Seventy Years Of The Worcester Polytechnic Institute: Page 69

he had contributed generously to the inauguration and development of the new enterprise. He retired as professor of law at Harvard in 1876, and died at Cambridge two years later. To succeed him on the Corporation, the Board of Education named William W. Rice, who had recently been elected district attorney. Mr. Rice was forty-three, a graduate of Bowdoin, who had studied law under Emory Washburn at the time when George Frisbie Hoar was a junior member of the firm. He subsequently succeeded Mr. Hoar as a member of Congress, in 1876, when the latter was elected to the Senate.

Alpheus Harding, Jr., was the next of the original trustees to retire. He was succeeded in 1871 by Lucius J. Knowles, senior partner of L. J. Knowles & Co., manufacturers of looms in Worcester. At the time of his election to the Board he was fifty-two. The third break in the original board came with the death of Rev. Dr. Alonzo Hill on February 1, 1871, a man deeply mourned by the community. His successor was Rev. Edward H. Hall, who had succeeded Dr. Hill as pastor of the First Unitarian Church two years before. Mr. Hall, a native of Ohio, was a graduate of Harvard. Mayor Blake died in office in December, 1870. Edward Earle, manufacturer of card clothing, was elected to succeed him, and served on the Board of Trustees for one year.

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Last Modified: Fri Jul 30 11:15:25 EDT 1999