WILLIAM HIRAM RADCLIFFE - AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED 07/02/1895 - HFSID 35362

WILLIAM HIRAM RADCLIFFE
The then-Harvard student, author of Telephone Instruments, sends letter describing an upcoming boat race, signs name in black ink
Autograph letter signed: "Will" in black ink. 5 pages integral leaf, 4½x6¾ folded, 6¾x9 flat. Rhinebeck, New York. July 2, 1895. In full: "My dear Leta - Home again it gave me a faint recollection of "mumps" at first, but so faint, it has since passed away. As I told you I stayed for "Class Day". As it was, I would not have missed it for anything as the day seemed made for it, and everything passed off as ice on a summer day. As I had to leave early the next morning in order to make good good connections with the trains I hardly touched the bed, before I had to leave it. However, enjoyed the trip down immensely, a crowd from Amherst joined us before we had gone for and we practically, monopolized the whole train. Of course, we behaved like men, every one...(college-men) and the train was only stopped twice on the way down by someone accidently catching hold of the bell-rope. I suppose you read of the Columbia - Cornell - Pennsylvania boat race being rowed at Poughkeepsie - just below here. Well, it was to have been rowed on Friday - Harvard Class Day, but some way, a tug belonging to our Ex-Vice-President, our Governor was a little to "swell" for the Pennsy's boat and consequently run her down, and so the race was postponed until Monday - it was simply "Yale-luck" for me as I hesitated sometime between a Class Day and a boat race - but as it was I saw them both, although the latter somewhat resembled the Harvard-Yale contest in being a concession rather than a race. If Harvard doesn't pick up soon Yale will soon be ahead of us even in the boat-race. We are only three races ahead of them now, in the long run. That Base Ball Team was another farce - I expected to see the final game played in New York - but "no luck like Yale luck". The trouble is in the Harvard Faculty, not in the teams - they do everything in their power to discourage athletics, while at Yale they take just the opposite view and help them all they can. You see we are working against obstacles and under obstacles and pretty heavy obstacles in both cases. Well, I must stop or you will be trouble with "that tired feeling" before reaching the end. Lovingly yours". William H. Radcliffe (b. 1873) graduated from Harvard University in May 1896, and worked as an electrical engineer and professor. Radcliffe wrote Telephone Instruments, Their Operation, Arrangement and Management in 1913 and Home Study Course in Practical Electricity in 1916. Normal mailing folds. Toned. Light surface creases. Slightly soiled. Otherwise, fine condition.