|
Introduction
Because of the foresight shown by Edward Waldo Forbes, grand son of
Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Class of 1895 at Harvard, the University
eventually owned all the land between Mt. Auburn Street and the
Charles River. [See Sidebars 1-6 at right.]
Even before entering Harvard as a student Forbes had shown a keen
interest in land conservation in the environs of Boston and was a
member of Trustees of Public Reservations in 1902. After
college he spent two years at Oxford, traveled in Europe and began
collecting fine arts. Upon returning to the United States, he formed,
in 1903, the Harvard Riverside Associates later to become the Harvard
Riverside Trustees. These were his vehicles for land acquisition. He
assembled all the land not already owned by Harvard or private clubs
between Mount Auburn Street and the River north to south and Bow
Street and Boylston Street [now Kennedy Street] east to west. He gave
part of the assembled land to Harvard in 1912 and the remainder in
1918. Lowell House stands on land conveyed partly in 1912 and partly
in 1918. In 1909 President Eliot appointed Forbes Director of the
Fogg Museum, a title he retained until 1944. [Sidebar 7]
Forbes wrote this memoir in 1960, at the time, 87 years of age.
I remember fairly distinctly that about the year 1945-6-or 7, ... I
happened to be asked about it [the history of the Harvard
Riverside Associates either] by Charles Coolidge of the
Corporation ....[or by] Bill Claflin, Treasurer of Harvard.
I told them the story, I think; and I have thought that at that time I
wrote a careful account of what happened. ----The facts were pretty
well burnt into my mind. So I think that even now nearly sixty years
later I think I can give a fairly accurate account of the main
facts.... Of course I have forgotten a great many details.
[This is] my story -----of the Harvard River[side]
Associates.
I will begin by two facts that really did not have much to do with the
story. One year Mr. [.Dudly Pickman ] ---- happened to tell
me that when he was an undergraduate, Longfellow, the poet, entered
the room in which he and his companions were sitting and said to these
college boys that Harvard and its land ought to extend down to the
river. This was told to me, I am pretty sure, after I had begun my
work [assembling the land], but it has stuck in my mind that
Longfellow was the first, so far as I know, to have this idea.
When I was an undergraduate at Harvard, I used to belong ... to a
group of 12 who had all their meals together at a boarding house. The
mass of students had their meals in Memorial Hall, as I remember it,
for about $4.50 a week. ... We, more fortunate fellows, had our
meals in these boarding houses. In my freshman year the house where
we had our meals was on Mt. Auburn Street near Boylston St.
[JFK Street] In the sophomore and junior years we ate at a
house on Brattle Street near where Longfellow's "Spreading Chestnut
Tree" where the blacksmith worked that was near Church St [Site
now marked by a plaque and a tree at # 40 Brattle Street] In the
senior year we had our meals on Mt. Auburn St. ... It was a
superior place; I think the best of them all, it only took seniors and
was a little more expensive, I think $7 instead of $6 [a
week].
It was in one of those years when I daily walked towards the river
that Cam [Cameron Forbes, brother of Edward Forbes] , who was
a graduate, said to me ... "Harvard ought to own all the land toward
the river."
.... while I was still an Oxford student in the years 1900-1902, my
brother wrote to me ....That a group of Harvard men thought that
Harvard ought to have a dignified boulevard as [an] approach
to the college. So this group had banded together and started to buy
a strip of land beside DeWolf St. to make a dignified boulevard as an
entrance to Harvard. He asked me to join and give some money; and I
think that I promised something between $1,000 ad $5,000, probably not
more than $1,000. [Sidebars 8,9]
When a year or so later I started the [Harvard] Riverside
Associates [H.R.A.] as I remember it, this "approach plan",
was abandoned in favor of my large plan, and gave the H.RA. the money
that they had raised. I am not sure of this---[The funds were in
fact transferred at a later date] I think that Mr. George Dorr,
[treasurer of Harvard] and Cam were the leaders in this
movement.
[When] I was an Oxford student ...from 1900 -1902 I enjoyed greatly
the river, and the little canals running off the river, where
occasionally we students used to get a boat and pole along through
these shallow little canals. Once I remember hiring a small sailboat,
and taking her up the Thames for a mile or two and then sailing back
before the wind. I know also of the use that Cambridge University
made of its river. I think that my friend, Harry Fletcher, took me up
to spend one Sunday at Cambridge.
