938, he passed the job of head football coach on to Larry Kelley, though he continued to serve as advisory coach. MacArthur served Peddie for 29 years, 20 of them as chairman of the English department. He became founding president of Paul Smiths College in New York, and remained in higher education until his retirement.

58

Ironton Austin Kelly III, Class of 1921

I. Austin Kelly was known for many things throughout his 100 years of life, but he was most passionate about rare books, something he described as “bibliomania.”

Kelly graduated from Peddie in 1921 and proceeded to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, earning a degree in engineering, then to graduate work at Harvard and Oxford. It was at Harvard, away from the rigid engineering world of MIT, where Kelly first became interested in rare books and paintings, an interest that turned to love when he traveled throughout Europe and attended Oxford “to see the originals.”

59 Clinton Irvin Sprout

Clinton I. “Kink” Sprout is the father of Peddie swimming.

When Sprout arrived at Peddie in 1921 to chair the English department, there was no swim team and the pool — some hesitated to call it a pool at all — was nicknamed “the bathtub.”

“All he had to work with was the desire of a few boys to have a swimming team,” the Chronicle said in 1955.

Sprout coached the swimming team for 35 of the 41 years he spent at Peddie, building a well-established program out of nothing.

By the time Sprout retired in 1955, Peddie had also improved its athletic facilities, and the new pool was as wide as the old bathtub was long. The very first year Sprout’s team had use of their new pool, giving them for the first time a home pool suitable for training and competing, Peddie won the state championship. They won the Eastern Interscholastic Championship the following year. The pool was later named the Clinton I. Sprout Pool.

In addition to coaching swimming, Sprout coached basketball for 24 years and was dedicated to the belief that students should be well-rounded. “Too many times today we hear the plaintive cry being raised that the schools are not placing enough emphasis on the study of science and mathematics,” Sprout said in 1955.

Collecting rare books and paintings throughout his lifetime, Kelly later donated a large collection of them to Peddie. The collection of first and rare editions he donated to Peddie dates as far back as 1493.

Kelly said collecting rare books made him happy, and he often looked specifically to acquire books on behalf of Peddie.

“It has given me solace and happiness all these years. Many an evening, after a trying day, I have turned to my books, which are my friends, forgetting troubles and enjoying the relaxation which only books can give,” he wrote at the time of his donation to Peddie.

He also donated eight paintings from 18th century masters, each dedicated to a specific Peddie alumnus whom Kelly thought was worthy of recognition. In addition to his books and paintings, Kelly endowed a teaching fellowship and an annual award from the history department.

“The contributions made by various civilizations in the field of music, literature, and poetry are equally as important as those made in the field of science and have helped to reduce the illiteracy rate, promote better understanding among nations, and in general, produce a well-balanced society.”

Sprout’s two sons attended Peddie, Bob Sprout, Class of 1942, and John Sprout, Class of 1945. John Sprout later followed in his father’s footsteps and joined the mathematics department.

Gordon Keith Chalmers, Class of 1921

As president of Kenyon College in Ohio, Gordon Chalmers was a staunch advocate of liberal arts education and helped create one of the nation’s earliest literary journals, The Kenyon Review.

Chalmers’ family had a long history with Peddie. His father, William Everett Chalmers, Class of 1889, sent all three of his sons to his alma mater; Gordon’s brothers Paul Chalmers, Class of 1917, and William Ellison Chalmers, Class of 1921, also graduated from Peddie.

On campus, Chalmers was a member of the Cum Laude Society and the Alpha Phi literary society and won second place in the Winters

Prize Speaking Contest (now the J. Walter Reeves Speaking Contest). He went to Brown University where he received a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford, earning undergraduate and master’s degrees. From Harvard University, he earned a master’s degree and a Ph.D.

He was president of Rockford College at the age of 30 but remained only three years before his recruitment to lead Kenyon College. He is credited with revitalizing the school’s long tradition of scholarship in the liberal arts and he often had his friend, Robert Frost, visit campus to teach students.

He was the author of The Republic and the Person, a defense of liberal education in which he maintained that education should be “the understanding of ourselves, our kind, and what surrounds us.”

In 1962, Chalmers died suddenly at age 52 while still serving as president of Kenyon.

61 George Lloyd Murphy, Class of 1921

A song-and-dance man who shared the stage with the likes of Fred Astaire and Shirley Temple, George Lloyd Murphy paved the way for Hollywoood actors to enter the world of politics.

Before Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger made the transition from the big screen to politics, Murphy starred in more than 45 movies before being elected the United States Senator from California.

Among Murphy’s most famous roles during his 22-year career in Hollywood was tap dancing alongside Shirley Temple in “Little Miss Broadway” and with Fred Astaire in “Broadway Melody of 1940.”

His contributions to Hollywood did not end on the stage. Known as Hollywood’s Ambassador of Goodwill, Murphy was awarded a special Academy Award in 1950 for “his service in correctly interpreting the film industry to the country at large.”

Murphy proved to be an effective leader, serving as president of the Screen Actors Guild, director of public relations for Metro Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, vice-president of Desilu Productions, and vice-president of Technicolor, Inc.

Following his Hollywood career, Murphy entered the national political stage when he was elected as a United States Senator in 1964. He served for six years.

Murphy entered The Peddie Intstitute in 1919 but despite remaining only one year, he made significant contributions

to Peddie athletics, leading the football team to victory over Lawrenceville in the state championship, and contributing to the basketball and baseball squads.

Perhaps it was his involvement in Lambda Sigma, the school’s debate team, which helped prepare him for his career in politics.

Murphy died in 1992 at age 89.

During the summer months from 1916 to 1936, many of Peddie’s students and faculty could be found on the shores of Lake Clear at Camp Kanuka.

The camp was founded and led by many of those known as pillars of Peddie — John Plant, Class of 1906; Daniel Messler, Class of 1902; Clinton I. Sprout, Earl C. MacArthur and Carl Geiger. The founders believed that their preparatory school experience married with a rigorous outdoor experience brought real value to their summer camp, a belief that was born out over the camp’s 20-year existence.

Each year, the camp housed 30-40 boys, some from Peddie and others not affiliated with the school. Athletics were at the forefront of camp activities under the supervision of the directors and counselors. The campers could not have wished for better coaches in the camp directors — Sprout, Geiger, Plant and MacArthur are all Peddie Hall of Fame

coaches. In addition to basketball, baseball, tennis, golf, swimming and canoeing, any boy interested in boxing could receive instruction from the legendary John Plant.

In what was most likely a departure from the strict rules of Peddie’s main campus, the camp deemed monotonous rules and routines as unnecessary, as long as each boy participated as a member of the “camp family.”

A brochure boasted of the camp’s amenities and offerings. At the campsite, the main building overlooked the lake and featured a large fireplace, social room, dining room, kitchen, office, game room, and reading room. Each separate bungalow housed four boys and a counselor. A sizeable gym supported basketball and other indoor games. The menu boasted an array of fresh, locally-grown fruits and vegetables, wholesome meats, and milk at all meals.

63 Robert O. Driver, Class of 1927

Robert Driver made many campus buildings possible, donating liberally to projects including Geiger-Reeves Hall and Coates-Coleman Alumni House, but only allowed his name to grace one — the Driver Dining Hall.

A native of West Orange, Driver graduated from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1931. He then joined his father’s metal alloy manufacturing company, the Wilbur B. Driver Company of Newark, becoming its president in 1946.

Driver joined the board of trustees in 1955 and for nearly 30 years remained focused on renovating and improving the school’s facilities. He also wrote for the Chronicle as class secretary and was a trustee of The Loyalty Fund. In 1970, Driver was awarded Peddie School’s Outstanding Alumnus Award.

The Driver Dining Hall was replaced in 1996 by the Finn Caspersen Campus Center.

Alan Stewart Shapley, Class of 1922

If not for his penchant for baseball, Major Alan Shapley would likely not have been on board the USS Arizona, stationed in Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

Shapley had been relieved the previous day as commanding officer of the Arizona, and was awaiting transportation to San Diego for his new assignment. But the battleship’s baseball team was scheduled to play against the team from the USS Enterprise, and Shapley was the first baseman.

When the attack on Pearl Harbor began and a torpedo hit his ship, Shapley was thrown from the boat by the force of the explosion. As he swam to safety, he was able to rescue a man from drowning. One of eight men on board the Arizona to survive, he was awarded the Silver Star Medal for heroism in action that day.

Shapley was born on February 9, 1903, in New York City. As a Peddie student, he competed in football and swim-

ming, and upon his graduation in 1922, matriculated to the Naval Academy, where he was a member of the football, basketball and track teams. Shapley was an active athlete throughout much of his career, playing on the all-Marine Corps football teams, refereeing U.S. Fleet boxing events and coaching or participating in football, basketball, baseball and boxing at most of his duty stations before World War II.

In 1944, Shapely, by then a lieutenant colonel, was awarded the Navy Cross for extraordinary heroism while commanding the Fourth Marines on Guam.

Shapley graduated from the National War College in 1947, served as chief of staff, 1st Marine Division in Korea in 1953, and was promoted to brigadier general in 1954. He was promoted to lieutenant general in 1961, and was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal upon his retirement in 1962.

Two of Peddie’s most decorated military figures, Brig. Gen. Russell Lloyd and Brig. Gen. Alan Shapley, together at a Peddie gathering.

As a member of the United State Marine Corps., Russell Lloyd was awarded the Silver Star “for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity” by the president of the United States for service during World War II.

Lloyd, who retired from the Marine Corps as a brigadier general, was the commanding officer of a unit that came under attack in the Solomon Islands in 1943.

“Lieutenant Colonel Lloyd, realizing that the Battalion’s entire campaign was threatened by these conditions, maneuvered his troops through the dense tropical jungles with such great courage and excellent tactical skill that the enemy’s strong point was outflanked and completely destroyed,” his Silver Star award cited. “Lieutenant Colonel Lloyd’s heroic conduct and valiant devotion to duty under extremely hazardous conditions contributed materially to the success of this vital mission and were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.”

Lloyd, a great athlete in an era of many great Peddie

athletes, epitomized the ideals of sportsmanship, talent, and athletic development. Earning three varsity letters for three years in a row, Lloyd’s track, basketball and football teams were among the most successful in Peddie’s history.

Lloyd captained the 1924 track team and repeated as state champion in 1925. A versatile athlete, he scored points for the team in the javelin, shot put, discus, dashes, hurdles, and mile relay. He set school records in the 120-yard high hurdles, the 220-yard low hurdles, and the shotput, and won the Eastern State Championships in the 120-yard high hurdles.

As both a guard and center on Peddie’s basketball team, he led the team to a 55-9 record during his three years, captaining the 1925 state championship team. In March of 1925, he took a short break from basketball to become the state indoor 70-yard high hurdle champion, breaking the state record.

In football, Lloyd played end on a team that was 6-1 that season; no other team scored on Peddie until the sixth game.

65 Russell “Whitey” Lloyd, Class of 1925

Walter H.

Annenberg,

Class of 1927

A shy seventh grade boy, with a bit of a stutter and hard of hearing in one ear, arrived on the Peddie campus in 1921. Over six years at Peddie, he would transform into a confident man, make lifelong friends and enjoy what he called “the happiest days of my life.”

Walter H. Annenberg, known as a student as “Annie,” was voted by his classmates “best businessman” and “done most for Peddie” when he graduated in 1927. That same year, he made his first gift to the school, donating $17,000 for a new cinder track on the athletic field.

“It would be the first, but hardly the last, of many impressive gifts to his alma mater,” said Anne Seltzer, former interim head of school.

In recounting his Peddie experience, Annenberg told of hanging out in the nurse’s office in his first days on campus, finding he was most comfortable there. But soon he was well-known on campus by faculty and students alike. “He became good at business and several faculty members admitted later that they took stock tips from Walter Annenberg,” Seltzer said.

Annenberg’s father was a successful businessman who went from a newspaper street vendor to the owner of the Philadelphia Inquirer, New York Daily Mirror, the Daily Racing Form, and other magazines. Annenberg, the only son in a family with seven sisters, took over the family’s publishing company after graduating Peddie and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He expanded the media empire, publishing Seventeen Magazine and TV Guide, which became the nation’s largest selling weekly magazine.

In 1938, Annenberg married and had two children, Roger and Wallis, before he divorced. He married Leonore Annenberg in a 1951 ceremony performed by Peddie’s headmaster, Carrol Morong.

In 1969, he was appointed ambassador to England by President Richard Nixon.

During his entire adult life, Annenberg remained deeply involved with Peddie, made numerous generous gifts and often visited the campus. In addition to the original Annenberg Library (now Coates-Coleman Alumni House), he funded Masters House in 1967 in honor of all his former teachers and the new Annenberg Library. The last gift he ever made to Peddie supported the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Science Center, dedicated in 2005 and funded with a $7 million gift from the couple.

Annenberg and his wife Leonore visit with students soon after his historic $100 million gift to Peddie

Walter Annenberg (center) in 1927

Despite his lifetime of generosity to Peddie, school officials were still stunned when on Father’s Day in 1993 Walter Annenberg gave the transformative $100 million gift to the school. Peddie was one of four educational institutions to receive colossal gifts that day: Harvard University received $25 million and the University of Southern California and the University of Pennsylvania each received $120 million for their communications programs.

“It was his memories for everything he had learned at Peddie that caused him to startle the world with a gift of $100 million to this school he loved, a gift to go to financial aid to make Peddie one of the most accessible private schools in the country,” said Anne Seltzer, former interim head of school.

The school’s endowment grew from $17 million to $117 million overnight; Annenberg asked that the money be used on human capital — improving salaries to retain faculty and endowing a financial aid budget for students.

A few years later, Annenberg was the guest at a luncheon with the first students who received Annenberg scholarships, students who quite simply could not have attended Peddie without him. “One senior got up to talk, and started to cry,” Seltzer remembered. “And Walter just went over and put his arm around her, and said, ‘I want to hear your story, and we’ll do it in five or ten minutes, but I want to hear your story.’”

Henry G. P. Coates and Clarence Coleman, Class of 1928

Henry G. P. Coates and Clarence Coleman became lifelong friends at Peddie.

The Coates-Coleman Alumni House remains a lasting tribute not only to the friendship these two men shared, but to the countless pairs of lives that have been forever forged together at Peddie.

So strong was their bond that when Coleman made a gift in 1992 to renovate the former Annenberg Library into a new office for the alumni and development staff, he wanted it to bear not his name, but that of his friend, Henry Coates. He had to be convinced to put his name beside that of his lifelong friend.

A dedicated athlete and scholar, devoted alumnus, trustee and president of the board, Coates served the school in a variety of roles for more than 72 years.

Coates’ father and brother both attended Peddie, and his uncle was John Plant, whose guidance to “run with the swift” motivated Coates both academically and athletically. An active member of the track team — the team won every dual meet during the two years he participated — Coates was inducted into the Sports Hall of Fame in 1998.

The son of a Baptist minister, he matriculated to Bucknell only with the help of a loan from Carl Geiger. Coates settled in Hightstown to practice law and, never forgetting the generosity of those who helped him succeed, he remained steadfastly loyal to Peddie. He was the recipient of Peddie’s first Alumni Award in 1969. Named a trustee emeritus in 1983, he continued to serve the school until his death in 2001.

His friend, Coleman, meanwhile, was keenly aware that he arrived at Peddie with greater advantages. His father, who founded the Coleman Lamp and Stove Company, had given him $1,000 to invest and he soon turned that into several thousand dollars. One of the few students with a radio, he was joined each night by faculty members to listen to the stock reports.

A successful businessman and generous philanthropist, Coleman said he believed having money is “a trust.”

“You’ve got to use it to better mankind if you can,” he said. The Coleman family’s generosity was legendary in their hometown of Wichita, Kansas, where it was not uncommon for Clarence Coleman to loan money to strangers, if he believed they were sincere and their need serious.

