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NOT abating one job or title, in spite of that very long word by which Brooks thinks he
identifies your Historian without giving the reasons for his definition, not leaving out
anything by our classmate's desire, I give the story as he tells it, and I am sure you will all
of you be interested, as has been the chronicler of these Class annals. I only preface the
tale with one or two items showing the narrator's connection with the college societies and
functions during his two years' stay with us. He was a member of the 'Logian Literary
Society and of Mills Society, and a toast orator on our Biennial Celebration program. Now,
it gives me pleasure to announce Brooks: In response to a request from Dudley, our
indefatigable and worthy Class Historian, to report of my whereabouts and whatabouts for
the almost forty years since college days, I proceed to give a few dry bones of my history.
"And the bones were very dry." Imitating the Hibernian who wanted to say something
before he began, I may preface college days and their sequel with the following facts. I was born, according to "hearsay evidence," in New Braintree, Massachusetts, January
19, 1840. My parents were Charles Hoar, born in Westminster, Massachusetts, April 29,
1789, and Nancy (Damon) Hoar, born in Westminster, Massachusetts, December 17, 1792.
As two of my brothers had previously done, I obtained, in 1859, the legal change of my
surname to Brooks.
My residence while in college was New Braintree. The local schools, including "select
schools," in my native town gave me the beginning of my education. My college preparation
was completed by one term's study at New Salem Academy and four terms at Williston
Seminary, Easthampton, Massachusetts, at which I graduated in 1858. I began as
Freshman at Williams College with the Class of '63, and remained with it through the
Biennial Examination until among the "Biennial Islands" the most of us had, by concerted
action, flunked Latin prose and then
"Landed safe and sound,
Upon the Junior's happy ground."
Then unexpectedly, and unsolicited on my part, a financial advantage was offered me if I
would go to Amherst College. In my circumstance the offer was too strong to decline, and
with exceeding great reluctance I "broke my home ties" with Williams and removed to
Amherst and graduated with Amherst 63. But much as I came to be attached to my new
class, there was that in those associations of Freshman and Sophomore years at Williams
which would not be "transported by railroad." The esprit de corps forged and fashioned on
the football field, where we "galoriously" "ragged" both '62 and '64, winning out in both
events, and completed in contests and intimacies in classrooms and on campus that esprit
de corps and my enthusiastic share in it, together with my social attachments, bound me with
a cord of gold to Williams '63.
As to events since college graduation: I taught as principal of a high and grammar
school at Rockland, Massachusetts, from 1864 to 1866. I spent three years at Andover
Theological Seminary, graduating there in 1869. I was ordained and installed in Tyngsboro,
Massachusetts, September 15, 1869, and was pastor there for nearly three years of the
Evangelical Congregational Church. I was pastor of the Congregational church in South
Deerfield, Massachusetts, from 1873 to 1877. I was pastor of the Second Congregational
Church, Putnam, Connecticut, from 1877 to 1887, and I was pastor of the Rollstone
Congregational Church, Fitchburg, Massachusetts, from 1887 to 1896. In the pastorate of
the Rollstone Church, I received nearly three hundred into membership during the nine
years, leaving it with a membership of five hundred and forty-seven, and the benevolent
contributions, including legacies, and the home expenses, meanwhile aggregated about
$87,600.
I was called to the pastorate of the First Congregational Church, Mount Vernon, New
York, in 1898, and removed there, and served the church briefly, being obliged by infirm
health to terminate my work with that church. After a period of a year and three-quarters
of invalidism, I so far recovered as to resume pulpit work, and since that time, in September,
1900, I have supplied various churches temporarily. Since leaving Fitchburg I have preached
most of the Sabbaths for three months or more in the following Congregational churches,
all in Massachusetts: for the Whitefield Church in Newburyport; the First in Hyde Park;
the Winthrop in Holbrook; and the Union in Taunton. I have taken a residence in
Wellesley, Massachusetts. My former general health is largely restored. While not desiring
at present to remove and take a pastorate, I am glad to be in the ranks of the "ministry at
large," and wish to occupy my Sabbaths with the supply of pastorless churches, as I have so
far had the good fortune to do most of the Sabbaths for two years and more since I
resumed preaching.