I had studied in Oxford-English literature. I was at that time more
interested in literature than in art and I wanted to begin as a school
teacher of English. However, in the autumn of 1901 while playing full
back on the New College rugby football against the Bristol School---I
received a serious concussion----. That had greatly injured my second
year studies.----I was put into a nursing home for six weeks ---and
was unable to return to Oxford for the last few weeks of the college
year. [After recuperating in Florence, Forbes returned to the
United States.]
After a summer at Naushon [Where the Forbes family compound was
located] I came up [to Milton] but it was too late to get
a job in school. .....I became convinced that it was an important and
valuable thing to buy up that land and have it available for Harvard.
....... I felt keenly the difference between the splendid use that
the English universities made of their rivers and the pitiful use that
Harvard made of the Charles River.
Of course at that time the Charles River had tidal water.
[Sidebar 10]
I believe that the drainage in those days of Waltham and Watertown
went into the Charles River and was carried down to
Cambridge-- [L]et us say at low tide when the narrow stream
came down between ugly mud banks which I well remember. Then the tide
would come running in and bring this undesirable cargo refuse
including typhoid, scarlet fever, and diphtheria germs up over the mud
banks and over the marshes on the south side of the river.
[Sidebars 11-15]
When the tide would recede and the southwest wind, I suppose, would
blow those undesirable disease germs up into [the] Mt Auburn St.
region. I remember that my older brother, Ralph, who had delicate
health as a freshman, started to live in boarding house near Mt.
Auburn St. so I was told, and [he] became sick. He was moved up
toThayer Hall, No.34, where he lived through his college and law
school course. His brother, Cameron, joined him as a freshman, and
three years later, after Ralph had graduated, I joined Cam when he was
a senior and I was freshman.
So in those days the Mt. Auburn St. region was thought to be a very
undesirable part of Cambridge. Now I think it was rather a slum like
place yet the land in that part of Cambridge nearer Somerville was
cheaper and more healthy and the Corporation of those days was
definitely spreading out there. The Divinity school, the Agassiz
Museums and the Hemenway and the Law School and other buildings were
examples.
I think my memory is correct in saying that when I began to think of
getting the land near the River---I was told that a dam was to be
built and that the whole River basin could be improved. I believe the
actual dam was not built till a few years later . [Planning for the
dam was begun in1902 and construction, starting soon there after, was
completed in 1910.]
[President Eliot had written about the River in 1892] "In the first
place the so called "River" was not a river. It was a tidal estuary,
shallow and muddy trough, broad in its seaward part, narrow and
torturous in it's inward extension and filled and almost emptied by
the tide twice a day. Except at the extreme inland part of its course
the natural rim of this tidal trough is the ragged edge of a salt
marsh. The marshes are planes of mud overlying gravel or clay covered
with salt grasses and penetrated by numerous crooked and narrow
creeks" [Sidebar 16]
[It is clear that Edward knew about the scheme Cam had developed
for he wrote to Cam while still at Oxford, on May 6, 1902] "I am
much interested in the Harvard approach scheme. If I were at home I
believe I would try to push it through. But I hardly like to come
early for it as I have such a futile winter's work .....here."
[And again he wrote on May 9,] "I have just written to Dorr
[George B. Dorr, treasurer of the Corporation] telling him I
might be able to give a small contribution and asking him if he wants
me to give Harvard men in London a poke."
[As early as September 27, 1902 Forbes had written to his brother
Cameron,] "I have talked over the matter of Harvard land with
various people and I hope to get to work at it some time this
winter."
Here begins the real story. I knew nothing about business affairs I
went either to my brother, Cam, or to Mr. Augustus Hemenway for help
and advice. I think it was Mr. Hemenway who told me that I ought to
form a company with a title and trustees. He told me that the firm of
Loring and Coolidge had done an excellent job in buying land for the
South Station a few years before. They had hired several different
real estate men separately and privately to buy the houses one after
the so that the owners of those houses would not know or suspect other
that [it] was all one concern and jump the prices way up.
So I went to Messers Loring and Coolidge and asked if they would do
the same for us. I do not remember in exactly what order the events
took place, but we formed ourselves into the Harvard Riverside
Associates.
[It is not clear when the Harvard Riverside Associates was formed, but
in the fall of 1902 Forbes began to raise money and acquire land .
Formal incorporation did not take place until July, 1903.]
I do not know at what stage I approached the Corporation but I did
write to President Eliot and asked if he would join us. In any case I
remember well that he sent a courteous reply saying, "No."