Coleman also answered the call to Peddie consistently over the years, serving as a trustee for 26 years and board

chairman in 1974-75. He was named Peddie’s first trustee emeritus in 1981, and remained devoted to the school until his death in 1992.

Though they arrived on campus with little in common, both men were bound by friendship and a call to serve Peddie throughout their lives.

“Like you, Peddie has been an important part of my life for a long time,” Coates wrote in a letter to Coleman in 1992. “To have a building named in both our honors is a special privilege.”

68 Weimer Kerr Hicks, Class of 1928

Weimer Hicks began his career teaching English at his alma mater, leaving after ten years to serve as president of Weyland Academy and then at Kalamazoo College.

As president of Kalamazoo from 1954 to 1971, he instituted the “K Plan,” a rigorous and diverse approach to a year-round liberal arts education at Michigan’s oldest college. His plan dictated that students spend at least one semester abroad and one semester in an academic internship. Under this plan, and Hicks’ leadership, the college gained national recognition and transformed itself into a premier liberal arts school.

In 1977, after Hicks had retired, Peddie granted him the Outstanding Alumnus Award.

Hicks graduated from Peddie in 1928, having played varsity football and baseball as well as serving as vice president of the senior class and on the board of The Peddie News. After Peddie he received his undergraduate degree from Princeton in 1932 and his masters from Cornell University in 1935.

69 Cameron Van der Veer, Classes of 1930, 1967, and 1999

Is

In preparation for the 150th anniversary year, Peddie School began posting “Throwback Thursday” photographs to Facebook and Twitter. One of those photographs, titled “Varsity Captains 1929-30,” featured seven unidentified Peddie sports captains. Shortly after it was posted, Cameron Van der Veer, Class of 1999, posted a comment

on Facebook. “I think that’s my grandfather second from the left,” he said.

It was true — Cameron’s grandfather, Cameron Rapelye Van der Veer, Class of 1930, was in the photo, originally published in the 1930 Old Gold and Blue yearbook.

He sent his son, Cameron Van der Veer, Class of 1967, to Peddie. And that Cameron Van der Veer sent his son, Cameron Van der Veer, Class of 1999.

it really possible to have three alumni named Cameron Van der Veer?

Cameron Rapelye Van der Veer, Class of 1930, is second from left.

Larry Kelley, Class of 1933

Larry Kelley made history at Yale University in 1937 when he was the first recipient of the Heisman Trophy.

Although the Downtown Athletic Association awarded a “player of the year” honor the previous year, Kelley was the first recipient of the now-famous trophy that bears the Heisman name.

In an era when college football was the pinnacle of many players’ careers, Kelley turned down contract offers to play professional football from both the Detroit Lions and the St. Louis Cardinals and instead returned to Hightstown to coach football and teach history. He similarly dismissed an offer to go to Hollywood and star as himself in a movie “Kelley of Yale,” later insisting he knew such a film would be a flop and he had no regrets.

Kelley played football in his senior year of Peddie, told by then-coach Earl MacArthur that “as an end, you photograph beautifully, but that’s about it!” The coach’s assessment of the player soon changed, however. After Kelley graduating first in his class at Peddie, he went on to Yale, MacArthur’s alma mater.

“Kelley is coming back to his school primarily as a teacher after a college record in which his scholastic achievements have been quite as remarkable as his feats on the playing field,” Headmaster Wilbour Saunders said in a 1937 Peddie News article announcing the hire.

Kelley left Peddie in 1942 for private industry and then to teach at Cheshire Academy, returning one final time in 1971 to serve as alumni director until 1975. In the years before his death in 2000, he could often be spotted watching Peddie football games on the same field he played more than six decades earlier.

Kelley, who was inducted into the National Football Foundation’s College Football Hall of Fame in 1969, donated a replica of the Heisman to Peddie in 1993. Each Heisman winner is now entitled to two statues — one for himself and one for his college. In 1937, the Downtown Athletic Association only cast one for Kelley. He later asked for a second trophy to be cast.

The Heisman remains on display in the Ian H. Graham ’50 Athletic Center, an iconic bronze statue standing 13.5-inches high, 14 inches wide, and weighing 25 pounds.

Bob Zenker, Class of 1943, who played football under Kelley, said he had discussed with his former coach for years the possibility of donating the replica to Peddie. Finally, in 1993, Kelley told Zenker that if he were allowed to play golf at the Peddie Golf Club for free for the rest of his life, he would turn over the trophy. Zenker agreed on the spot and asked the school for permission later. (Permission was granted.)

Howard W. Koch, Class of 1934

Having just been presented with an Academy Award in 1990, producer Howard Koch concluded his acceptance speech with three words that left most of the live television-watching audience scratching their heads.

“Steady old Peddie!” Koch cried out.

Koch, producer and director of 60 films and 20 television shows, had just been introduced by Walter Matthau and presented the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences when the sudden burst of Peddie pride took over him, nearly 60 years after he walked off the campus.

“I don’t really know why I said it! But I was thinking about an old friend and actor, George Murphy, who’d also gone to Peddie,” he told the Chronicle

It was just as unexpected to the Oscar-watchers back in Hightstown, most of whom did not know that Koch had been a Peddie student.

Koch came to Peddie in 1932, partway through his sophomore year, and lasted a bit over a year. Koch said he was

“kind of a wild kid” and that from an early age he had a passion for movies. He left Peddie as a teenager when his parents finally gave in to his constant hounding to let him pursue his dreams in Hollywood.

His Hollywood career, as director and producer, spanned sixty-five years and included his two favorite films, Airplane! and Ghost. He got his start as a film librarian, a job he thoroughly hated, but eventually landed a job as third assistant director. Koch’s big break came while filming The Keys to the Kingdom when he was appointed first assistant director. While making movies in Hollywood, he also connected with George Murphy, Class of 1921, and the two became friends.

After the nationally-televised shout-out, Koch reconnected with Peddie, admitting that he felt conflicted returning after he had dropped out of the school.

“I loved Peddie. I loved the way of life,” he said.

In 1998, he was invited to speak with students. “I am a little nervous about going back to Peddie,” he said to the Chronicle at the time. “What do I say to the kids? I didn’t stay in school. Look at the opportunities they have at Peddie.You’ve got to love it. I will tell them: ‘What are you feeling? What do you want? Find your desire. Make it work. That’s what makes you do what you do.’ ”

72 William M. Thompson, Class of 1935

William “Bill” Thompson ranks as one of the greatest athletes to ever wear the Old Gold and Blue uniform.

Thompson had a calling to education, and he liked to joke that some of his Syrcause teammates went to the majors but “I went to Peddie.”

While a student at Syracuse University, Thompson distinguished himself by being the only three-letter man in his school, excelling in soccer, basketball, and baseball. To honor his defensive abilities, he was named to several All-Star and All-American teams. He ranked number one in the school’s College of Education and in 1939 was elected to an honorary scholarship society, which included only eight members of the Syracuse senior class.

Returning to Peddie from 1939 to 1984, Thompson held many positions including social studies teacher and athletic director. In addition, he coached varsity basketball and baseball.

On March 10, 1939, at the New York Alumni Dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria, Thompson was awarded the John Plant Trophy for being Peddie’s outstanding college athlete. John D. Plant ’06 was on hand to present the prestigious award.

Thompson is a charter member of Peddie’s Sports Hall of Fame.

William Thompson with his wife Jeanne, a longtime school nurse

George Case, Class of 1936

Heralded as the “fastest man in baseball,” George Case completed 11 years as a major league baseball player, mostly with the Washington Senators.

Although his career was hampered and abbreviated by injuries, Case is remembered as one of the most prolific base stealers of all time, setting a record by leading the major leagues in stolen bases five straight seasons from 1939-43, and then again in 1945. Case stole 61 bases in 1943.

While Case was playing for the Cleveland Indians in 1946, the team owner promoted a 100-yard dash between the fastest man in baseball and the world-record holder, Jesse Owens.

The 30-year-old Case lost to the 32-year-old Olympic gold medalist by half a stride in a race across the Indians’ outfield, said to be the only race he ever lost.

A three-time .300 hitter, Case scored an American League-leading 102 runs in 1943; that year, he was the American League’s starting right fielder in the first nighttime All-Star Game.

Upon retirement from professional baseball, Case held many positions including coaching at Rutgers University and the Minnesota Twins.

74 Oscar Lewis “Ozzie” Rand

Oscar Rand was born in New Hampshire, and graduated from Yale in 1935, later earning a master’s degree in education from Rutgers University. Rand taught English for two years at the Yali School, a college preparatory school in China founded by Yale alumni.

He joined the Peddie faculty in 1939 as an English teacher. During World War II, he took a four-year hiatus to serve in the Navy, returning to the Pacific Rim and serving as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Seventh Fleet in Australia, New Guinea, and the Philippines. By the end of the war, he was the aide to Admiral Thomas C. Kincaid, Commander of the Seventh Fleet.

When he returned to Peddie to find that there were no openings in the English department, Rand was prevailed upon by Headmaster Saunders to join the math

He was the owner of George Case’s Sporting Goods in Trenton and in 1950 was asked to outfit a young Trenton Giants prospect by the name of Willie Mays.

Despite his celebrity status and busy schedule, Case often returned to his alma mater to share old stories and volunteered as class secretary.

He joined the Peddie Sports Hall of Fame in 1987.

department, in which he served as teacher and chair of the department for many years. As with other Peddie masters, teaching was only one of his duties. He had a long tenure as a dormitory supervisor, served as the school’s registrar, headed the summer school, and coached varsity sports.

Rand coached basketball and squash, and although he had never played soccer, he became interested in the sport through assisting long-time coach Evans Hicks. When Hicks was forced to lighten his load of responsibilities after a heart attack one summer, Rand suddenly found himself a most-surprised head coach. “Fortunately, I inherited a fine team,” he said.

The team surely inherited a talented coach, as well, since they won the prep championship that year. Rand continued to coach soccer for a total of 16 years, winning two more state titles. He was inducted into the Peddie Sports Hall of Fame in 1990 in recognition of his accomplishments as a coach.

He retired from the school in 1982 after 47 years of service.

75 Heister R. Hornberger Sr.

Like faculty throughout Peddie’s history, Heister Hornberger did a little bit of everything.

Originally hired in 1919 to teach Latin, in the 35 years Hornberger was a master at Peddie, he taught English, German, civics, commercial arithmetic and algebra. He supervised a dormitory, coached the freshman football team, and oversaw the dining room.

During World War II, Peddie was designated a local aircraft spotting post and students and faculty kept a 24-hour watch, and Hornberger was the air raid warden.

Hornberger’s dedication to the school was legendary, as was his attention to seemingly trivial details. In 1949, Hornberger advocated repeatedly in correspondence to the headmaster that serving hard-boiled eggs is both unpopular and a waste. They were eventually removed from the dining room menu.

76 Rev. Wilbour Eddy Saunders

In 1935, Wilbour Saunders inherited a school burdened by both the Great Depression and by the unexpected death of its headmaster, but his inexhaustible energy prepared him to lead the school effectively.

Like many of Peddie’s early headmasters, Saunders was both an educator and a Baptist minister, pastoring numerous churches in Brooklyn before coming to the school. Known for his oratory skill, he was in high demand as a speaker throughout his life.

It was common for Saunders to complete a full day in the office, then play tennis or softball, and afterwards work on his personal correspondence into the late hours. “It may be that a more efficient man could do the job and still have leisure for proper reading, recreation, and vacations,” he said in a letter to a friend. “I am very happy in being absorbed practically every waking hour in the manifold tasks and interests of the headmastership.”

He was a strict disciplinarian. “Examinations are taken in June but passed in September” was his slogan, and he was simultaneously loved, respected, and feared by many students.

Saunders discontinued the fraternity system, and the faculty-student advisor system still in place today was implemented. In addition, he revised the student

government and faculty committees and streamlined the operations of the school. Although he was known to be as tough on his faculty as on the students, most admired the work he accomplished. “There has been a complete change in morale, attitude, and reputation of the school since his arrival. It is impossible … to express in too glowing terms the work that we feel he has done here at Peddie,” faculty member Weimer K. Hicks wrote to a colleague.

The second World War was a trying time to lead a school, with many students entering service or expecting to upon graduation. Saunders amended the curriculum to include relevant skills such as map reading, aviation, and radio communications. Saunders also spent a portion of his day communicating with Peddie’s men in service, writing hundreds of letters.

Saunders left Peddie in 1949 to assume the presidency of Colgate Rochester Divinity School, though he maintained a place on the board of trustees, strong interest in the school and close correspondence with later headmasters. At the end of his life, Saunders said that his “fourteen years at the Peddie School were about the happiest of my life and that I have a tremendous fondness for the school and all that goes on.”

Saunders, a Rhode Island native, received his undergraduate degree from Brown University and continued at Colombia and Union Theological Seminary, where he earned his master’s degree. In 1936, Colgate University awarded him a doctorate of divinity honoris causa, an honor that would be repeated six more times in his life from other institutions.

77 Maurice P. “Mickey” Shuman

Born in 1910, Mickey Shuman came to Peddie in 1935 from his previous post at Wenonah Military Academy which closed that year. Shuman arrived on Peddie’s campus with a contingent of 14 recruits from Wenonah which, Shuman claimed, “bought him his job” at Peddie during those depression days. Shuman would spend the next 40 years at the school, raising four boys with his wife Eleanore, and retiring in 1975.

Shuman wore many hats during his tenure, including teaching social studies, science, reading and spelling in the junior school, acting as a housemaster in Octagon and Austen Colgate, teaching in the summer school, and acting as the director of physical education and dean of students. But his legacy was cemented during his 23-season stint as the varsity football coach.

In honor of his coaching career, Shuman was named a charter member of the Peddie School Sports Hall of Fame. He compiled a record of 75-81-6 over the course of more than two decades, and his overall record against Blair Academy was 13-9. Among his many career highlights was coaching the Peddie Hall of Fame 1943-44 championship football team.

Shuman mentored generations of Peddie boys, and Peddie hall-of-famer L. Deckle McClean, Class of 1959, once credited Shuman with teaching him “how to carry the ball and carry one’s self in life.” The school named the football

field for him, and the 1960 football team established in his honor an annual award given to an outstanding football player. In 1996, Terry Hensle, Class of 1960, founded the Maurice and Eleanore Shuman Scholarship Fund to honor the memory of his revered coach and mentor.

78 Milton H. Cunningham Jr., Class of 1936

A devoted Peddie boy and citizen, Milton Cunningham was the first Peddie graduate to be elected Hightstown mayor, serving from 1954-1964.

When Milton Cunningham’s grandfather opened the doors of his pharmacy on the corner of Main and Stockton Streets in 1877, he began not only a family business, but a family tradition of dedication to civic duty and to Peddie.

Cunningham’s Pharmacy soda fountain served as a hub of the community; townspeople and Peddie students alike could always be assured of a warm welcome and friendly conversation from Milton Cunningham when he took over as pharmacist and owner.

Friend George Dubell, Class of 1943, remembered Cunningham’s warmth in his obituary in the WindsorHights Herald. “He was willing to talk about anything at any time,” Dubell said. “Even when he was taking care of the business, he still had time to talk to people.”

Serving Hightstown in various capacities over a span of 50 years, Cunningham’s impact on the town can be felt most in his accomplishments as mayor. During his four terms, he started the Hightstown Housing Authority, bringing affordable housing units to town for 100 families, and initiated construction of the borough’s municipal building. Cunningham entered Peddie in 1929, following in the footsteps of both of his parents, Josephine Huntchinson, Class of 1904 and Milton Cunningham Sr., Class of 1903. He went on to Tabor Academy as a post-graduate and to Dartmouth College and the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science before returning to Hightstown. In a letter to Headmaster Saunders after he left Peddie, Cunningham said, “I want you to know that…Peddie always stands first in my mind.”