In reply to the request of the Class Historian for some special features of the years
since college, I will state that I was successively a member of the Eastern Connecticut
Congregational Club and of the Fitchburg Congregational Club. Of the latter I was
president for one year. I was preacher of the annual sermon before the Massachusetts
General Association of Congregational Churches, in 1875. The topic of the sermon was
"The Development of Lay Power." It was largely printed in The Congregationalist by
request of an editor of that journal. An historical sermon I preached in the Rollstone
Church, Fitchburg, 1890, on a jubilee occasion was printed in pamphlet form in connection
with the proceedings of the jubilee. Many sermons preached on special or ordinary
occasions have, in part or entire, been printed in the local press. Among such I may
mention those on the following topics: "Virtues Distinctively American," "The New Era in
Our Country," "The Pilgrim Idea," "The Temperance Issue of the Hour," "The Advent of
Christ," "Following Christ," "The Present Duty of the Congregational Denomination," a
paper read before the Windham County (Connecticut) Conference, "Church Machinery and
the Power to Operate It," "Making the Most of the Hard Times" (1893), "Our Retrospect
and Our Prospect," a quarter-centennial sermon of the Rollstone Church, "Constitutional
Prohibition," "Secularism, the American Danger." For several years I was a member of the School Board of Fitchburg. I was elected
by the General Association of the Congregational Churches of Massachusetts one of the
directors of the Board of Pastoral Supply, and served five years. I likewise served for over
eight years as a member of the Executive Committee of the Massachusetts Home Missionary
Society.
Of course every '63 man has the best wife in the world! Wait, however, until I speak
before announcing the finding of the court. I married, November 11, 1863, Miss Eleanor
R. Converse, of New Braintree, Massachusetts. It is high praise when I say, that I gladly put
on record, after nearly forty years of household life with her, that she approaches more
nearly than most women whom I have known the counterpart of the unexcelled portrait of
the "excellent woman" painted by the wise man in the last chapter of Proverbs. She has
been of invaluable worth to me in my private and public life. She was born January 1, 1842,
in New Braintree, Massachusetts, and was the daughter of Captain Lorenzo Converse, and
his wife, Eliza (Reid) Converse. She completed her education at the Female College and
the French Institute, Worcester, Massachusetts. Four children have brightened and enriched
our home.
1. Wallace Lorenzo Brooks, born in Rockland, Massachusetts, October 14, 1865.
After gladdening our fireside with a radiance ceaseless and quenchless, December 11, 1870,
he went away to be at home with God. "Fair boy, too soon translated to another sphere,
he lives green in our memories."
2. Josephine Damon Brooks, born January, 28, 1872. She graduated at Wellesley
College in 1895. She has since taught in the high schools of Pepperell, Northampton, and
Springfield, Massachusetts, and is now teaching in Shortridge High School, of Indianapolis,
Indiana. Her specialty is French. Last summer she visited Paris for further French study.
3. Charles Converse Brooks, born February 26, 1874. He graduated as mechanical
engineer at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 1895. He has since been mechanical engineer
in Rutland, Vermont, and is now about to remove to Chicago, Illinois, having a good
position as mechanical engineer in the new Western manufactory of the John A. Mead
Conveyor Manufacturing Company. He married, December 22, 1897, Miss Ida Mae
Roleau, of Burlington, Vermont. She was born March 23, 1868, in Williston, Vermont, and was the
daughter of Duncan Alexander Roleau.
4. Edwin Miller Brooks, born December 24, 1878. He graduated at Amherst College
in 1899. He taught one year in the King School, Stamford, Connecticut. In 1900 he entered
Harvard Law School, and is now (February, 1903) in the present Senior Class. He is a
member of the editorial board of the Harvard Law Review. He intends to pursue the
practice of law.
I do not regret having chosen the ministry for my life work. I believe that there is
no vocation which surpasses it for one who by native and acquired fitness is adapted for it,
and who gives to it the most generous and strenuous service possible. And I may state
further my creed in saying that I believe that there is no body of men who as a class excel
in sound manhood the clergymen of our generation. My very cordial salutations are extended to all the members of '63, and an invitation
of equal heartiness to call upon me at my home. My door will always open easily when you
are at my threshold. Classmates, call and prove it.
Source:
Class of Sixty-Three Williams College Fortieth Year Report, by
the Class Historian, Thomas Todd Printer, Boston, 1903
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