[In 1943 Cameron, recalling the events of 1902-03 wrote as
follows:] He [Edward] presented his plan of doing this to
the members of the Corporation and then included President Eliot and
Mr. Henry Walcott, secretary of the Corporation, among others. All
Edward got was a rebuff. He was told to forget it and that the
Corporation had enough difficulties with the City of Cambridge due to
removing areas from regions capable of paying taxes.
Thereupon I wrote him [President Eliot] another letter asking if he
minded having us go and do it on our own. To that he replied "yes."
[Sidebar 17]
[Forbes also wrote to LeBaron Briggs, Dean of Harvard College, who
replied on November 26, 1902,] "I have been talking to the President
this morning about your suggestion in regard to the land between the
University property and the river. The President knows of no one who
has had in mind forming such a syndicate...... but he does know that
there are persons or sets of persons, who have their eyes on the
land....."
[By early December of 1902 Forbes had recruited the assistance of
Thomas Perkins, H'91 & L'94 a senior partner in the Boston law firm
of Ropes Gray and Gorham, and soon to become a member of the
Corporation.]
So we started in and I think that Mr. Hemenway and Cameron and I and
other members of our family subscribed. I forget what we raised at
the start, perhaps $30,000 or less. We set [the real estate firm
of] Loring and Coolidge to work [probably early in
December--Coolidge H '92 ,L '96] to begin to buy the land but I
understood that the neighborhood were all so near to each other that
the word got around quickly that Harvard was at the bottom of this,
and the prices began to rise quickly which increased our difficulties
but we kept on and I started going around to other people to give or
to join us.
[Inquiries about the availability of land must have started as
early as December of 1902, for Perkins wrote to Forbes on December 18,
1902 that two lots, the Bocher estate and the Harris estates, roughly
the area comprising of the present day Lowell House, were available
only by purchase and cautioned Forbes against buying them until]
"you have made sure that the whole scheme is going through."
[On January 17, 1903, Loring and Coolidge provided the first specific
details of the project. The land between Mt. Auburn Street and
the River not owned by Harvard or Harvard Clubs amounted to 468,114
sq. ft., had an assessed value of $413,100 and could probably be
purchased for $655,050,] "provided all the owners were willing to sell"
[Some time later it developed that there were 81 individual owners of
93 parcels in the section of Cambridge under consideration.]
[On March 3d Forbes wrote again to his brother, now in the
Philippines, where he was Governor General:]"Things are moving
slowly in the right direction with me. I am getting letters from
Pres. Eliot +Prof. Norton. Nelson [Perkins] has got a good letter
from Mr. Higginson. The prospectus is written, but one or two
changes may be made. I will send you word of the progress when things
get definite. We talked the plan matter out to a finish in Nelson's
office (he, J. Burden, Wetmore and I). We fixed it as necessary to
show Wetmore's plan. He is having it made, and I have just had a
large new plan of the region as it now is and sent to him."
[Wetmore was a real estate speculator and builder from New York.
Forbes had met with him in New York and got the feeling that Wetmore
wanted to take over the project. Wetmore owned two dormitory
buildings on Cambridge and had drawn up plans to develop the area
between Massachusetts Avenue and the River. Perkins tried to reassure
Forbes on the matter and had written to him as early as February 12:]
"If you get Frank Appleton and some other men in New York who are
leaders both socially and financially, they can make Wetmore come into
camp without any possible doubt. Wetmore would not at all care to put
himself in the position of working against the wishes of such men,
especially when they are working for the best interests of the
College."
[Forbes letter to Cameron of March 3, continues:] "It seems
that Wetmore for some reason told --the whole story. I suppose
because he [Perkins] trusts him. You know [he] is a skunk.
I find that he has been spreading the report among.... people that
boundless millions are behind the scheme and that another Yard is to
be put there to make the place like Oxford. W--F. E's-land lady told
him this. We are looking about for the best metaphorical axe to hit
[Wetmore] ---over the head with-----He has been getting our
options at 3+ [or] four time the assessed value.---In spite
of [Wetmore] every thing is going pretty well. We have got
options on about 270,000 sq. ft. Several more pieces are in line.
It is just a matter of bargaining." [Wetmore succeeded in
publishing hi development plan in the Atlantic Monthly, January 15,
1910.]
[On March 12,1903 he wrote again to Cameron,] ..."All goes well. I
have got about $100,00....I have only been at it since Monday
actively. President Eliot you know has written a strong letter
expressing the views of the Corporation. He told me today that the
reason the Corporation threw it down at first was that they thought it
impossible.....We have got a large part of the Cambridge land now; and
hope for more soon."