Mickey Shuman (right) coaches Ian “Mighty” Graham.

Thomas P. Bell, Class of 1940

Thomas “Tommy” Bell was an attorney on weekdays but on Sundays during football season, he was known as one of the most respected referees in the National Football League for 15 years.

The only official in history to work both a Super Bowl and an NCAA Final, Bell attended Peddie for a post-graduate year in 1939-40, excelling in both football and track.

Bell was the head official for Super Bowl III in 1969, the game in which New York Jets quarterback Joe Namath boldly — but correctly — predicted a victory over the heavily-favored Baltimore Colts. He also officiated Super Bowl VII in 1973 between the Miami Dolphins and Washington Redskins.

Before joining the NFL, Bell called the 1956 and 1959 NCAA men’s basketball championship games featuring Bill Russell and Jerry West, respectively.

Bell was elected to the inaugural induction class of the Peddie Sports Hall of Fame in 1987 for football.

80 “Peddie to Thee”

“Peddie to Thee,” the school’s alma mater, is sung at all major events of the school, including Convocation, Founders Day, and Commencement. It represents a proud tradition of Peddie songs dating back to the founding of the school.

The current alma mater was composed by George S. Parsons, father of C. Sanford Parsons, Class of 1931, and George B. Parsons, Class of 1933, and grandfather of C. Anthony Parsons, Class of 1961. George Parsons was a lawyer by trade, but had honed his musical skills as a composer and lyricist while a student at Columbia University as a member of the Class of 1902. He wrote music for numerous student performances, establishing an early aptitude for songwriting that would continue throughout his life.

A second Peddie song that is still well known to students is the “Color Song,” by Nelson L. Green. The lyrics and jazzy tune evoke the flavor of the 1920s: Steady, Old Peddie is marching along; We shall be loyal ever Bearing her colors with shouting and song The Gold and Blue forever!

Other songs have not stood the test of time quite as well. Previous songs used as the alma mater were written in 1906 and 1926 are no longer in use. And some of the ditties included in the 1906 publication, “A Few Peddie Songs,” are not very sportsmanlike. One in particular, “Poor Lawrenceville,” takes issue with the Big Red’s skill on the baseball diamond (and includes the footnote, “It’s like taking candy away from children.”)

81 The Bell

The Bell in the lobby of Annenberg Hall was the second bell to hang in Wilson Hall, a gift by the class of 1939 and a replica of its original. A lasting physical memory of Wilson Hall, The Bell is as much a symbol of the school’s history as it was a source for pranks. For decades, the senior class routinely stole the bell’s clapper before graduation. Now mounted in the lobby sans clapper, The Bell continues to inspire traditions. It has become the traditional spot for students to gather to sing carols on the last day of classes before the holiday break each December. The holiday tradition stems from “school sings” scheduled on the steps of Wilson Hall by Headmaster Swetland, who had a well-known fondness for music.

82 H. Richard Hornberger Jr., Class of 1941

H. Richard Hornberger Jr. ’41 took his experiences serving in a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH) during the Korean War and turned them into a blockbuster novel, film and television series.

Published in 1968 under the pen name Richard Hooker, M*A*S*H: A Novel about Three Army Doctors, chronicles Hornberger’s time in the war with the Army Medical Corps. The irreverent character of Captain Benjamin Franklin “Hawkeye” Pierce, he based on himself.

The son of distinguished faculty members Heister and Verona Hornberger, Richard attended Bowdoin College, then Cornell Medical School, and became a thoracic specialist, practicing in Maine.

He worked for a dozen years on the book, receiving many rejections from publishers until William Morrow agreed to publish it. Hornberger was surprised by the book’s popularity. “I just wrote a book about some people I knew in Korea and made some of it funny,” he said.

When Robert Altman directed the film and it was released in 1970,Vietnam War protests made the movie timely for its perceived anti-war themes. By the time the movie was turned into the renowned television series from 1972-1983, the author said, it was a far departure from his original. He felt viewers read too much hidden anti-war meaning into it.

“I intended no messages in the book. I am a conservative Republican,” he told The Peddie News in 1996. “I don’t hold with this anti-war nonsense.”

That rare interview — he eschewed publicity — is believed to be his last before his death of leukemia in 1997.

Although as a Peddie senior Honberger quipped in The Peddie News that the best thing about the school was its vacations, he remembered Peddie well in his later years.

David Richard

Kiviat,

As a teacher at Peddie, David Kiviat had strong feelings about many things.

Class of 1942

In 1962, he told The Peddie News that his “constitution revolts against three things: murderous mistreatment of the English language; students who permit the advantages of a superior education to wash over their heads like so much tepid bathwater and pears, a fruit that is a veritable anathema to culinary perfection.”

And while his distaste for pears remains unexplained, former students of Kiviat remembered his dedication to both Peddie and to their education.

Kiviat was himself a Peddie boy, arriving as a junior in 1940 and graduating cum laude in 1942. After Peddie, he attended Princeton earning his bachelor’s degree and then Columbia University where he earned his master’s degree.

Highly skilled in mathematics, he taught at Emory University for three years before joining the Peddie faculty in 1955.

Kiviat died tragically in a car accident on September 20, 1971. His parents established a memorial fund in his name, which received initial donations from the entire student body and the senior class of 1972. His funeral was held in the Ayer Memorial Chapel.

84 Paul Murray, Class of 1943

During his sophomore year, Paul Murray was recognized by Peddie Hall of Fame coach Clinton Sprout as a “very promising underclassman with a good record in the breaststroke.” One season later, at the 1942 Eastern Interscholastic Championships, he won the 100-yard breaststroke, shattering the national preparatory school record in the process.

Given the state-of-the-art facilities that Peddie swimmers currently use for training, it is difficult to imagine that Murray’s pool was located in the basement of what is now William MountBurke Theater, and measured a mere 50 by 14 feet (barely wide enough for two lanes). With virtually no room for an audience, few members of the community had an opportunity to watch Murray’s splendid development as a swimmer. In addition to the challenges posed by training in the “terrible tub,” the World War II era limited travel and reduced the schedule considerably.

Murray’s groundbreaking accomplishment catapulted him into uncharted territory, as his triumph was the first-ever

national title bestowed on a Peddie swimmer. Many other young men and women have graced the victory podium since then, but Murray’s climb to excellence surpassed so many odds it may never be repeated.

He went on to captain the 1942-43 team and then to an outstanding swimming career at Cornell University, where he captained the “Big Red” team during his junior and senior years. For his exemplary perseverance on his way to becoming one of the great pioneers of Peddie swimming, Murray was inducted into the Peddie Sports Hall of Fame in 2003.

85

Richard L. Swig, Class of 1943

Alumni, faculty and friends on the West Coast during Dick Swig’s era would remember fondly the gatherings he held for Peddie guests in San Francisco. Swig’s Fairmont Hotel was always the setting, and Swig was always the perfect host, making all who attended feel as if they were VIPs.

Swig, who spearheaded the hospitality management program at the University of San Francisco (USF), in many ways redefined the luxury hotel experience.

Swig served in the Navy after his graduation from Peddie and returned home to begin a lifelong career as an hotelier. Starting as a storeroom clerk in his father’s Fairmont Hotel, he worked his way around the entire hotel, gaining the experience to rise to management level. He eventually became chairman of the Fairmont Hotel Management Company, which he expanded to a chain of seven luxury hotels and set a new standard for luxury.

Devoted to San Francisco, the city he loved, Swig remained loyal to Peddie as well. In 1989, Swig combined his love for Peddie with his passion for the arts in making a cornerstone gift that made possible the arts center that bears his name.

86 Bruce T. Dumont, Class of 1925

Bruce Dumont kept a very full little black book.

In 1945, dedicated alumnus Dumont started the first Loyalty Fund at Peddie, doggedly tracking down fellow alumni from graduating classes as far back as 1879. By year’s end, his little black book listed gifts from 877 donors ranging from $1 to $1,000.

Like its modern day version The Peddie Fund, the Loyalty Fund allowed alumni, parents and friends to provide unrestricted financial support annually to Peddie School.

Forever loyal to Peddie, Dumont served as the alumni representative on the board of trustees and for four years remained as president of the Loyalty Fund. In addition, he served as president of the alumni association for three years.

In 1987, Dumont was inducted into Peddie’s Sports Hall of Fame, having served as captain of the 1924 football team and as a member of the varsity basketball and baseball teams. At Colgate University, he was an All-American and captain of the football team.

Dumont remained connected with Peddie throughout his adult life. Sadly, upon

returning for his 66th reunion weekend in 1991, he suffered a heart attack and died at age 86. His funeral was held in the Ayer Memorial Chapel, a building funded in part by the Loyalty Fund he created.

Herbert E. Kaufman, Class of 1947

Herbert Kaufman, M.D., is a groundbreaking researcher in the field of ophthalmology, credited with developing the first effective antivirals.

Born in 1931, Kaufman played varsity soccer, served on the staff of the Old Gold and Blue and The Peddie News, and was elected to the Cum Laude society while a student.

After Peddie, Kaufman graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University in 1952, and from Harvard Medical School in 1956. He headed the ophthalmology department of the University of Florida and the department of ophthalmology at the Louisiana State University School of Medicine, and was named as the first director of the LSU Eye Center upon its founding in 1978.

Kaufman is best known for being the developer of the first effective antivirals, and for pioneering the combination of steroid and antiviral therapy. He discovered the drug that is

88 Ayer Memorial Chapel

As the United States entered a post-war era in the late 1940s, Peddie was planning for the future. A proper chapel had long been on the school’s wish list, and a memorial to Peddie’s alumni who died in World War II was foremost in the plans of the school leaders.

Original intentions for a stone or bronze memorial to the 63 fallen alumni were soon combined with the dreams for a stand-alone chapel, and plans for the Ayer Memorial Chapel were born.

Dedicated in 1951 and built on the spot first envisioned decades before by Headmaster Roger W. Swetland, the chapel replaced the second floor room in Wilson Hall known as the F. Wayland Ayer Chapel. Gifts were given in memory of the Gold Star Boys, others who had died, and in honor of the living.

In the Gold Star memorial narthex hang 63 portraits of Peddie boys who died in World War II. In 2003, the portrait of one Peddie alumnus who lost his life in the Korean War and six from the Vietnam War were added.

While it was originally intended as a place for daily religious services, the chapel is now used for twice-weekly

a proven cure for the eye disease caused by the herpes simplex virus, herpes simplex keratitis, the most frequent cause of corneal blindness in the United States and the most common source of infectious blindness in the Western world. Kaufman’s accomplishment was listed by the American Medical Association as one of the ten most outstanding medical developments of 1962.

In 1964, Kaufman was named one of America’s Ten Outstanding Young Men by the United States Junior Chamber of Commerce (better known as the Jaycees). At the time, he was the youngest chief of ophthalmology in the United States at the age of 33.

Currently Emeritus Boyd Professor of Ophthalmology and Pharmacology & Experimental Therapeutics at The LSU Eye Center, Kaufman’s bibliography boasts over 700 publications, including work on herpes virus and ocular disease, antiviral drugs, corneal surgery and refractive surgery. His medical reference book, “The Cornea,” remains the most authoritative clinical reference on the subject, and his research on storing donor corneas has enabled the creation of modern eye bank networks to provide sight-saving cornea transplant surgery. In short, Kaufman has, through his research, saved the sight of an untold number of patients.

services and for musical performances, special events, weddings, and memorial services.

Constant throughout this evolution, however, is the collection of fond memories and inspiration chapel attendance has provided the students sitting in its pews over the years.

Harold Neiderhoffer, Class of 1953, was a member of one of the first classes to attend services in Ayer Memorial Chapel, back when attendance was required six days a week. “I enjoyed the chapel experience although we did spend a lot of time there,” he remembered in a 2012 interview for the Chronicle. “As I have aged, I find that every time I attend a function in the chapel I find the experience to be most fulfilling and meaningful. I really love that building and its memories.”

89 Ian H. “Mighty” Graham, Class of 1950

Known as “Mighty” on the football field, Ian H. Graham has remained “mighty” grateful for Peddie.

“My years at Peddie changed my life completely,” said Graham, one of the school’s most generous benefactors.

“I strongly believe in giving back, and I’m delighted I’m able to provide great opportunities to students. It’s inspiring to see the impact of the gifts I have made.”

Graham, former football captain and trustee emeritus, has supported athletics at Peddie for more than 60 years, including helping to fund construction of the state-of-theart Ian H. Graham ’50 Athletic Center.

Graham said he was motivated to support athletic programs at Peddie because of the opportunities football provided to him. “I wasn’t an academic whiz; what made me popular was sports,” he said.

In addition to football, he was a member of the varsity wrestling team, secretary of the Gold Key Society, president of his senior class and student prefect of his dormitory. His parents struggled to afford his tuition, which Graham supplemented by serving his classmates in the dining hall. Later in life, he talked with equal pride of being named manager of the dining room as starting his own insurance company later in his life.

Graham received his undergraduate degree in 1954 from Rutgers University, where he attended on a full football scholarship. After several years in the insurance business, he founded his own company, Ian H. Graham Insurance, Inc. He is married to noted photographer Ellen Graham.

Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Class of 1950

Although he attended a traditional Persian school, Seyyed Hossein Nasr attributed much of his early education to long hours of discussion with his father, a scholar and physician, and the interactions he had with the learned individuals who came to his boyhood home in Iran for scholarly debates.

Born in 1933 in Tehran, Iran, Nasr arrived in the United States at the age of 12, and joined the junior school at Peddie. He was an active participant in the life of the school, including playing varsity soccer, tennis and squash, and serving on the editorial board of The Peddie News, the Press Club, and the Old Gold and Blue. It was at Peddie that Nasr acquired his knowledge of the English language. He graduated as the class valedictorian in 1950, and was awarded the Wyckoff Honor Prize for ability, character and attainment.

After graduation, Nasr attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for his undergraduate degree in physics, and went on to receive a master’s degree in geology and geophysics and a Ph.D. in the history of science and learning at Harvard University. While Nasr may have degrees in the hard sciences, he is much more a philosopher

at heart, focusing much of his work on the relationship between religion and science in general, and Islam and science in particular.

He returned to Iran in the mid-1960s, was offered a position as an associate professor of philosophy at Tehran University, and shortly thereafter became the youngest person to become a full professor at the university. Nasr returned to the United States in 1979 at the time of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, and continued to write on the subject of Islamic Studies. In 1980, Nasr was the first Muslim scholar ever to be invited to give one of the prestigious Gifford Lectures in Scotland, which were later published as one of Nasr’s most famous philosophical works, “Knowledge and the Sacred.” In this work, Nasr draws from many traditions including philosophy, Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, and Zoroastrianism, and explores humanity’s quest for knowledge and quest for the divine and how these quests relate to one another throughout history.

Nasr continues to teach, write and lecture internationally. He has authored over twenty books and several hundred articles over his lifetime. A University Professor of Islamic Studies at The George Washington University since 1984, he also created the Nasr Foundation, which is devoted to the study of the various facets of traditional Islam and other religions, and to the propagation of traditional Islamic teachings.

Horace J. Brown, Class of 1951

Horace Brown was the first African American student and graduate of Peddie.

In 1948, Headmaster Saunders told Brown’s parents that if Horace could pass the entrance exam, he would admit him as a student. His father was the school’s longtime groundskeeper; his mother worked in Swetland House as a housekeeper to the headmaster.

During a 2009 chapel talk on the same day the United States inaugurated its first African American president, Horace Brown recalled that Hightstown was “separate but unequal” during his childhood, and that the Klu Klux Klan was active in the area. He said Saunders “was ahead of his time” in agreeing to admit him.

“I was 14 years old when I arrived here at Peddie,” Brown said. “This was a time when I could not eat at most restaurants in Hightstown. A time when they had a movie theater that had a restricted section for people of color.”

Brown made his parents, and Saunders, proud with his performance at Peddie.

