1899 Harvard Freshman Football Team Photo - Class Of 1903

 

This is an unusual class football photo in that nine of it’s sitters went on to play for the varsity.  Usually one might see just two or three. I labelled most of those that went on to play for the University Eleven in this wonderful oversized (16” x 20”, with mat) Pach Bros albumin photo. On the mat is the score against the Yale freshman team; Harvard 54, Yale 0, the game having taken place November 25^th, 1899.

Edward Bowditch, played on the varsity in ’00, ’01, ’02 and ’03. In 1901 he was a second team All-American and in 1902 and 1903 he was a first team All-American. He was also named to the exclusive Harvard All-Time Player Squad, as an end, in 1903. Bowdich's father, also Edward, Harvard class of 1869, was a founding member of the Oneida Football Club, and one of the seven surviving members when the Oneida Football Monument was placed in the Boston public Garden in 1923. "Walter camp of Yale, football authority, acknowledged the Oneida were the first to organize football in this country. Parke Davis, Princeton '93, in his exhaustive book on football, published in 1911 gives the earliest date of an intercollegiate game as 1869, the game between Princeton and Rutgers, seven years after the organization of the Oneida club." (quote from The Boston Globe, November 7, 1923).

Thomas Hetherington Graydon played for the varsity in ’00, ’01 and ’02, and was a first team All-American in 1901 and 1902.

Daniel Knowlton played for the varsity in ’02, ’03 and ’05, when he was acting captain. Knowlton was a second team All-American in 1902 and a first team All-American in 1903. He was also named to the exclusive Harvard All-Time Players Squad, as a tackle, in 1903. Knowlton was on the Committee of Football H Men, and was heavily involved in contributing to and distributing Morris Bealle’s book “The History of Football at Harvard". Knowlton is pictured in this book opposite page 512. We have more than a passing interest in Knowlton as he and his family were from the small town in Massachusetts that I raised my sons in.

Walter Smith Sugden, played for the varsity in 1902.

John Dudley Clark, played for the varsity in 1900 and 1902.

David Alonzo Baldwin played for the varsity in 1901.

Leo Jameson Daly, played for the varsity in 1902.

Alfred Stillman, played for the varsity in 1900 and 1902. He also played varsity baseball in 1900, 1901, 1902 and 1903.

Guy Lincoln Jones, played for the varsity in 1901.

Additional class football team members include:

McGrew

Hersey

Derby

Sprague

McDonald

Randolph

Riggs

Fox

Waterbury

Knowles