I remember that I asked Mr. Henry Higginson [an overseer, donor of
$100,000 toward the purchase of Soldiers' Field and major patron of
the Boston Symphony Orchestra] of the Corporation, and I think
President Eliot himself if they would write short letters of approval
for our pamphlet which I think that they did. [Sidebars 17-18]
[On March 30 Forbes wrote to Eliot thanking him for his strong letter
of support. He went on to say:] "I sent you a prospectus and a
plan of the region which I have colored roughly. The red represents
what is owned by the College and Clubs. The blue represents what we
have secured options on or bought......We are practically assured of
getting many of the pieces of land that are not colored in blue. In
some cases it is merely a question of price. ...I have made no
progress lately in raising money for I have been obliged to stay home
with a cold."[Sidebar 19]
|
Portrait of Edward Forbes
at the time he
graduated from Harvard
[1]
|
|
|
Harvard and the River, 1890
[2],[3]
|
|
|
Earliest Map of Cambridge, 1670
[4]
|
|
|
Harvard and the River, 1980
[5]
|
|
View from the Charles River, looking
toward the site of Winthrop House.
Lowell House is behind Winthrop.
[6]
|
|
Photograph of Edward Forbes
as director of the Fogg Museum
(circa 1940)
[7]
|
|
Letter from Cameron to Edward
in Florence, April 4, 1902,
Describing Details of the Plan:
[8]
Dedham Polo Club, April 4, 1902
W. Cameron Forbes to E.W.F in Florence. [Edward Forbes was in
Florence recovering from a concussion he had suffered while playing
rugby at Oxford]
.......Do you know the question of improving Harvard has come up
actively + I only wish you were here to put your shoulder to the
wheel. The present plan is to build a boulevard from the Harvard
Union ( Quincy Square + Beck Hall ) directly to the River This will
need a subscription of $50,000 from Harvard people. The City + the
State + Park Commission etc. will put up $150,00 or more I think. I
have been put on the committee to bull the thing--will send you a
circular soon. I am by no means satisfied with the project and have
suggested an alternative that a syndicate of 10 men to be got together
who will agreed to put up $50,000 each to buy the land to be improved
not only by this boulevard but by the River park. All that they get
in fact between DeWolf [this boulevard] + Boylston [ Now Kennedy
Street]. I have agreed to be one of the 10 (+expect my family will
stand in with me.....) Understand this is not a gift. We buy the land
+ hold to be given to the University at cost if they want it. You
know this was done in the case of the Medical School. I don't know
whether you have heard about that. A fine tract of land was purchased
+ held by sundry Boston Gentlemen for the purpose. Last summer Mr.
J. P. Morgan gave the University a million dollars to start the
Medical School. Rockefeller gave it another million this autumn
conditional upon our raising $750,00 more which has been done + that
with the previous fund + the value of the old buildings which will be
sold will give the establishment $5,000,000. How's that for high.
Now I want these same men who held that land + who are now released of
that obligation to do the same thing at Cambridge and hold it until
some one comes along with five million for an architectural school.
The Harvard Library is in a bad way now + they need an even million or
more for that. I see by the paper that Cecil Rhodes has left [a]
provision for two scholarships at Oxford for every state in the United
States. This strikes me as a very noble + enlightened philanthropy as
it should promote harmony + fuller understanding between two nations.
Well old chap, farewell + get well +remember I am yours always.
|
|
|
The Plan of Cameron Forbes
[9]
|
|
|
Old Mill Pier
[10]
|
|
|
Bunting has described the River banks:
[11]
"They were a mixture of modest residences and commercial buildings
and its river front was clogged with an assortment of wharves, coal
yards, storehouses and a power plant"
|
|
|
|
|
The Salt Marshes of the Charles River
[16]
|
|
Letter from Harvard President
Charles W. Eliot
[17]
March 5,1903
Dear Mr. Forbes;
The President and Fellows are of the opinion that the plan set forth
in the draft of a prospectus sent to me yesterday by Mr. Thomas
Perkins would if it were carried into execution would confer a great
benefit to the College. It would give the College good access to the
great public improvements contemplated or already executed on the
Charles River and its two banks and it would convert the region
between Mt. Auburn Street and the River between Boylston Street and
De Wolf into a handsome well laid out district, with none but good
buildings well arranged upon the grounds. To effect this great change
in the present condition of that territory would contribute very much
to the dignity and pleasantness of the surroundings of the
University.