Brown ranked in the upper portion of his class, and was elected senior class secretary. He also excelled in athletics.

On the soccer field, he was captain and goalie of the undefeated 1950 varsity team, shutting out opponents six times and allowing only five goals in the entire season. He even managed to score a goal on a long kick from his own net.

Brown was also captain of the 1951 basketball team, which put together a 16-3 season despite starting with poor prospects of a winning season.

Brown was inducted into Peddie’s Sports Hall of Fame in 2001.

When he first entered Peddie, Brown said, there were numerous students, teachers, and staff that “hand carried me through this school, until I was comfortable enough to stand on my own.” For the first three years he attended, he was the only African American student.

After Peddie, he attended Rutgers for two years before leaving to join the Army, eventually completing his degree at Monmouth University. Brown was a registered nurse for over twenty years before changing careers and taking a management position at XEROX.

When Brown returned in 2009 to give his chapel talk, he called it “a dream come true.” A longtime supporter and adviser to the school, he died six months later at age 76.

“When I came here, I didn’t know I was making history. I just wanted to go to school,” Brown said. “I love this school. I love America.”

92 Robert Felver, Class of 1952

In 1950, when all “new boys” were required to wear the new boy beanie at all times until the football team won its first game, new junior Robert Felver certainly knew how to make a first impression.

In the first play of his first game on the Peddie gridiron, Felver gathered in the opening kickoff and ran 90 yards to score a touchdown. It was the opening play of what would be Peddie’s legendary undefeated and untied 1950 championship season.

Felver was a standout on both the football and track teams. He tore through his two years at Peddie, breaking records,

helping his teammates make sports history, and lighting up the school community with his quietly brilliant brand of school pride.

Starring on both offense and defense as captain of the 1951 football squad, Felver rushed, kicked or caught 71 of Peddie’s total 83 points that season, receiving the coveted Bradley Award for outstanding performance, as well as All-State prep honors at halfback.

Felver’s track shoes were equally hard to fill following his spring seasons. He won the state meet in the 100-yard and 220-yard dashes as a junior, and then regularly swept both dashes and the broad jump throughout his senior season, occasionally medaling in the shot put.

He was inducted into the Peddie Sports Hall of Fame in 2002.

Felver has been a class agent and a reunion chair, a tireless partner in keeping his Peddie classmates connected.

William E. Tompkins, Class of 1954

When Bill Tompkins entered the school-wide tennis tournament in the fall of 1950 as a “new boy,” he was small — even for a freshman.Yet he quickly demolished all competition and, to everyone’s surprise, won the tournament.

Tompkins lost only six matches while winning the state titles his junior and senior years. It was said that his play was unpredictable and his serve nearly impossible to return. “Opponents ‘slunked’ off the court, hoping no one had seen their quick defeat,” said classmate Palmer McGrew, Class of 1954.

Graduating with honors in June 1954, Tompkins was the recipient of the Wyckoff Honor Prize, held the Langford Scholarship, and was a member of cum laude. His diversified Peddie resume also included the Gold Key Society, dormitory monitor, The Peddie News and Classical Music Club.

Upon graduating, Tompkins enlisted in the Navy. On leave in January, 1957, he was killed in a tragic automobile accident in Virginia. He was 21.

The William E. Tompkins Tennis Plaque is presented annually to a member of the boys’ tennis team who has demonstrated leadership, loyalty and sportsmanship, and has shown the highest qualities of character and conduct.

Tompkins was inducted posthumously into the Peddie Sports Hall of Fame in 1999.

94 William Mount-Burke, Class of 1954

When directing his first off-Broadway musical, William Mount-Burke held auditions and the first performance of The Pirates of Penzance in his living room. A native of Hightstown, Mount-Burke graduated from Peddie in 1954 with a passion for the arts and launched a career as a conductor, director and producer. Focused on operetta and musicals, he led the Stamford Symphony early in his career.

In 1968, Mount-Burke launched the Light Opera of Manhattan (LOOM), a full-time musical company, but despite struggling with funding and a venue, it became a wellestablished organization. LOOM provided a way for young aspiring actors and singers to gain much needed experience in order to progress onto the larger stages of New York. Mount-Burke lived with diabetes his entire life and when the disease claimed his eyesight, he continued to direct purely from memory. He died at age 48 in1984; the theater inside Geiger-Reeves Hall bears his name.

95 Hobart and Vera Hankins, Class of 1906

Hobart B. Hankins and Vera Harvey both graduated from Peddie in 1906. When they returned to campus in 1956, they celebrated their fiftieth class reunion by getting married. The two had lost contact with each other after graduation, leading separate lives and each surviving the death of a spouse. When the school contacted alumni at the time of their 45th reunion, the two began exchanging letters. Soon, they would be engaged and a reunion weekend wedding was planned.

“The sun had just started its daily climb over Memorial Hall on Saturday morning, June 2, when Dr. Morong united Hobart B. Hankins and Mrs.Vera (Harvey) Hopkins in matrimony in the Ayer Memorial Chapel,” the Chronicle reported. Their reception was held in Wilson Hall.

Portrait by Hope VanCleaf

96 Willard Mitchell Hunter, Class of 1954

When Will Hunter graduated from Peddie in 1954, he had both an acceptance to Wake Forest University and a contract offer to play professional baseball.

After just one semester in college, he signed the contract and headed for spring training, starting in the minor leagues before joining the New York Mets for two years to demonstrate the effectiveness of his fastball in the majors.

Although he excelled at track and football at Peddie, baseball was Hunter’s first love and his forte. His fastball helped him rack up 11 strike-outs against Pingry, 12 against Pennington, 14 against Hill, and 17 against Penn Charter.

For good measure, he batted close to .700 in his senior year and stole home against Lawrenceville.

On the track, he was equally impressive, never more so than the race in which he was anchoring the mile relay and was

chased by a fierce-looking dog. His sudden burst of speed gave Peddie a come-from-behind victory — and a story good enough to be told for decades.

After playing with the Mets for two seasons, a shoulder operation made it difficult for Hunter to continue pitching professionally. He worked as a computer specialist in Omaha, where he played softball and managed a semipro softball team.

97 Yusuf “Joe” Javeri, Class of 1954

Almost from the moment he arrived in Hightstown from Karachi, Pakistan at age 13, everyone knew that this was no “average Joe” among Peddie student-athletes.

Yusuf “Joe” Javeri pinned his first wrestling opponent in 20 seconds, won two varsity letters and a valedictory prize, and got himself elected president — all before even finishing junior school.

Once an upperclassman, Javeri set the unusual and strenuous goal of graduating in three years instead of four and succeeded in doing so by devoting his summer vacations to Peddie Summer School.

His remarkable self-discipline served him well athletically; described in the Peddie News as “agile and clever” on the wrestling mat, Joe captured three consecutive state championships at 145 pounds and lost only five times in more than 50 matches. In soccer, Joe was a defensive stalwart at fullback until Coach Ozzie Rand was inspired to move him up to center-forward during his senior year.

On campus, Joe was soft-spoken and unfailingly wellmannered. His citizenship, leadership and comportment were so exceptional that he was awarded a Peddie Point System Gold Medal, elected to Gold Key as a junior,

appointed head captain of the student work program, and served on the house committee, the upper school’s highly respected governing body.

Javeri continued his successful academic and athletic career at Stanford University.

George Entin, Class of 1956

George Entin is one of very few students who can claim a position as an eight-year “lifer” at Peddie.

Entering Peddie at age ten and in the fifth grade — the lowest grade eligible at that time — Entin earned his first varsity letter in wrestling as a mere seventh grader.

From then on, he was known as “Killer.”

A six-time varsity letter winner in wrestling, Entin won his first prep state championship as a 103-pound eighth grader. He won his second title as a 127-pound freshman. As a sophomore, George lost in the finals at prep states. It was only the third loss of his Peddie career. It would be his last.

He rounded out his wrestling career at Peddie with state prep championships at 141 pounds as a junior, and 164 pounds as a senior. Undefeated in his final two years, “Killer” Entin captained the 1956 squad and earned the Outstanding Wrestler award at the prep states that year.

Entin also was captain of the baseball and football teams. A two-year letter winner on the gridiron, he earned first-team All-State quarterback honors as a senior. He lettered three years in baseball.

Entin attended Bowdoin College, which did not have a wrestling program, and played football and baseball, earning eight varsity letters — three in football, three in baseball, and two in his new winter sport of diving, taken up for the first time in college.

99 Phares Hertzog

Even among characters, Phares Hertzog was a character. He was a memorable teacher, a renowned entomologist, an expert snake handler, a coin and stamp collector, a master storyteller, a prolific gardener, a photographer and author of books on Pennsylvania Dutch folklore. And, just to add color, he carried a rope with him wherever he went, eager to demonstrate tricks and his knot-tying skills.

He taught biology, chemistry, physiology, botany, zoology and physics to Peddie boys for 39 years, then taught another 18 years at Elizabethtown College, retiring at age 88.

He established the first Boy Scouts of America troop at Peddie in 1922, and when he died at the age of 107, he was the oldest scout in the nation. In 1947, he was awarded the Boy Scouts’ Silver Beaver Award for his lifetime of service.

“He was a gentle man. I never heard him raise his voice, but he didn’t have to,” said Dick Chilton, Class of 1946. “He maintained command by the aura of his presence.”

But Hertzog was an effective disciplinarian. One night in Wilson Hall, the boys in one room were so noisy that they prevented him from a good night’s sleep. The following night, he reportedly went to bed early, rising at 2:30 a.m., wakened the boys and kept them up for the remainder of the night.

Born in Lancaster, Penn., Hertzog worked on his family’s farm before attending the First Pennsylvania State Normal School, now Millersville State College.

He taught in rural schools in Pennsylvania, then worked for the Pennsylvania State Department of Agriculture on projects involving snakes and parasitic insects. He returned to further study botany and zoology at Bucknell University before arriving at Peddie in 1910.

“Loyal and unselfish, he stuck with Peddie through good and bad,” wrote Bill Rapp, Class of 1939. “The depression years were hard on the faculty, but he never complained, as he said he always had a roof over his head and something to eat!”

Early on a winter morning in 1959, the campus was blanketed in a heavy snow from the evening before. Finn Caspersen, a student at the time, snuck out of his dorm to walk the campus, and spotted Herb Mariboe, riding around on his ubiquitous bike, cleaning the snow off all his colleagues’ cars so they would not have to do so later.

Years later, at Caspersen’s tenth reunion, he shared the memory with his former teacher. Always the “master,” Mariboe smiled wryly and said, “Finn, I was just grading papers and decided to take a break. Why were you out at 5:00 a.m.?”

Mariboe served Peddie devotedly for more than thirty years, and was extraordinarily dedicated to his community. He held himself, his colleagues and his students to a high standard of excellence in and outside the classroom — a standard based on kindness and respect for others. A hard worker, a man of high personal and intellectual integrity, and a distinguished scholar, Mariboe once expressed to Headmaster Albert Kerr that he never regretted for one minute his decision to devote his life to education and to working with young people.

Arriving at Peddie in 1942, Mariboe served as teacher, coach, dormitory master, head of the social studies department, director of studies and assistant headmaster.

An outstanding teacher in his field, he was offered opportunities to teach at many other schools, but remained steadfastly loyal to Peddie. His manner of teaching was such that he helped students see their own potential. One former student said of him, “Dr. Mariboe taught me how to work hard and how to be proud of my intellect. I never saw myself as a ‘scholar,’ but he changed that, and I am forever grateful.”

A lover of the arts, he began a highly successful cultural outreach program that brought visual artists, writers and performers to campus. It is in honor of his efforts to make Peddie a richer place artistically that the Mariboe Gallery in Swig Arts Center bears his name.

In a chapel speech in 1968, Mariboe expressed his hopes for his students.

“[I hope] you will have the inclination to be interested in other people; the desire to be of service to your community; a willingness to help those who need you without expecting a stated reward; the courage to stand up to and overcome adversity; and the capacity to create happiness in the hearts of those who know you,” Mariboe said.

These students had no better model for these lofty goals than Mariboe himself.

Herb Mariboe (far right) meets with students.

Carl Edward Geiger literally wrote the book on Peddie. Geiger was born in Williamsport, Penn., in March of 1891, and graduated summa cum laude from Bucknell University in 1915. While at Bucknell, Geiger was the president of the German Literary Society and the athletic association, and was one of those chosen to speak at commencement exercises. After graduation, he was hired as a teacher at the Keystone Academy in Factoryville, Penn.

He arrived at Peddie in 1918 and would remain on the staff for the next 38 years, acting as administrative assistant to the headmaster, head of the English department, basketball coach and school archivist.

In 1965, Geiger published what would become the book of record on Peddie’s first hundred years. Arduously researched and unfailingly comprehensive, Geiger authored the book after a nearly 40-year career at Peddie.

His book, titled “The Peddie School’s First Century,” was published in honor of the school’s centennial. Geiger dedicated it to his wife, Edna, whom he had married when he was 46 years old. The former Edna Romweber started at Peddie two years before her future husband, and when they retired in 1956, she had been the school’s cashier for 40 years — making their combined service to the school nearly eight decades.

While Geiger may have officially retired in 1956, he remained an integral player on campus for decades to come. He served as goodwill ambassador, resource to the alumni office, consultant to headmasters, and officially, school archivist, only hanging up his hat for the final time in the spring of 1983 after logging 65 years at Peddie. As Headmaster Potter would say after Geiger’s death at the age of 92 in December of that same year, “No man could love an institution more than Carl Geiger loved Peddie and no institution will ever love a man more than Peddie does Carl.”

102 Robert L. Tifft

Potter also wrote of some of his personal memories of Geiger — allowing future generations a fuller understanding of the man:

I will remember Carl as the man who got excited about Alumni Days — and created exhibitions of Peddie memorabilia each year.

I will remember Carl, the football fan, at all the home football games, regardless of the temperature, often bundled up in sub-freezing weather.

I will remember Carl, the basketball fan, sitting at the top of the stands, long after his vision was too blurred to see the action on the court.

Mostly I will remember Carl, the man who represented for me so many of the positive traditions at Peddie.

Bob Tifft, a legendary wrestling coach, also taught French and Spanish at Peddie for 40 years before retiring in 1976. But the teacher could not stay away, and a year later he was back teaching languages part-time.

He retired for sure in 1980.

“He was a gentle man and yet a model to me in being both gentle and strong,” said Edward Pitts, Class of 1952.

Wrestling became a popular sport under Tifft. The 1957 team was runner-up in the state tournament and wrestlers under Tifft won individual championships.

Several former students honored him by creating the Robert L. Tifft Wrestling Trophy. He was inducted into the Sports Hall of Fame in 1987.

Donald W. Rich, Class of 1932

Don Rich was called back to Peddie following his graduation from Yale University in 1936 to serve as director of alumni and public relations and to chair the social studies department. Rich had an excellent rapport with students, parents and alumni alike, and his plate was full with the additional roles including master of Wyckoff House, and faculty advisor to the Gold Key Society, House Committee and The Peddie News

An article in The Peddie News marking his departure in 1951 lists Rich’s many contributions to the school.

“Mr. Rich has had a colorful career… he was responsible for the creation of many of the academic and extracurricular activities. In the former, he organized both Social Studies IV — Problems in American Democracy, and Social Studies III, an honors division in American history. In the latter category falls the Gold Key Society, Senior Gift Solicitation Committee, School Election Committee, and student Washington trip.”

Rich was tireless in his efforts to increase alumni connections and support through both the Loyalty Fund and the Alumni Council.

Donald Rich left Peddie in 1951 to become press secretary and executive assistant to New Jersey Governor Alfred E. Driscoll and continued to a successful career in public relations in his home state of Pennsylvania.

104 John W. Sprout, Class of 1942

John Sprout was born into Peddie; his childhood home was an apartment in Coleman Dormitory, where his father Clinton I. Sprout was a master at the time he was born. Sprout grew up on campus and was a student himself at Peddie; later, after earning his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Bucknell University, he would return as a math teacher and alumni secretary. He left Peddie in 1954 to teach in the public schools for 18 years, returning to Peddie once more until his retirement in 1991.

Tim Corica, current chair of the math department, said Sprout was a role model for good teaching when he was a young teacher.

“To me, the person who had the craft of teaching exactly right was John Sprout,” Corica said. “Most of all he cared about the success of each student and wanted them to enjoy the work and share his passion about learning.”

Sprout coauthored two mathematics books, Plane Geometry in 1968 and Solid Geometry in 1970.

Sprout’s sons, Jonathan Sprout, Class of 1970, and Ronald Sprout, Class of 1972, also graduated from Peddie. Sprout has seen an awful lot of change at Peddie. He said that at the start of his teaching career, a time when Peddie was an all-boys school and coat and tie was expected in every classroom, the faculty seemed to be “really concerned with minor infractions,” such as gum chewing.

At the time of his retirement, he said, “Now, everybody is more relaxed.”

But even in retirement, Sprout has not relaxed his dedication to Peddie. He continues to serve as his class secretary for the Chronicle, chaired his 50th and 60th reunions and was instrumental in raising funds for the Class of 1942 gates at the entrance to the campus.

A young John Sprout (right) on campus with brother Bob Sprout (left) and Benjamin Crue.

105

Robert Zenker, Class of 1943

More than 70 years since he wore the uniform at Peddie, Robert Zenker still has his Old Gold and Blue football jersey — number 36 — hanging in the kitchen of his family home.

He was coached by Heisman Trophy-winner Larry Kelley, Class of 1933, and his football jersey hangs as a reminder of his love for his school, he said.

A trustee since 1979, Zenker has remained active with Peddie and in touch with faculty during the administrations of seven different headmasters. In fact, his first letters to his alma mater were penned to Headmaster Saunders just months after graduation. Zenker, like most of his classmates, was drafted into the Army and Saunders made a daily task of writing letters to servicemen.

“I am really going to miss Peddie. I have so many fond remembrances of my four years at school, and I admit that I was one of the boys who thought that he wouldn’t miss Peddie as much as you told us we would,” Zenker wrote to Saunders in September, 1943. “I take it all back now.”

He closes his letter by promising to visit the school “when I can get my first furlough.”

106 Rev. Carrol Oscar Morong

Like many of his predecessors, Carrol Morong was a prominent Baptist minister before coming to Peddie in 1949, a powerful orator who focused on strengthening the academics for students.

A Massachusetts native, Morong studied at American and Harvard Universities before earning his Bachelors of Divinity from Andover Newton Theological School in 1935, and his Doctorate of Theology from Boston University in 1943.

Morong overhauled the admissions process to ensure high-achieving candidates were admitted, and the curriculum was expanded. He eliminated the non-college track of studies, and added Advanced Placement courses.

Many traditions that remain today such as family style rotation and senior privileges including later lights out date to Morong’s administration.

During his 15 years as headmaster, the campus changed a great deal. The Mills Memorial Gymnasium and the Ayer Memorial Chapel were completed, while the Walter H.

Seven decades later, his frequent return visits to campus still brighten the faculty and staff who are lucky enough to sit and talk about steady old Peddie. For most of those visits, he brings his wife, Bette, who despite her status as a non-alumna, now shares as many Peddie stories as her husband.

Annenberg Library (now the Coates-Coleman Alumni House) and the Caspersen Science Center were constructed. Longstreet Library was extensively renovated to a student canteen and the old Alumni Gymnasium was renovated into Geiger-Reeves Hall.

In addition, Morong expanded faculty housing by purchasing several houses along South Main Street, and building the houses on John Plant Drive.

The school’s budget was increased 77 percent under his leadership, enrollment increased by fifty students, and he significantly expanded the endowment.

Morong left Peddie in 1964 to become the national director of the World Mission Campaign of the American Baptist Convention, a campaign to raise $20 million to advance missionary work.

“Marion and I have enjoyed the busy years in which you have afforded us the opportunity to serve Peddie,” Morong wrote at the time of his departure. “In fact, our hearts and lives are so deeply built into the lives of the school that although our present official position will be terminated, we hope that as long as we live, we may be able to find ways to show our true devotion to the Peddie School.”

Millard DuBois, known as “Slim,” was born in Kingston, NY, in 1907. It is not known where his nickname originated, but his college yearbook entry already bears the moniker. To his peers, he might have been known as Slim, but to the Peddie boys in his charge, he was the “stern dean with a heart of gold.”

DuBois graduated cum laude in 1930 from Middlebury College where he ran for the track and cross country teams and sang in the glee club, and he received his master’s degree from Columbia University. In 1934, he married Whilhelmina Grafenstadt, affectionately known as Minna.

After college, DuBois began a lifelong career as an educator. From 1930–1943, he spent his time in the classroom, teaching and serving as an administrator at several New Jersey public schools. He was called for military service in 1943, and served in World War II as a captain in the Air Force, instructing troops in bombing and armament, and aircraft and naval recognition.

After returning from military service, he was hired as head of the junior school at Peekskill Military Academy, only to be recalled by the Air Force in 1951 to serve as assistant professor of air science and tactics at Cornell University. He arrived at Peddie in 1954 to head the junior school, teach math and coach soccer and baseball. He also served as dean and faculty marshal, a job he relished with great pride at convocations and graduations.

At a Founders Day speech in DuBois’ honor, Dean of Students Sandy Tattersall said, “What I remember most about Slim were his chapel talks on Veteran’s or Memorial Day. He spoke from the heart about service to the country and Peddie and always ended his talks with an emotional

108

embrace of the American flag. He received a standing ovation on his last appearance for Memorial Day, just a few days before his official retirement. He was an institution.”

Bartella Brislin, secretary to headmasters from 1956-1990, wrote a rhyming couplet on the occasion of DuBois’ retirement in 1984. In part, it reads:

For the many years you and Minna lived in A.C. So the little boys, you could oversee I know they loved you — you were someone grand They looked up to you as their “special” man.

It is in your role of Dean that I will remember you best A job, as many of you here know, gives a person little rest I wouldn’t say the “kids” were actually afraid of you But I think they probably thought twice about some “mischief” they wanted to do.

DuBois died in 1989, Minna in 2007.

Robert B. “Bullet” Lawson

Robert Lawson was so fast in long-distance races while a student at The College of William and Mary that his teammates soon began calling him “Bullet.”

The name stuck when he arrived at Peddie as a biology teacher, cross-country coach and track coach in the fall of 1956. “I was lucky,” Lawson told the Old Gold and Blue for the 1990 yearbook. “The track coach was sick and I was able to start right away.”

Over the next 34 years, Lawson coached every season except two and retired with over 600 career victories. Lawson is a member of the Peddie Sports Hall of Fame and his name adorns a track award.

Mark Gartner, Class of 1984, was a student of Lawson’s who returned to teach and coach at Peddie shortly after Lawson retired.

“Bullet always had something positive to say about everyone and affectionately called every student ‘Babe,’” Gartner said. “He was my coach for 12 seasons, my advisor and my father away from home. He was remarkable. It takes three coaches to do what he did every day for 34 years.”

David B. Mitchell, Class of 1963

For more than 30 years between his graduation from Peddie and accepting a seat on the board of trustees, David B. Mitchell was conflicted about his alma mater.

Mitchell, an associate justice for the Baltimore Circuit Court for 17 years and a leading expert in juvenile justice, credited Peddie for his academic success. But he also held painful memories as one of the few African-American students on campus from 1957–1963.

Returning to Peddie for a Founders Day speech in 1994, Mitchell talked for the first time about his experiences beginning in the sixth grade.

“There were racial incidents, the residue of the troubles of this country,” Mitchell said. “Some of them I never discussed with anyone. These incidents occurred but were not predominant in the school’s life.”

After staying away from campus for more than 30 years, he said he became aware how diverse Peddie had become. His friend and classmate, Arthur Brown, Class of 1963, helped convince him to tell his story.

“David’s speech was one of the most moving I have ever heard,” Brown said. “David hadn’t forgotten his earlier

110 Albert Louis Kerr

Albert Louis Kerr served as Peddie School’s 12th headmaster from 1964 to 1977, a time of great change for the school as it returned to co-education for the first time in 62 years. Educated at Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., Kerr received his bachelor’s degree from Yale College and his master’s from Harvard Graduate School of Education. A Presbyterian, Kerr was the first non-Baptist to serve as headmaster.

Kerr presided during turbulent political times when students and adults on campus began to question some of the school’s conservative traditions, including its ties to the Baptist Church and its status as an all-male school.

In 1974, the requirement that five trustees be members of the Baptist church was dropped and two years later the school’s new chaplain came from non-Baptist roots. But the biggest change came with the return to co-educa-

Peddie experiences, but instead he used them to help build the future for those who have followed him at Peddie.”

Mitchell later said he was proud of how Peddie had changed. “The social dynamic of today’s Peddie (and America) is so unlike its past that it defies comparison,” Mitchell wrote in 2006.

“I will always cherish the kindness of most of my classmates, their parents, and many in the administration and faculty who welcomed my arrival in February 1957,” he wrote. “By small acts of acceptance, these individuals let me know I was part of Peddie. Their attitude drowned the otherwise ugly and mean-spirited acts of a small yet vocal minority who were not above using racial stereotypes and inappropriate language.”

Mitchell attended Fisk University in Nashville and Columbia University Law School. In addition to his work as a judge, he was chairman of the board of the Associated Marine Institutes Inc., a non-profit organization serving youthful offenders. He served on the boards of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges and the National Crime Prevention Council.

Soon after his Founder’s Day speech, Mitchell was appointed to the board of trustees, and he continues to serve as an advisory trustee.

tion. Female day students were admitted in the fall of 1970, with female boarding students welcomed two years later.

During Kerr’s tenure, a number of facilities were added and enhanced, including the school’s largest dormitory, Masters House, given by Walter Annenberg, class of 1927, in 1967 to honor his former teachers, the athletic center in 1971 and Kerr Dormitory in 1976.

The co-eds of the 1970s

In the fall of 1970, 21 girls began attending classes as day students at Peddie. It was the first time in 62 years that female students were admitted. Three years later, the school began to welcome female boarders.

Just as the school stopped admitting girls in 1908 because of changing attitudes toward co-education, the decision by the board of trustees in 1970 was both practical — enrollment had dropped considerably — and in keeping with changing educational preferences of parents.

Four girls would come to Peddie for their senior year and graduate in 1971: Jan Franklin, Heidi Keller, Sara Naiman and Randi Petterson.

Heidi Keller Hutchison said her father, faculty member Henry Keller, had waited a long time to enroll her.

“Every year he would enter my application and every year it was turned down because Peddie was not ready to make the transition to a co-ed school,” she remembered in 1990.

Although the girls would later be likened to pioneer women, it was not an easy transition in the male-dominated environment.

“I was in the first class of (boarding) girls and Peddie was a cold, tough place,” said Janice Brissette, Ph.D., Class of 1976. “The boys really resented girls in the classes, and I felt that I could never let a boy get ahead of me.”

Brissette, an associate professor of cell biology at the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center, said supportive teachers such as biology teacher Ray Oram, however, taught her how to be competitive.

Oram said co-education was a positive change not only for the girls, but for the male population as well.

“Co-education changed the whole tenor of the school,” Oram said. “It tended to civilize the boys, and the girls tended to be more serious about their work. It became a more natural environment.”

112 Jan Denise Loughran, Class of 1977

You could say Jan Loughran is fairly well connected to Peddie.

A Peddie alumna, a trustee for 13 years, a parent of four Peddie students and now back on campus as an English teacher, Loughran said she “fell in love with the place” when she first arrived in 1973.

“When I graduated, my father, who was thrilled with Peddie for me, made it very clear to me that it was my duty to give back to a school that had given me so much,” Loughran said.

As one of the earliest female students after the 1970 return to co-education, Loughran took full advantage of the extracurricular opportunities. She was a swimmer, a tennis player and a cheerleader. She sang in the choir, worked on the yearbook, wrote articles for The Peddie News, and participated in student government.

“At Peddie, I was encouraged to try a variety of things — for those experiences I am grateful. Most importantly, while at Peddie, I had teachers who took an interest in my personal development. Without that, Peddie would not have been the special place that it was and is,” she said in 1990.

Jan Franklin, Class of 1971 Sara Naiman, Class of 1971

Heidi Keller, Class of 1971

Randi Patterson, Class of 1971

Michael Armellino, Class of 1957

Michael Armellino was a member of Peddie’s board of trustees for nearly 20 years and played an integral role in shaping the school’s investment policies after the transformative gift of Walter Annenberg, Class of 1927.

Armellino received his bachelor of science degree from The Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from New York University. He spent a highly-successful 25-year career at Goldman, Sachs & Co., retiring in 1994 as chairman and chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs Asset Management.

In Armellino’s case, “retirement” was perhaps not the best characterization. From 1994 through 2006, he served as chair of the investment management committee at Peddie, guiding the investment of the school’s endowment. Michael McKitish, assistant head for finance and operations, said Armellino’s service to the school is immeasurable. “No words can accurately capture the value that Mike Armellino brings to the school,” McKitish said. “He brings professionalism and analytical abilities to every room he enters.”

In honor of his service to the board of trustees and its investment committee, Armellino was given the Thomas B. Peddie Award, the school’s highest alumni honor, in 2007.

In 2014, the school announced the creation of the Armellino Scholarship, which Armellino endowed to launch the most expansive and competitive merit-based scholarship in Peddie’s history.

114 Ray Oram

Ray Oram was a biology teacher who amused his class with his “amoeba walk,” surprised students by demanding that grammar and spelling count even in a science class, and inspired scores to seek careers in science and medicine for 35 years.

“Kind, intelligent, funny, dedicated, sensitive and fair,” is how colleague Elizabeth Tennyson described Oram. His Peddie career began in 1964 and as head of the science department for more than 25 years, he was instrumental in the department’s expansion and the introduction of AP biology, science electives and honors sections. For a brief time, he was put in the roles of college counselor and then assistant headmaster, but he missed the classroom and asked to return.

His students remember the excitement he brought to a subject not universally loved. “Whether science normally frightened you, bored you, or upset your stomach, you were in for a surprise every time you walked into his classroom,” said Jan Loughran, Class of 1977.

Twice the recipient of the Saunders Prize for Excellence in Classroom Teaching, Oram is also the namesake of the school’s highest prize in biology, given each year to a senior.

“My greatest reward is following the kids’ successes. And the greatest joy is seeing those who choose careers in

science and medicine,” Oram said when he retired in 1999.

“I hope I’ve sparked my students’ curiosity, made them understand the importance of discipline. I also hope they learn to respect different viewpoints, to respect one another, and to appreciate humor as a part of life. And have the ability to laugh at themselves.”

Dietrich von Schwerdtner

Known for his versatility on campus, Dietrich von Schwerdtner was fond of saying, simply, he was “in the kid business.”

The force behind the development of Peddie computing and technology, von Schwerdtner was equally passionate about teaching the game of lacrosse. “Von” arrived at Peddie in 1965 to teach math and coach crew, and remained a vital part of the Peddie School community until his death in 2010.

Called the father of Peddie computing, von Schwerdtner was responsible for developing the school’s first computer program and courses in 1968, and was instrumental in developing the campus-wide network in 1991. His enthusiasm for exploring ways that technology could be used to the advantage of Peddie students continues as a basic tenet of the department’s philosophy today. “It’s not that I ever wanted to learn anything about computing,” von Schwerdtner once said, “but, because our students needed to, I just fell into it.”