The University cannot at present appropriate any of its funds or
income to the promotion of this admirable plan; but it is quite within
the range of its present experience that it should be hereafter
provided with money which will enable it to avail itself of te
thoughtful and ingenious provisions of the plan devised to secure a
great benefit to the College. A somewhat similar adventure on the
part of twenty friends of the Medical School has resulted in the
acquisition by that school of an admirable site for its new buildings,
and other great advantages for medical education and research.
The President and Fellows will be very glad to hear that the
undertaking described in the paper above referred to has been
successfully accomplished, and they feel that thereby very important
and very fitting provision has been made for the future growth of the
University.
Very truly yours,
Charles W. Eliot
|
|
|
Letter from Overseer H.L. Higginson
[18]
February 25, 1903
My dear Mr. Forbes;
I have your letter of February 24, together with the prospectus of
which you spoke.
The plan seems to me very good, so far as the College is concerned;
that is to say it cleans up part of Cambridge, and promises to make it
more beautiful, and to open the College Yard, as it were, down to the
river. It is a fine and worthy object for the graduates; and the
money will pay a high rate of interest--not in pennies, but in a coin
to be used after pennies have disappeared.
Very truly yours
H.L.Higginson
|
|
|
Map Sent to President Eliot
[19]
|
|
|
[By publishing a memorial volume in 1971 the Fogg Art Museum chose to
celebrate the contribution Edward Forbes had made to fine arts, to
Harvard and to city planning. This volume made clear that in the
years 1903-04, Forbes, though consumed by fund raising, was also
concerned with the utilization of the land that might be acquired by
the Harvard Riverside Associates. Forbes had obtained "a large
detailed map of Oxford, England showing the layout of the buildings,
parks and fields in relation to the river as they existed in 1902.....
Forbes... had obtained it from his friend Apthorp Fuller of Christ
Church College, Oxford. His motivation... (Forbes' was> that
someday Harvard would enjoy a new yard which would be at least
reminiscent of the charms of Oxford and Cambridge. Forbes had (also)
requested information about the population of the different colleges
at Oxford as well as the acreage of the meadows, fields, and parks
associated with these colleges".]
[Records of that period indicate that the concern of Forbes was that
there were insufficient resources to service the mortgage. The danger
was that and the Mutual Life Insurance Company which held a mortgage
of $485,000 might foreclose. The solution was to pay off the mortgage
. Coolidge had paid $865,000 for the property. New York and Boston
had given a total of $400,000. If Harvard could be persuaded to
provide a $300,000 mortgage, execution of this plan meant that the
H.R.A. had to raise $185,000 That was where Forbes came in.]
[This letter, appears to have been written in late summer, 1906, to
Cameron, who presumably was awaiting his boat to carry him to Manila
to take up his post as Governor General of the Philippians. "I
am trying to get the DeWolf money. All the committee [men]
that I have seen so far are in favor of the idea; but there is a
complication in as much as Pres. Eliot has told the city authorities
that the sum was ready and he will have to tell them that the plan is
being withdrawn. We are not quite ready yet to have them know so
much. But I think there will be no trouble eventually. I have been
trying to get the University Associates to help us..... The best I
have been able to get out of them at the present is that they will
buy, if we like, such land as we cannot afford and verbally agree to
let us have it at a reasonable price. An agreement that would not
bind their successor. If that is the best they can do I think that we
can only use them as a last resort,....Give my love to any San
Francisco investor who want to come in on the ground floor of a hot
stuff four percent investment".]
[To Cameron, now in the Philippines, September 3, 1906..."But the
Harvard Riverside Associates will probably keep me hard at work for
the next three months or so this winter and I ought to have a good
long spell in Germany working on their language and their galleries.
The H.R.A. thing is a thing that has got to be done; and I may be
kept at it till the time when I must dash straight to Europe. Then
there is the art museums, and my work in general. So, I do not yet
see much chance of a loop hole." ]
[To Cameron. "Boston, Oct. 25th 1906 ..... I do not remember
just how much I told you. I have since sent you a telegram telling of
my engagement to Margaret Laighton. I asked you not to reply by cable
because I do not want it known for some weeks. Margaret goes off with
Mama and I have got to take of my coat and work for some weeks on the
Harvard Riverside matter. Also, I am going to beg for the Art Museum
[presumably the Fogg Museum]. I hope I can catch one of
these boats Nov. 20 Nov.30 or Dec 7th or at worst Dec.14 or
21"]
[Forbes had written this note: "Letters from E.W.F. to Margaret
Laighton who had gone to Manila with his mother who was waiting for
him to come so that they could be married."]