Outside the classroom, von Schwerdtner enjoyed recruiting Peddie boys to the game of lacrosse and teaching them to play with such commitment and skill as to contend equally with those boys who had been introduced to lacrosse far earlier. He was instrumental in raising New Jersey lacrosse

to new levels as one of the truly great ambassadors of the game. He was elected to Peddie’s Sports Hall of Fame in 1990 and to the New Jersey Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 1997.

Famous for giving nicknames to everyone he met, von Schwerdtner would say, “Step into my office,” guiding a student in need to his classroom, an empty table in the student center or a seat in the baseball bleachers to share his sage advice.

“Von made it his life’s work to care for others, and that story is written in the souls he strengthened, the minds he sharpened, and the lives he enriched along the way,” colleague Dick Joslin, Class of 1960, wrote of von Schwerdtner.

Dietrich von Schwerdtner stands by the central processor in the computer headquarters while Paul Lasko, Class of 1977, sits at the tele-type machine.

Finn M.W. Caspersen, Class of 1959

A member of the Peddie Board of Trustees for 39 years, most of them as chairman, few alumni have had a greater impact on the school than Finn Caspersen.

“If you’re not moving forward, you’re falling behind,” was a favorite phrase, reminding heads of school and fellow trustees of the constant need to begin their work for the school “anew.”

After graduating in 1959, Caspersen attended Brown University and Harvard Law School. For 22 years, he was the chief executive officer of Beneficial Corporation. His devotion of time to Peddie was limitless.

“Finn was a pillar of this community, a stalwart; someone whose deep loyalty and love for Peddie were boundless,” said Head of School John Green.

Anne Seltzer, who worked with Caspersen both as a trustee and as interim head of school, said he was a “remarkable leader.”

“He was a very steady influence at Peddie for a very long time. He knew exactly what the school was, and his vision for the school was true from the minute he started from his own days here,” she said.

Two months before he died in 2009, on the occasion of his 50th reunion, Caspersen was honored with the Thomas B. Peddie Award.

In addition to his service to Peddie, Caspersen was a trustee of the New Jersey Independent College Fund, a member of the New Jersey State Board of Higher Education, a trustee emeritus of Brown University and chairman of the Harvard Law School Dean’s Advisory Board. With a deep interest in American history, he also chaired the Ellis Island Commission.

He also was a passionate supporter of U.S. Rowing and helped create the Caspersen Rowing Center at Mercer County Park, the training site for both the national rowing team and Peddie’s crew teams.

School Chaplain Rosemary Gleeson said she adds Caspersen to the list of men who have saved the school through its 150-year history.

“Finn was incredibly generous to Peddie, but it was more than that. Finn was a tremendous guide for the headmasters. He was always on call,” Gleeson said. “But he was never intrusive. It was never about control, it was always about how he could help the headmaster in a given situation. He was a wonderful human being.”

Peddie-Blair Rivalry

Peddie School and Blair Academy represent the oldest prep school rivalry in New Jersey.

Except for 1944, when a polio outbreak at Peddie canceled the game, the Peddie Falcons and Blair Buccaneers have faced off in football every year since 1903. The matchup eventually expanded to other sports, with the annual Blair Day now including bouts in soccer, cross-country, field hockey and tennis, all on the same day.

Established in 1988, the Potter-Kelley Cup is awarded to the school that wins the most athletic events during the annual fall face-off between the two schools, with each match by boys and girls at all levels counting equally.

Representing sportsmanship and competition, the cup is named for F. Edward Potter, Jr., former headmaster of Peddie, and James R. Kelley, former headmaster of Blair Academy. Since the cup was established, Peddie has won 15 times, lost eight, and there have been three ties.

For more than 100 years, athletes have savored a win against Blair. “You could lose every ballgame, but if you beat them, you could make your season,” said football player Frank Bradley, Class of 1943.

On Peddie’s campus, the rivalry has spurred the muchanticipated Blair Week, the most spirited week of the year. Campus is decorated in blue and gold, dormitories compete to see who can hang the most inventive banner, and each day of the week features themed dress up days. A pep rally and bonfire highlight the night before the contests.

Because early football games often resulted in the tearing down of goal posts, fighting, and damage to school property, Peddie and Blair drew up the Peddie-Blair Agreement in 1935. The agreement, the spirit of which remains but the

specific rules no longer enforced, received national publicity at the time for its code of sportsmanship and was used as a model at other schools.

The agreement read:

1. The supporters of the defeated team remain in the stands while the victors with band and supporters march off the field, marching around it if they wish.

2. The trophy for the game will be the football used in the contest. The goal posts are to remain unmolested. The victorious team shall retain the football. In case of a tie, the visiting team is to have the trophy.

3. The supporters of the losing team shall remain in their portion of the stands and sing their school song after the victors have left the field.

Erik B. Hanson, Class of

If Peddie coaches Lew Watts and Al Lozier hadn’t persuaded him 16 years ago that his 90-mph fastball would make him a target of just about every pro team in the nation, Erik Hanson, Class of 1983, might have continued to dream of the National Basketball Association.

Instead, Hanson had a stellar sports career that took him from the Seattle Mariners to the Kansas City Royals, with stops at the Cincinnati Reds, the Boston Red Sox and the Toronto Blue Jays.

It was in the Peddie gym in 1983 when Hanson’s transformation from a promising basketball player to a major league baseball pitcher took place. The slight 5’6” freshman, who had given up baseball for golf, had suddenly grown 11 inches by his senior year.

Hanson was drafted straight out of high school by the Montreal Expos, but at the encouragement of his Peddie coaches, the right-handed pitcher instead pursued college baseball at Wake Forest University on a full athletic scholarship. While at Wake Forest, where he majored in economics, he was a member of the U.S. National Team and was named All-American.

A second-round draft pick of Seattle in 1986, Hanson played for the Mariners for six seasons, where he went 18-9 (fourth best in the American League) in his first full season.

In 1999, when Hanson decided to make a gift to Peddie to renovate the school’s field house, he requested that both

1983

“For a young alumnus to step up to the plate in such a magnificent way is wonderful,” Head of School Tom DeGray said at the time. “Honoring two of his coaches with this gift says so much about the lifelong influence of such important mentors.”

119 David “Doc” Martin, Ph.D.

David Martin, Ph.D., is as well-known on campus for teaching Latin as he is for doling out Little Debbie Swiss Rolls in his classroom.

Martin, also the school archivist, made the snack cake the official food of the Latin Club in 1980. “Each student gets a box on their birthday, and I give them out on holidays and for rewards,” Martin said. “We started saving the boxes one year, and then started piling them up from the bookcase to the ceiling in what we call the ‘Great Wall of Yummy.’ ”

Born in Michigan, Martin holds a B.A. from the University of Michigan and M.A. and Ph.D. from Princeton. He joined the Peddie faculty in 1975, and is now the longest-serving current faculty member.

Martin is the author of over twenty-five books on the Civil War and American Revolution, including Confederate Monuments at Gettysburg, The Philadelphia Campaign, and Gettysburg, July 1.

He is past commander of the New Jersey Department of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, president of the Friends of Monmouth Battlefield, and a lieutenant in the Sons of Veterans Reserve, in addition to serving on New Jersey’s Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission and the New Jersey Civil War Sesquicentennial Committee.

Watts and Lozier’s names be included on the plaque dedicating the field house.

Erik Hanson (left) reunited with his former coaches, Lew Watts and Al Lozier.

Susan Cabot believed strongly in sportsmanship. One of the greatest legacies of her 26-year career at Peddie was her devotion to fair play.

Cabot was the first woman to serve as athletic director at Peddie, and began her Peddie career in 1986 as the school’s first certified athletic trainer. She also held positions as a classroom teacher, director of physical education and dorm supervisor.

Upon her departure in 2012, Head of School John Green said that he most admired Cabot for serving as a positive role model to the students. “More critical than winning, Sue believed, was the manner in which coaches and student-athletes conducted themselves, especially under pressure, and represented their school.”

Under her supervision, Peddie was awarded the MidAtlantic Prep League (MAPL) Sportsmanship Trophy three out of four years. Early in her tenure, Cabot was instrumental in the creation of the MAPL itself in 1998. Cabot ended every community meeting announcement with this credo: “Remember: we treat opponents with respect, we play with intensity and spirit, we are true competitors. Regardless of the outcome of the day, we will be gracious hosts. Why? Because we are the Falcons. Go Falcons!”

121 Edward “Skip” Masland, Class of 1949

A multi-sport athlete during his Peddie years, Skip Masland founded the school’s Sports Hall of Fame to recognize those who have made a significant contribution to athletics. Since 1988, students, teams, coaches, and other members of the community whose contributions and achievements have improved Peddie’s reputation, brought credit to the school, or inspired others to their own personal level of excellence have been honored at the annual induction ceremony.

Masland himself played center field in baseball, half-back on the football team, and was captain of the squash team. Elected president of his senior class, he was also active in Gold Key, the Glee Club and the choir.

Masland received the Outsanding Alumnus Award in 1989, and served as a member of the school’s board of trustees for nearly three decades. He was honored with the title of Trustee Emeritus in 2003. His family roots run deep at Peddie; son Al Masland, Class of 1974, and granddaughters Sara Masland Fatherree, Class of 1903, and Christina Brown, Class of 2009, followed in his footsteps.

“When one thinks of Skip, the word ‘loyalty’ comes first,” Head of School John Green said at the time of Masland’s

death in 2011. “For 60 years, Skip served the school in every conceivable way a Peddie alumnus can serve. The Masland family and the Peddie family are as linked as any two families can be.”

Terry Hensle, M.D., Class of 1960

Terry Hensle, a world-renowned pediatric urologist, has remained a faithful supporter of Peddie and of its health care services to students.

Named the Given Foundation Professor of Urology at The Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and the director of pediatric urology at Children’s Hospital of New York, Hensle is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Cornell University Medical College.

A trustee since 1990, Hensle was an advocate for the school nursing staff and made a gift in honor of his father, Otto Hensle, M.D., after whom the health center is named.

Hensle, a captain of his Peddie football team, has also supported athletics. He created a scholarship fund in honor of Mickey Shuman, his football coach. In addition to football, Hensle was co-captain of the baseball team, dorm monitor, head captain of the Student Work Program, and wrote a regular “Sports Quiz” column in The Peddie News

At Penn, he earned the Maxwell Trophy, the Division I-AA equivalent of the Heisman Trophy.

In 2000, he was named Peddie’s Alumnus of the Year. He was inducted into the Peddie Sports Hall of Fame in 2010. 123

Henry Christensen III, Class of 1962

Henry “Terry” Christensen III followed in his father’s footsteps as a student at Peddie and followed in his footsteps as a trustee.

“When my father died prematurely in 1979, I decided that Peddie, as our shared interest, would be the focus of my efforts to memorialize him,” Christensen said. His father, Henry Christensen, Jr., graduated from Peddie in 1932.

A trustee since 1986, Christensen “is an example of someone who has ‘done well and done good,’ ” according to Head of School John Green.

“Mr. Christensen was at the forefront of making sure our faculty and academic offerings were among the very best,” said Green, “He insisted on it, in fact.”

As a student, Christensen immersed himself in the track and cross country teams, was a participant in multiple clubs and editor-in-chief of The Peddie News. In addition to winning the Reeves Speaking Contest, he was elected to both the Cum Laude and Gold Key Societies.

Educated at Yale and then Harvard Law School, Christensen was an attorney of international acclaim but always made time for Peddie.

In 2013, Christensen was awarded the Thomas B. Peddie Award, the highest honor the school bestows to those whose “personal distinction, leadership, generous spirit and impact on the greater community set them apart, thereby

serving as an inspiration to Peddie alumni, students, parents and friends.”

In a 1996 Founders Day speech, Christensen reminded students that they are as much a part of the school’s history as the founders themselves.

“From the founders who laid the first stone, to the founders who nurture and protect today, to the founders who heat the furnaces of knowledge, to the founders who reach and stretch and strive and who will return to lead us in the future, we are part of a continuum, of the living being which is Peddie. All of us are founders,” he said.

Roby and Elaine McClellan

The influence of Roby and Elaine McClellan reached far beyond books and classrooms for more than four decades.

Hired to teach history in 1968, Roby McClellan taught more than 40 years and under four headmasters and became known for his can-do attitude and down-to-earth yet passionate teaching style.

He taught humanities, math, English, studio art, religion and art history. He coached football, baseball, wrestling, golf, tennis and hockey. He also served as director of admission, associate director of college counseling and headed the arts and history departments. It was the ability to change the combination of jobs that he credited for enabling him to stay fresh.

His wife Elaine joined the school in 1978 as a French teacher, one of the few jobs on campus her husband never held. She taught for 16 years before joining the admission office and led several community service projects and the International Students Association.

“Families like the McClellans are the bedrock of the Peddie community,” said Board of Trustees Chair Christopher Acito, Class of 1985, a former student of Roby McClellan’s. “Their devotion to the school and to each other is special.”

125 Jeffrey “Harry” Holcombe

Upon his departure from Peddie after 45 years, Jeffrey “Harry” Holcombe was awarded the Finn M.W. Caspersen Above and Beyond Award for extraordinary contributions to the life of the school.

While Holcombe’s booming voice and vibrant wardrobe certainly made him stand out on campus, what earned him the award was even more obvious: his love of teaching teenagers.

“I hit the jackpot by coming to a high school,” he explained. “I love this age group because they’re fresh, they’re excited and they’re interested in learning.”

In the classroom, in the dorm, on the stage, and even on the bus heading to see the latest Broadway show, every moment with a captive audience of teenagers was a teaching opportunity for Holcombe. His exuberance for teaching, for the arts, and for students was contagious.

Working under five headmasters, teaching drama and public speaking, and supervising students in the dormitories, he drew energy from every new crop of students. Holcombe directed well over 100 plays on the Peddie stage, some more than once — but his enthusiasm for the job never waned.

“Every fall, he seems like it’s his second year of teaching,”

said colleague Elizabeth Sherman. “He gets nervous, like he’s never done it before. There’s wonder still inside him — nothing is drudgery for Harry.”

The longest serving teacher in the school’s history, Harry Holcombe retired in 2013.

“My parents have always been guided by one principle,” said son Peter McClellan, Class of 1990, who currently teaches history and serves as dean of students at Peddie. “If you put the students first and make decisions based on what is good for the students, then you will be successful at your job and the school will be successful as well.”

On to Alaska in ’76 Bus Tour

In the summer of 1976, a touring bus painted merrily in red, white, and blue with “The Peddie School Outing Club” emblazoned on the sides trundled through 26 states and logged over 17,000 miles on a roundtrip expedition to Alaska. Four faculty members, three dozen adventurous Peddie students and two dogs signed on for the trek. The bus and its occupants, most definitely a face of Peddie during those summer months, had traveled a long road before they ever really hit the pavement. Director of Guidance John Scott, who led the band of adventurers, conceived of the idea and spent two years painstakingly planning and fundraising for the trip. Each member of the Outing Club qualified for the trip by working a minimum of 50 hours to help raise necessary funds.

New Jersey Governor Brendan Byrne commissioned the crew “Bicentennial Ambassadors” for New Jersey. The members of the trip scheduled visits with governors or their representatives, to whom they brought Bicentennial greetings on parchment from Governor Byrne. This was not a luxury ride — the faculty and students either camped or stayed with alumni hosts each night. At one point, the bus broke down on the way to Anchorage forcing a tow of over

127

F. Edward Potter, Jr.

F. Edward Potter, Jr., 13th headmaster of Peddie, served the school from 1977 until his sudden death in 1988 at the age of 45.

Assuming the top job at Peddie at a point when both its reputation and finances were in a precarious state, Potter was credited with turning the school around and, with the help of trustees Walter H. Annenberg, Class of 1927, and Finn Caspersen, Class of 1959, set it on a successful course.

Universally loved by the Peddie community, Potter deeply loved the school in return.

“With all his successes as an administrator, Ed was first and foremost an educator. He had an enthusiastic relationship with every student — they adored him and he adored them,” said Robert Jaffe, Class of 1954, who served as director of alumni relations under Potter. “His personal interest in every student in school was reflected both in their performance and their feelings of self-esteem.”

Potter, known to encourage others to take risks and push further, often said, “The more we accomplish, the more we dare.”

“It takes courage to try for the highest goal, especially in an area that does not play to a student’s proven strength,” Potter said. “But, here students encourage one another to reach higher, even if it means risking failure.”

An alumnus of St. Paul’s School, Potter had a bachelor’s degree from Amherst College and a master’s degree from the University of Connecticut. Prior to Peddie, he was an administrator at Moses Brown School in Providence, R.I. Potter’s children, Tappen, Class of 1989, and Reid, Class of 1992, appeared in the Ayer Memorial Chapel on Founder’s Day in 2011 with their mother, Hillary, when Potter was honored.

250 miles for repairs. There was even a case of appendicitis requiring a detour visit to a Fairbanks hospital.

But the crew did arrive on schedule in Juneau, Alaska, in time for its Fourth of July celebration.

Pat Clements is a traveling man. He comes by it honestly: “My Dad was in the Navy, and so our family was in the Navy. As he was transferred from one duty station to another, so too did we move, and I thus grew up all across the country. I went to nine schools. What an education that travel was, and remains.”

He eventually landed at The Columbus Academy as a member of the Class of 1971, where he was elected student body president in his senior year.

Clements graduated from Kenyon College in 1974 where he was a bit of a football legend. In addition to acting as team captain, he was the leading passer in the nation in the small college division in 1973 and still holds the Kenyon College record for most passing touchdowns in a single game. He is one of only two Kenyon athletes in the school’s history to have been awarded an NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship.

Clements arrived on Peddie’s campus in 1976 along with his wife, Melanie, who currently serves as the school’s assistant dean for student life. Clements teaches English and coaches JV football, but is just as well-known for his dedication to experiential learning, much of which has an element of travel.

In the early 1990s, Clements headed up the Principio Project, an experiment in co-curriculur education for

129 Timothy Corica

Tim Corica’s passion for learning and advancement has helped Peddie stay ahead of the curve technologically and academically.

Corica taught his first computer science class in 1983, a year before Apple rolled out its first Macintosh. The computer networking age at Peddie dawned in 1990, when Corica, then math department chair, installed Ethernet/ Novell networks in the school’s computer labs and in two offices. In 1994, he became director of academic computing and laptop computers were given to 30 students and four faculty members on an experimental basis as part of the school’s innovative educational initiative, the Principio Project.

Corica said the experiment proved that when students had laptops every day, they rose to the occasion and felt more professional in their work, which led them to take their work more seriously. In 1998, Corica initiated the one-toone laptop program for all students, which remains in place.

Corica holds degrees in chemistry, and electrical engineering and computer science from Princeton University and has co-authored two programming textbooks. As math

sophomores and juniors. The program ended in 2000, but remains a model for the Summer Signature Experience. The experiential aspects of the Principio Project have also lived on in the Sophomore Bike Trip, led by Clements. The Sophomore Bike Trip enables Peddie students “to experience their country first hand, country that they, and much of modern America, could otherwise easily forget,” Clements said.

With a can-do attitude that at times borders on the spiritual, Clements takes a ragtag bunch of sixteen-year-olds and gets them riding and cooking and thinking as a team (though he would say they do that all on their own). Not only is Clements a face of Peddie, so are the scores of yellow-jerseyed Peddie students who have joined him on bike trips for nearly a decade.

As Clements signs his bike trip blog posts, “All good.”

department chair, his teaching philosophy has long-focused on meeting students where they are and helping them to realize their potential. From running regular weekly math clinics to supporting students at levels far beyond the standard high school coursework, Corica helps students build confidence and stretch beyond levels they feel are within their reach.

“Everyone nationally is struggling to improve student education, but Peddie is unique,” Corica said. “We have resources, engaged faculty and excited students who want to learn. These things will allow Peddie to set an example from which other educators can model themselves.”

Anne L. Seltzer

When Anne Seltzer arrived on Peddie’s campus in 1979 to interview for a job in the English department, she had no idea she would spend the rest of her career at the school.

“In my mind, I took a job for a year,” said Seltzer. But when she interviewed with Headmaster Ed Potter, she immediately felt at home.

“From then on, I have had a remarkable love affair with Peddie. It became my life and my family’s life too,” Seltzer said.

After receiving a bachelor’s degree from The College of Wooster, Seltzer earned an M.A. at Northwestern University in classics. She taught at Northwestern from 1976-79, where she received the Teacher of the Year Award.

She joined the English faculty at Peddie in 1980, and served as chair of that department and later dean of faculty. After the death of Headmaster Potter in 1988, Seltzer became acting head of school for one year.

Seltzer remembered the mixed emotions of that time. “To become interim head, almost overnight, was a very complicated process for me,” she said. “It came about because of the death of a close friend. There was the part of the job that involved simply helping a large community to heal. I was making the leap from the head of a department to the head of a school. Suddenly there I was, everyone’s boss. At the same time, it was an enormous challenge and I loved every minute of it.”

Seltzer was appointed director of development in 1992, and it was during her tenure that the school received the largest gift in its history: a $100 million donation from Walter H. Annenberg, Class of 1927. She served as director of development until her retirement in 2003.

Seltzer continues to serve the school as a member of the board of trustees.

131 Charles “Charlie” Galbraith

During the 20 years that Charlie Galbraith was in charge of the school’s finances, Peddie’s physical plant doubled in size and the endowment grow from $8 million to over $280 million.

Hired as the assistant head of school for finance and operations in 1987, Galbraith oversaw operations at the time of the $100 million Annenberg gift.

“Charlie managed the school’s finances before it had significant finances to manage and subsequently integrated the historic Annenberg donation into his budget and plans for the future,” Head of School John Green said in 2007. “Although responsible for the budget and the support staff, Charlie never lost sight of the fact that Peddie is an educational institution devoted to adolescent development.”

Tom DeGray, one of four heads of school for whom Galbraith worked, said he was skillful at managing money when finances were tight.

“Charlie fought spending money if it was frivolous, but if people could convince him it was for the good of education, he never resisted,” DeGray said.

Galbraith, who attended Hightstown High School and worked for 11 years in the public schools as a math teacher and business manager before joining Peddie, also spearheaded projects for the community.

In 2002, the school purchased the former Hights Theater on Main Street, a building that entertained decades of Peddie boys but then sat vacant for many years after closing to moviegoers in the 1970s. Peddie renovated the building and municipal parking lot for community use, an effort for which Peddie was recognized with a NJ Business and Industry Good Neighbor award.

When he retired in 2007, Peddie was an entirely different school than the one he arrived at in 1987, by nearly every measure.

“I look around and am so grateful to be able to savor the idyllic environment that so many have worked so hard to create,” Galbraith said. “And I’m struck that our benefactors, who have given so much, aren’t here to share this moment of satisfaction. I wish they could be.”

Thomas A. DeGray

What drew Tom DeGray to accept the job as Peddie’s 14th head of school in 1989 was simple — the people. The students, he said, “seemed to feel fortunate to be here, and didn’t assume it was a birthright to attend a school like Peddie.” The faculty, he felt, embraced the spirit of the school.

A man of strong character, genuine humility, and deep concern for the students in his charge, DeGray soon gained the respect of the community. He challenged Peddie, believing in its potential during a period when its future was uncertain. The physical plant needed considerable renovations, and the school’s endowment placed it in the bottom quartile of American boarding schools at the time.

But DeGray saw the school’s inherent qualities. “Tom came from a New England boarding school tradition and knew where he wanted Peddie to be. He worked day and night to make that happen,” said Chaplain Rosemary Gleeson.

Over the next 12 years, the school became a state-of-theart technological campus and developed the Principio Project, defining it as a place that encouraged risk-taking and academic innovation.

Inherently modest, DeGray was always reluctant to take credit for the school’s accomplishments. “It really is a collective effort,” he would explain.

The accomplishment of which he was most proud was that of Peddie’s increasingly diverse community, a change which was largely the result of the Annenberg gift which DeGray helped to shepherd. In fact, it was he who first suggested that the $100 million windfall be used to support the school’s financial aid budget. “Schools are about people,” he explained, “And Peddie is about giving all types of kids a chance to have a great education.”

DeGray retired in 2001.

133 Samuel “Sandy” Tattersall

But for one day each year, Sandy “T” Tattersall was quiet and unassuming.

The dean of students for more than two decades, Tattersall may be best remembered for his legendary “Falcon Call,” a Blair Week tradition that he began performing in 1986. As much a rallying cry to beat Blair as it was a tribute to his hero Bruce Springsteen, “T” would whoop and strut across the stage with arm-waving histrionics that would turn community meeting into a state of complete pandemonium.

“To an outsider, it may seem odd that the campus disciplinarian is also at the epicenter of our school’s silliest and most treasured traditions,” Head of School John Green said upon Tattersall’s retirement.

Arriving at Peddie in the midst of former headmaster Ed Potter’s efforts to stabilize the school financially and improve its reputation, Tattersall was one of the integral supporters — and enforcers — of the “one shot” drug and alcohol policy instituted at the school. In contrast, he is also credited for sustaining, and sometimes initiating, some of the playful traditions students hold most dear: Head’s Day competition, dorm softball, Twinkie and Pepsi day, and spontaneous mid-week cookouts.

Strolling across campus, supervising the Kerr boys, standing in the wings during community meeting, wandering through the dorms, or standing in his corner of the sidelines watching Peddie football, Tattersall knew the students — and knew them well. “Sandy was the best dean of students I have ever known. He had an incredible relationship with students and they always seemed to know that he cared about them,” 14th Head of School Tom DeGray said.

Rosemary C. Gleeson

Intricately woven into the fabric of Peddie over the last three decades, Rosemary Gleeson is among the longest-serving chaplains and the first female to serve in the role.

Joining the English department in 1981, Gleeson served as dean of students from 1983–1990 and as assistant head of school from 1991–1995. She has served as school chaplain since 1991, directing the twice-weekly chapel program.

In a 2002 Chronicle interview, Gleeson said she knew Peddie was a special place as soon as she arrived.

“I immediately realized that Peddie is all about fine adults caring about good kids. I think that is still true,” Gleeson said. “We are a great school not because of impressive bricks and mortar, but because of high ideals, a true love of learning, and, as our mission states, a belief in the dignity and worth of each individual.”

Though she has a background in theology, Gleeson never anticipated serving as school chaplain. Sparing no detail in planning the twice-weekly chapel talks, Gleeson seeks to provide a meaningful spiritual experience that can be shared by Peddie’s diverse community. It is a daunting challenge, but for Gleeson it has been based on one simple premise: any member of the community is encouraged to share personal beliefs in an atmosphere which is respectful and supportive. Students, faculty, alumni and outside

speakers all provide a unique range of topics for thought and inspiration.

“Not everyone agrees with every position presented,” she explains, “but everyone appreciates the courage it takes to present those positions and the depth of feeling which accompanies them.” Gleeson announced her retirement at the end of the 2013-14 academic year.

135 Pia Clemente, Class of 1989

Pia Clemente became the first Filipino-American filmmaker to be nominated for an Academy Award in 2005.

Her film, Our Time is Up, was nominated for best live action short film.

Born in Manila, Philippines, Clemente came to the U.S. with her family when she was three. At Peddie, she was a top tennis player and senior class president.

While at Barnard College, she shot her first short film, Christmas in New York, and won the prestigious Student Academy Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for best dramatic short film. After graduating from Barnard, she earned an M.F.A. at the American Film Institute in California.

She has worked in the entertainment industry ever since, including as the line producer for the independent Filipino-American coming-of-age film, The Debut, and as the producer of the 2013 short documentary film, Mabel. Clemente told the Chronicle in 2006 that she learned to love books and storytelling at Peddie from English teachers

“It was fantastic and eye-opening,” she said. “Peddie teachers helped me see the world in a different light, through literature.”

Bruce Van Dusen and Bill Hill and from drama teacher Harry Holcombe.

Photo: Martin Griff 2008

Paul Watkins is a storyteller. In the classroom, in the dining hall, on Center Campus, and in his novels and memoirs, Watkins expresses himself best in vignettes and anecdotes.

His gift for the narrative and the unique figure he cuts on campus — every article published about him mentions his dapper attire, 6’ 3” frame and British accent — have made him an instant and enduring character at Peddie since his arrival with his wife Cathy in 1989.

The author of over a dozen novels and memoirs, Watkins is Peddie’s first writer-in-residence, a position he has held for a quarter of a century. In that time, Watkins has taught classes on creative writing, World War I and World War II and has inspired scores of Peddie students.

Watkins has said that teaching high school students, while not on his original list of possible career paths, is greatly satisfying. “They have the enthusiasm of children and they have the capacity of adults. And it’s this incredibly mercurial time,” Watkins said in a 2005 Education Week profile. “It’s the time of the line from [writer Friedrich von] Schiller: ‘Keep true to the dreams of thy youth.’ This is when these dreams come about. And if you can be reminded of that on a daily basis, you cannot go home and listen to anybody’s voice but your own when push comes to shove. So they don’t know it, but they’re doing me an incredible favor.”

Educated at the Dragon School, Eton College and Yale University, Watkins published his first novel when he was 23 years old, and followed with over a dozen more books including his bestselling memoir of his own days as a boarding school student, Stand Before Your God.

137 Nelson Diebel, Class of 1990

Nelson Diebel was the first Peddie athlete to become an Olympic medalist in 1992 when he captured not one, but two, gold medals in Barcelona. Diebel, who won gold in both the 100 meter breaststroke and the 400 meter medley relay, was an unlikely Olympian. After being kicked out of two high schools, Diebel fibbed on his application to Peddie, greatly exaggerating his prowess in the pool.

He would later tell Sports Illustrated that calling himself a swimmer based on a single season at a swim club at age 12 was “probably one of the largest lies I have ever told in my life.”

Yet once he arrived at Peddie in 1986, coach Chris Martin didn’t let him off the hook, keeping him in the pool and training him hard. Six months later, Diebel won a national championship, the first of four he would capture during his Peddie career.

In 1988, he fought his way into the finals of the Olympic trials in the 100- and 200-meter breaststroke. By 1992, he was again training for the Olympics under coach Martin. It turned out to be his year.

“The Olympics is the place where you step up or shut up and that makes it just so exciting,” Diebel said. “It’s the single most intense experience to have.”

Christopher J. Acito, Class of 1985

Since he stepped onto campus in 1981, Christopher J. Acito has been admired throughout the Peddie community for his intelligence, extraordinary work ethic and kindness. During his years as a student, he excelled across the curriculum, won multiple school honors, served as a Peddie News editor and was salutatorian of his class.

“Chris went through Peddie with a brilliant cohort, and he stood out as a link between groups,” said long-time faculty member Roby McClellan. “Best of all, for a person so talented, he was down-to-earth, unpretentious and always friendly. Years ago, long before it seemed possible, Elaine and I used to talk about how perfect it would be if he came back to serve Peddie.”

A magna cum laude graduate of Duke University, Acito was awarded a scholarship to study at Oxford University and completed a master of arts in economics at the University of Chicago. He went on to launch a career in finance, and throughout all of his successes, has never forgotten his alma mater.

Profoundly grateful for his Peddie experience, Acito, along with his classmate and wife Jaleh Amouzegar, have served Peddie steadily since their graduation in 1985. A loyal and generous supporter and a fixture at alumni gathering events in New York City, Acito began serving as a trustee in 2002, and was selected as board chair in 2009.

“Peddie today is one of the finest boarding schools in the country; with a strong legacy to build upon, the future success of the school is dependent upon the time and devotion of each one of us,” Acito said upon his appointment as chair.