[Pride's Crossing Nov.,1906 "Yesterday afternoon I came down here
and spent an hour or two with your mother at Mrs. Swift's. Then she
drove over with me to Harold Coolidge's where I spent the
night"]
[
"I started in to beg day before yesterday. I made a bad beginning by
getting 4 refusals. But one of them telephoned that he had changed
his mind after Harold Coolidge had got after him. So that I got
$10,000 the first day.... The second day I got 12,000 but 9000 came
from our family...... I had rather an amusing time in the evening. I
asked Harold and his wife whether there any people along the North
shore who might give me money. Mrs. C. took to it like a duck to
water and canvassed the whole shore in their minds telling me who had
money."]
["As a result of my evening's entertainment I decided not to go to
Boston in the morning... and went to Topsfield...... So I planned a
novel day of dashing about among these swell houses. It proved to be
a delicious clear cold northwest day. I took the train to West
Manchester and walked up to the house of Cam's friend...... I ought
to have phoned first. But it worked out well.... Wasn't home; but
his mother came down. She offered me the automobile to take me to two
other places which was just what I wanted. So, I gaily set forth
talking French with the chauffeur. At one of the places I got 3,000
from a Philadelphian who would have been hard to catch elsewhere. At
the other place I got nothing......... I telephoned Mrs. Proctor to
tell her I planned to hired an automobile at Beverly Farms She said,
"Oh no, I will send mine over" Of course I was duly surprised and
humble, but again it was just what I wanted !!! You did not know what
a horrible schemer you had accepted. So, I lightly leapt into the
"bubble" and sped off through Wenham and Hamilton which I had never
seen before, and stopped at two houses; alas- to find the victims
out.."]
[
"He [Peter Proctor] took me out for a drive to the village of
Topsfield and had just showed me the house of his great grand father,
Emerson, the brother of my great great grandfather, Emerson, when the
pair of horses took fright at something and got the jump on P and ran
into the sidewalk throwing him out of the wagon. The horses started
to run across an open common. I leaned way out forward over the
dasher to try to catch the reins from the horses' backs; but just as I
was almost touching them the horses wheeled at right angles, and of
course I was off my balance so I was thrown out too. I landed on my
hands and knees and bruised one knee..... I ran to Peter who was
lying on the ground semiconscious and dazed. But he was not badly
hurt. A kindly man took us into his wagon and drove us towards the
house and presently the automobile came out flying to the
rescue."]
[
"So, I did not have a very successful day as I missed several of the
people I was trying for..... It must seem to you as if money was my
only interest. I am thinking and talking money so much.... But I am
like the person who is determined to get to a place and whose horse
baulks and bucks and kicks and so perforce pay attention to the horse
rather than to the distant city he sees ahead and longs to
reach".]
[Milton, November 2,1906 "I wrote yesterday about my expedition in
automobiles etc. and my well deserved retribution for my sins. My
knee is very much better today. It was lucky that I did not hurt my
tongue, n'est-ce pas? I can get along without my knee much better
than by tongue just now. Think what a sad plight I would be in if I
had dislocated my tongue and sprained my outstretched hand with the
hat in it I had a record day and got $19,000 which brings me to
$44,000, 4 ahead of time (time consists of ten a day).... I have now
got up to $57,000 at the end of 5 day's work. It looks now as if I
really might get off on the Dec 7th boat I go to New York on Wednesday
night, and hope to have $100,000 before I start and to get $100,000 in
three days there !!!. Nothing like having modest
expectations."]
[New York, November 8th, 1906. "I have just arrived in here in New
York + waiting for J. Burden our New York trustee to come and talk
with me. I hope pretty definitely in a few days how things are going.
I have got about $70,000 so far in Boston and several are undecided, I
have not seen. So, I expect to get $100,000 out of the guarantors
with some foundation. If so, all should go well"]
["New York, November 9 th My first day in New York was not a great
success. I found only a few and only got one to accept. So, $1500
was my pitiful little day's work I hope for better things
today."]
[ "November 10, .....I have only got $2,500 definitely as the
result of three days work. But many are thinking it over and I think
my three days work is really more $20,000 when they all decide I shall
have to stay here at least two or three days longer. I have got only
about $75,000 definitely promised, but I think I know where about
$40,000 more is coming from among the people I have seen and others
who are pretty sure to say "yes". And I want at least $200,000. When
shall I be able to come ? I still hope for Dec. 7th."]