“We’ve made so much progress,” he explained, “that there is a very reasonable temptation to want to say ‘let’s just keep doing what we’re doing.’ But I think we challenge ourselves to ask the questions, ‘How do we take ourselves not only from good to great, but from great to distinguished?’ ”

139 Barbara J. “BJ” Bedford, Class of 1990

Barbara Bedford became the first Peddie woman to win an Olympic medal when she captured the gold as part of the 4x100-meter medley relay in the 2000 Sydney games.

Swimming for the United States, Bedford and her relay teammates set a new world record of 3:58.30 in the event final, beating the previous record by three seconds. Bedford also placed fifth in the 2000 Games in the individual 100 backstroke.

Winning the gold, Bedford told The Peddie News, left her speechless. “I couldn’t stop crying. It’s a feeling so unreal I don’t have the words — and that’s a rarity,” she said.

At Peddie, Bedford was a versatile swimmer holding world-class times in the backstroke, butterfly, and free style events.

In 1990, her senior year, she broke the national high school record in the 100-yard-backstroke with a time of 55.63 seconds. That same year, Bedford was a member of Peddie’s national record-setting 200 medley relay team.

At the 1990 Open Senior National Championships, she placed third among all athletes in both the 100-yard

backstroke and the 100-yard butterfly — in races held only 20 minutes apart.

As a freshman at the University of Texas, Bedford won her first national collegiate title in the 100-meter breaststroke.

She was inducted into the Sports Hall of Fame just two years after she graduated Peddie, eight years before she would win an Olympic gold medal.

Barbara Bedford (right) won a gold medal as part of a medley relay in the 2000 Olympic games.

John Green loved to tell the story about the dropped cafeteria tray. It was one of the reasons he decided to leave St. Paul’s School in New Hampshire and accept the job as Peddie’s 15th head of school.

On campus for a final interview in the fall of 2000, Green and his wife, Alison Zaeder, sat in the dining hall for lunch when — as they had witnessed countless times before at other schools — a student dropped his tray. But what happened next surprised them both.

After the rattle of dropped dishes died down, there was silence rather than applause. And several students quickly moved to help their classmate clean up.

“We looked at each other and that’s when we knew we wanted to come here,” Green remembered ten years later.

Throughout his 12 years as head of school, Green counted character as important as academic success. He noted when students displayed “everyday courage” and encouraged them to be curious, stretch and take risks.

Green, who had previously been dean of students at St. Paul’s, had little time to adjust to leading a school when the terrorist attacks of 9/11 occurred — on just the second day of classes his first year.

Green said later that guiding his new school during the crisis helped him immediately define his leadership style. “I don’t even know how many choices I had to make that day, but the method I used to make choices that day has been consistent with how I make all the other choices here,” he said in 2011.

The crisis also served to solidify him as the school’s leader among the Peddie community.

“We were blessed the day he came here,” said Chaplain Rosemary Gleeson. “He looks like a headmaster, and he is the way he looks. He could be imposing, but he’s not. He is a gentle man in the truest sense of the word.”

Green, a Wesleyan University graduate with a M.Ed. from Harvard University, considered careers in both law and professional basketball before choosing to become a history teacher. He taught history and English at Western Reserve Academy and the Fessenden School before moving to St. Paul’s, where he served as dean of faculty, history department chair and director of admission.

As a result of the strategic plan Green enacted in 2002, Peddie invested nearly $65 million in major facilities projects including the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Science Center, the Caspersen History House, three new faculty homes, playing fields and the Ian H. Graham ’50 Athletic Center. More resources were invested in the recruitment, professional development, and retention of faculty, with the goal of delivering to the students the most outstanding educational program possible.

Under his second five-year Strategic Vision, the aquatic center was completed, priority was given to electives in math and science, and the Asian Studies Program began.

The second man named John Green to hold the job (Rev. John Greene was the sixth principal), he retired in 2013.

“We don’t necessarily leave a legacy to Peddie; we are Peddie’s legacy,” Green told the Class of 2013 during his final commencement speech.

141

Barbara J. Paul, Class of 1990

When Barbara Paul arrived on campus in 1987, Peddie didn’t have a girl’s golf team but that didn’t stop her from playing every match of her four-year varsity-letter-winning career from the men’s tees and against male golfers.

A pioneer in the sport of golf for women, Paul was an intense, focused and competitive leader of Peddie’s golf team from 1987 to 1990, helping the Falcons capture the Mercer County Championship. The lowest round of her Peddie career was an even par — hitting from the men’s tees.

Paul had an outstanding golf career at Auburn University and holds several records there and is distinguished as one of the top Alumni Women’s Golfers. She holds a place in the Auburn record boards as the third lowest 18-hole score with a round of 69 and second lowest 54-hole score of 215.

142 The Falcon

Just 22 votes prevented Peddie School from adopting the Deacons as its official mascot in a 1960 all-school election. Before that critically-important vote, Peddie had a revolving list of official and unofficial mascots until finally settling on Falcons 54 years ago.

In 1938, a dog known as Freeman S. Mascot appeared alongside the all-male cheerleaders. In 1941, the cheerleaders solicited donations in the dining hall and raised enough to purchase a four-monthold goat, which filled the role of mascot. The cheerleaders fed and cared for the animal, who lived at the farm of Montayne F. Norcross, Class of 1914, whose farm was adjacent to campus. According to the Peddie News, however, the stubborn goat was not a willing mascot, prone to sit-down strikes and often intolerant of being dressed in a gold and blue banner.

“School spirit has already increased considerably as a result of the new mascot,” the school newspaper reported. “At future contests, the spirit should be even better, as purchase of the goat makes the school unique among its opponents.”

The Falcon has proven much less ornery a mascot since 1960. Still, when Head of School John Green arrived on campus in 2001, he saw instantly that some changes had to be made.

The Falcon, he insisted, needed to bulk up. A more muscular suit was ordered at once, and the Falcon has been intimidating opponents ever since.

A dog and a goat proceeded the Falcon as the school’s official mascot.

EFZ Shanghai

In 2007, Peddie strengthened its commitment to expanding the school’s global footprint by establishing a partnership with No. 2 High School of East China Normal University (EFZ) in Shanghai.

Peddie has a long history of welcoming an international perspective — the school’s first international student, Manuel Amador from Cartagena, Colombia, arrived on campus in 1872, and our first student from China, listed as Chu-bain from Canton, China, arrived in 1905.

The sister school relationship with EFZ was an effort to focus on the growing global influence of the Asian sphere, specifically China. A system of direct exchanges of students and teachers from both institutions was created in order to better integrate Asian studies and an understanding of the region throughout Peddie’s curriculum. The program built on Peddie’s decades-long history of teaching Chinese language and grew to include courses in history and religion, as well as extracurricular offerings.

Now, students on both sides of the Pacific quickly immerse themselves in the daily life of Peddie and EFZ. In the summer of 2012, while taking part in the Chinese Summer Language Institute at EFZ, four Peddie students participated in the Shanghai International Youth and Science Expo with

144 The Peddie News

The Peddie News has continuously published as a student newspaper for more than 100 years.

First published on November 2, 1912, The Peddie News was established by Charles S. Mitchell, the head of the English department, “primarily for the purpose of giving added experience in writing to a limited number of students somewhat gifted in English.”

Published every Saturday, its inaugural cover price of three cents was raised to five cents after three issues. Besides carrying news of students and faculty, early versions of the paper carried editorials, lineups and box scores for athletic contests, student directories with dorm room assignments, and numerous advertisements — including many from cigarette companies.

Much has changed in 100 years, as the paper has fluctuated in size, paper type and length, with the student newspaper transitioning to an online publication in 2013.

Consistent for more than 100 years, however, is the dedication to journalism of the student writers, editors, photographers and layout staff.

Emily Herman, editor-in-chief of the paper in 2012-13, said her time on the newspaper staff both improved her writing and pushed her out of her comfort zone. As a

an award-winning project in aquaponics. In 2013, visiting EFZ student Jiacheng (Bill) Wu from Shanghai earned third-place in the Reeves Speaking Contest. Wu had arrived at Peddie less than a week before the competition.

Yuan Gao, teacher of Chinese at Peddie and coordinator of the EFZ exchange program, acknowledges the differences between the two schools, but says there are also similarities. Both schools use “an educational model that develops the whole person, including a sense of social responsibility,” he said.

freshman, Herman was assigned to cover the campus visit of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Her one-on-one interview with him resulted in a story that won first place for newswriting from the Garden State Press Association.

“I didn’t fully understand the significance of his visit until I took AP U.S. History my junior year, but even as a freshman I knew he was a big deal,” Herman said. “I remember walking up to stumble through my three questions. He would only take three!”

Madame Xiaowen He, principal of EFZ, and Head of School John Green pen a sister-school agreement in 2007.

Rock ’n Roll Drummers

Both Matt Burr, Class of 1999, and Chris Tomson, Class of 2002, have met with great success on the national stage as drummers.

Burr is cofounder of and drummer for the criticallyacclaimed Grace Potter and the Nocturnals. Tomson is the drummer for Vampire Weekend. Burr, a football player at Peddie, went on to St. Lawrence University, where he met Grace Potter in 2002. Both were pursuing extracurricular music, Potter as a singer and songwriter and Burr as a drummer and musical collaborator. Persuading Potter to join him in forming a band, the two rehearsed and performed at small, local venues. They soon founded their own label (Ragged Company) and stepped out as Grace Potter and the Nocturnals with their first recording, Original Soul, in 2004. In 2010, the band appeared on the soundtrack for Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland; their fifth album, The Lion the Beast the Beat, was released in 2012. Burr and Potter married in 2013. Tomson, salutatorian for his class, worked closely with Director of Music Alan Michaels during his Peddie years. “Mr. Michaels was the perfect mix of knowing instructor and encouraging collaborator,” Tomson said in a 2009 Chronicle article. “More than any other class, I always looked forward to heading downstairs to Swig for band.” Tomson took his musical passion to Columbia University, where he met fellow musicians and formed Vampire Weekend. The indie-rock group’s self-titled debut in 2008 received widespread acclaim and peaked at number 17 on the Billboard 200. Spin magazine named them “The Year’s Best New Band” in 2008, and they were the first band ever to be

146 The Chronicle

shot for the cover of the magazine before releasing their debut album.Vampire Weekend won a Grammy for best alternative music album in 2014 for their latest album, Modern Vampires of the City

Peddie’s first publication, the Chronicle, was created as a student publication, written by members of two literary societies, the all-female Kalomathia Society and its male counterpart, the Academia Society.

Both literary societies were formed in 1869 for the purpose of study and production of literary works. The first Chronicle was published in June, 1871. The presidents of each society served as co-editors of the publication. They charged ten cents per issue.

Early content combined creative writing, updates on the institute, and editorials on a wide range of subjects. In 1872, alumni marriages and deaths began appearing and the first class notes (headlined as “personals”) began in the June 1873 issue.

During its first 20 years, the Chronicle printed first as an annual, then became quarterly and even monthly. Its frequency has continued to fluctuate through the decades and was discontinued in 1917.

Since its rebirth in 1921, the Chronicle has published as an alumni magazine.

Matt Burr (second from left) with his band, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals.

[Caption for Chris Tomson]

Photo: Alex John Beck

147 Sangu Delle, Class of 2006

Born in Ghana, Sangu Delle was admitted to Peddie as an Annenberg Scholar, a program reserved for students displaying “extraordinary qualities of leadership, citizenship and scholarship.”

A humanitarian activist and student leader, Delle was instrumental in starting the school’s Model United Nations club at Peddie and was a member of the Cum Laude Society. He was awarded Peddie’s Wyckoff Honor Prize, the school’s highest award, for ability, character, and attainment upon his graduation in 2006.

While an undergraduate student at Harvard majoring in African and African-American studies and with a minor in economics, he co-founded cleanacwa (formerly the African Development Initiative) to improve the health, education and economies of communities in low-resource settings.

Among the projects of the initiative are providing safe drinking water and sanitation facilities in Ghana and helping to provide a water irrigation system to bring year-round farming to one community.

Believing strongly that entrepreneurship is a key to meeting the needs of communities, Delle co-founded Golden Palm Investments in 2008, a holding company that invests in early stage venture and growth financing across Africa.

Delle co-authored Contemporary Africa through Poetry in 2012 and is working on his second book, Seeding Growth: Africa’s Youngest Entrepreneurs.

Awarded the prestigious Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans, Delle is currently enrolled in a joint JD/MBA program at Harvard University. Delle was named one of Forbes 30 Most Promising Young Entrepreneurs in Africa 2014.

148 Haley Peters, Class of 2010

The ultimate student-athlete, Haley Peters simultaneously maintained a GPA that exceeded 4.0, earned the spot as class valedictorian and was named a McDonald’s All-American basketball player in her senior year at Peddie.

Peters, who led the Falcons to their 14th straight Prep A championship and 12th consecutive MAPL crown in 2010, was described by both her Peddie and Duke coaches as among the hardest-working players they ever coached.

Selected a 2010 McDonald’s All-American and Gatorade National Player of the Year, Peters averaged 20 points and 8.2 rebounds per game her senior season at Peddie, spearheading a Falcon team (18-1) which was ranked No. 21 in the nation by ESPNRISE. She holds second place on the all-time scoring list with 1,521 points and over 1,000 rebounds at Peddie.

A senior at Duke University, Peters is one of only 31 Blue Devils to reach 1,000 career points during her junior year, and one of only four players in Duke history to hit over 50 percent of her field goals. She earned Second Team All-ACC selection as a sophomore and junior and All-ACC Tournament team accolades as a junior and senior.

“We’ve all been blessed with so many gifts…and twice as blessed to have been around people equally, but uniquely, talented,” Peters said in her valedictory address to her Peddie classmates. “My hope for our class as we leave here today, is that we take those gifts, combine them with the knowledge and passion gained here at Peddie, and enter the world primed to make a difference.”

Photo courtesy of Duke University

The 16th school leader in the school’s 150-year history, Peter Quinn became headmaster in 2013.

Having previously been an English teacher, college counselor and director of admission at Peddie, Quinn left in 1996 only to be called to return as headmaster. Previously, he was headmaster of the Wakefield School in Virginia for 17 years.

“He has the inherent personal qualities that we believe Peddie’s head of school should have: articulate, literate, moral, confident, innovative, humorous, inspirational, compassionate, accessible, and demonstrates the utmost integrity in everything he does,” said Christopher Acito, Class of 1985, chair of the board of trustees.

Quinn said returning to Peddie was an “emotional and professional homecoming.”

“There’s a magnet that the school holds for me that is undeniable,” he said.

Quinn led the admission office at the time of the historic $100 million gift of Walter Annenberg, Class of 1927. He was credited at the time with remaining focused on Peddie’s admission criteria based on qualities of “curiosity, character and excitement” rather than test scores.

In 1996, English department colleague Bill Hill compared his friendship with Quinn to that of Hamlet and Horatio.

“I have known no one more honest, patient, loyal, just or generous; no one funnier or humbler; no one more devoted to his work, his wife, his family, his friends, his country, his ideals; no one more willing to help anyone; no one more concerned about being fair and doing the right thing,” Hill said in a chapel talk.

Quinn is the third generation of his family to serve as a school headmaster. His father, James H. McK. Quinn was headmaster of The Episcopal Academy from 1957–1975 while his maternal grandfather, Rev. Albert H. Lucas, was the headmaster of St. Alban’s School from 1929–1949.

The Ala Viva

An alumna spies a familiar t-shirt on a stranger at an airport and greets him with “Ala Viva.”

New students practice the chant, again and again at POCO, committing it to memory even before they master their locker combinations.

The football bleachers rock as hundreds of fans cheer on Blair Day.

But what does “Ala Viva” mean?

Absolutely nothing. Historian, school archivist and Latin teacher David Martin, Ph.D., says the words “Ala Viva” mean absolutely nothing.

Unless you’re a Falcon.

[Credits, etc. here ]