["November 13th I am doggedly working away and getting tired of my
job" ]
[Also on November 13 to "Cam: I am at Mary Amorey's struggling away with my Harvard R.A. proposition. You know we are trying to put the thing on a sound basis. We have a $485,000 mortgage out, and if they foreclose we are likely to lose everything."]
["Milton, Nov.20th, I am disgusted tonight. Nelson Perkins and
Harold Coolidge say it will be out of the question for me to go on the
seventh...... About $110,000 raised---$140 more to raise.
Desperation. Where is it all going to come from ? How can I do it
even before the 14th ?? I am beginning to feel blue about
it."]
[The money is coming in steadily and I am pretty sure I can
succeed. But that is just the trouble. I foresee that by the 1st
(when I should have to leave to sail on he 7th). I shall probably
have about 130,000 or 150,000. On the 7th I shall probably have 180
or 200,000"]
["And then I fear it will drag on very slowly and if it proves that
I must stay up to 250,000 it may take two or three weeks more to get
that"]
["Concord, Nov. 20th, Despair? I don't think I can escape till
the 14th."]
["Nov 30th, When will this end ? How long must I be sacrificed to
this wretched great white elephant of a land ? It rides me like
Sinbad's old man of the sea. If I could only meet it on a dark night
! But what is the use of bemoaning ? The only thing to do is to
achieve, to accomplish, to arrive..."]
["The situation is very complex now,+ big interests are involved.
I am so tired of talking and thinking about it that I will not say
much; but you and Cam may like to know the outlines. I will give you
the more technical part of the facts for Cam's benefit.]
[I had expected great things from J. Burden in New York about 10
days ago; perhaps 50,000 in two or three days. At last, word came
that Mr. Twombly, and some of the original subscribers objected to
our prfound [? proposed ] organization. Thereupon Nelson
said he would force J. to bring them into line when he saw them at
the Yale game. But he didn't. J. Made a proposition for the Harvard
corporation to help us.]
[Nelson on the following day brought that to the Corporation and
they refused and made another which we could not accept.. Then I went
to New York to try to make J. Burden work. He said the situation was
rather serious, that the rich men of Wall St. were rather hot with
the Corporation. They have given very generously to the Teacher
Endowment Fund and to this scheme, and they feel that the Corporation
is small petty and narrow. They say that the Corporation must come
forward and help us, and J. Burden says the Corporation must at least
give us a mortgage of 300,000 at 3 1/2% to satisfy the New
Yorkers."]
["He talked over the phone to Nelson and said Nelson seemed to
understand and favor his point of view. So, I returned + then came
thanksgiving. To day I have seen Nelson + he got Charlie Adams, the
treasurer to come in and I point[ed] out to them the danger they were
in from a row with Wall St."]
["Charlie is so very conservative that he saw all sorts of
objections to the plan that didn't seem to me to have much force. Oh,
if only they would brace up and do something or if the Wall St.
people would not be insistent just at this point on small matters what
a blessing it would be for me."]
["But here is a matter of some importance; in a way brought about
by me and I have got to see it through. The principal thing that
worries me and makes me mad about it is that it takes so much time. I
am going to see the President (Eliot) to morrow and try to convince
him and to make him hurry up."]
["The next Corporation meeting is not till Monday Dec. 10th so
unless I can force them to have a special meeting before, I can not
sail on the 14th. Damnation- And if the Corporation decides the wrong
way I don't know when I can come. Hell Please excuse the
above."]
["Of all pieces of miserable luck Nelson has just gone off an a
vacation till Tuesday night. He says he will probably have to see the
New Yorkers before the Corporation meeting. So, I don't see how we
can have that meeting before Thursday in any case."]
["If the Corporation accepts the proposition however, I can go off
flying for I have raised about 125,000 and can soon get some 20,000
more I think and J. Burden can easily get the remaining 20,000 or
30,000 that will be necessary."]
["Milton, Dec. 2nd I saw President Eliot yesterday + had an
interesting talk. I hope I had some effect on him. I had the nerve
to ask him to call a special Corporation meeting about this matter.
He gave me leave to ask Charlie Adams to do it. If all goes well I
may yet sail on the 14th..... I am now a little cheered up. I see by
looking at the sailing list that even if I don't get off till Dec. 23
I can still get to Manila by Jan.26."]
[
At the end of this letter Forbes made the following notation
"December 6: Corporation Meeting
7: $130,000 promised
8: RR train
14: Sailed in the S.S. China" ]
[On the 6th of December 1906, the Corporation did indeed convene a
special meeting and voted that the "the treasurer was at liberty to
take a three and a half percent mortgage of $300,000 on the real
estate held by the Harvard Riverside Associates" There is no record to
indicate whether or not Forbes was privy to this information before he
left for Manila. Certainly Perkins must have known. Two years had to
pass before Harvard executed the mortgage and the Associated had to
soldier on during that period .In 1908, the Income from rentals was
$28,942 and guarantors paid $18,139, but fees, taxes and maintenance
expenses continued to make foreclosure of the mortgage a threatening
possibility.]
[On January 29,1907 Forbes married Margaret in Manila and set off on a
European honeymoon. From Florence, ever attentive to the H.R.A.,he
wrote to Cam in May of that year: "I have telegraphed home from
Rome to ask if the H.R.A. needed me this June and the reply came to
stay till July if I chose. So, I suppose things have either turned
out well; or else it is not the best time for me to get to work owing
to the panic [of 1907]"]
[Apparently, until the H.R.A had obtained all of the $185,000 in order
to retire the New York mortgage Harvard was reluctant to proceed with
its own mortgage of $300,000 .. When he left for Manila and for his
wedding and European honeymoon, Forbes thought he had in hand $130,000
which he had so desperately collected along the North Shore of Boston
and in New York. When he returned from abroad in early July, this sum
had dwindled to $20,000, many of the promises of gifts apparently
unfulfilled.]
[One explanation for this apparent difference is that of the $130,000
only $20,000 was deemed as a gift and the remainder was merely a
pledge. In a letter, January 26,1907, which must have reached Forbes
in Manila, or perhaps chased him as he traveled toward Europe with his
new bride Perkins says "when you get home [you must] see whether
you can turn about $100,000 of the $130,000 .... that you raised into
an absolute gift".]
[Soon after he was back in the United States, Forbes began to consider
his responsibility for "begging" for contributions. One of his first
acts was to write to all the guarantors, asking that they fulfill
their pledges immediately rather than waiting for five or ten years as
originally intended.]
[In a letter to Cam, Forbes now in Milton, summarized the situation as
he visualized in early March 1908: "I am going to telegraph you
about the Harvard Riverside Associates, today probably. Nelson tells
me I must be back to beg in spite of bad times; because an opera house
is being started, and I must get ahead of it. I wish the opera house
subscription would wait for another year because I can't wait." ]
["Our scheme is this. Last year you remember I worked on a scheme
for keeping the thing going indefinitely by issuing preferred stock
for new money and getting the University to take the mortgage.
Twombly and others killed that just on the verge of success., Now. We
propose once and for all to get rid of the land and have the College
take it.]
["The mortgage is $485,000. The college will take 300,000. We have on
hand $20,000. I must raise $165,000. Mr. Hemenway and I decided to
start by trying to get 20 men at $5,000. So far I have only been at
it a few days. I have begun with people I felt pretty sure of, so as
to have an amount to start with that will encourage the others. I
have got so far $30,000. I feel pretty sure I can get sixty or
seventy thousand fairly quickly. Then will come the tug."]
[Perkins and Forbes considered letting the mortgage be foreclosed and
then buying back the land at "fire sale" prices. They had paid
$865,000 for the properties which in 1906 were worth only
$515,000.This approach was rejected on several scores.]
[March 19,1908: Perkins decided that it was in the interest of Harvard
to get the subscribers to assign their stock over to the trustees of
the H.R.A because reorganization was about to occur when the Trust
would expire in coming summer. " I have just gotten the paper
which Nelson prepared. It was sent to Washington and New York for
Bacon's (now Secretary of State) and Burden's signature. I am
expecting it back from Amory Gardner today with signatures Then I can
really take my coat off and start in."]
[March 19,1908 "We have at present $85,500"]
["We have got only 99,000 to raise. I feel sure the College will
pay 25,000 more than their 300,000 though they have not committed
themselves. I am trying to get 20 men at 5,000 but I doubt that I
can. I think it will probably come in smaller units. We have decided
that it is best to have the Trustees hold the land and the University
the mortgage."]
[Letting the trustees hold the land reflected the desire on the part of
the University to avoid exacerbating the tussle with the City of
Cambridge whenever land was takes off the tax roles. At this time the
H.R.A welcomed receiving the $50,000 remaining from Cameron's DeWolf
project.] Concomitantly Coolidge had written to Forbes that the
Associate controlled all but 17,500 sq. ft. of the original plan to
acquire 468,114sq. ft.]
