by Barbara Rimkunas
This "Historically Speaking" column was published in the Exeter News-Letter Friday, November 5, 2021.
“Greatly to the surprise of Army officials, Gen. Pershing arrived in Boston yesterday forenoon coming over the road by automobile from his cottage at Roslyn, L.I. where he had spent but one day,” announced the Boston Globe on Saturday, November 13, 1920. “Today Gen. Pershing will attend the Andover-Exeter game at Andover and later will go to Exeter.” If Boston was surprised by the visit, Exeter was not. News had reached the town well before the weekend and the Exeter News-Letter for once scooped the Globe.
“Exeter will tomorrow be honored by the first visit of General John J. Pershing. At the invitation of Dr. Lewis Perry, whose acquaintance he formed in a vacation outing last summer, General Pershing will attend the Andover game tomorrow afternoon and will then come to Exeter as Dr. Perry’s guest over Saturday night. He will attend the Thompson Gymnasium dance tomorrow evening.” Pershing was viewed by most as the hero of the recent Great War. Granted the rank of General of the Armies of the American Expeditionary Forces on the Western front, he had angered some allied leaders by refusing to allow American forces to serve as replacements for the exhausted French and British troops. At the close of the war his was one of the few voices to decry the armistice terms in favor of fighting on to a complete victory. The later rise of nationalism that set in motion the second world war would prove him right. But despite the criticism, Pershing held a place of honor in American hearts and minds. The war was over, and these were good times.
Although the News-Letter notice doesn’t mention exactly where Perry and Pershing had met, we do know where Perry vacationed in the summer of 1920. Through a charming, although utterly relaxed privacy violation, it was common to find one’s summer plans published in the Exeter News-Letter’s “Town Affairs” section. “Dr. Lewis Perry and family today go for three weeks to Pasque, one of the group of Elizabeth Islands between Buzzard’s Bay and Vineyard Sound. It is an ideal resting place. From Pasque they go to West Chop on Martha’s Vineyard, where they have spent much of recent summers.” It didn’t add ‘burglars and vandals please take note’ – but those were different times. It was likely at Pasque that Perry met Pershing, who was known to vacation on Naushon Island nearby. The Fall River Globe gushed about the General’s visits to Naushon, “it was here General Pershing came to rest after the World War. Naushon is a seven-mile-long playground of which ‘Jack’ Pershing and his cronies on vacation made the most. Riding on nimble ponies over rutted trails, shooting black duck and other fowl, swimming against breakers that fairly crash into the beach, or sailing from Kettle Cove or Tarpulin Cove into the waters of Buzzard’s Bay or Vineyard Sound, the general in mufti was like a boy at play.” No doubt travelling with the general was his only surviving child, 11-year-old Francis Warren. Pershing’s wife and two young daughters had perished in a tragic fire in 1915. Still reeling from his personal loss, which was magnified by the subsequent nightmare of death during the war, Pershing was extraordinarily concerned for his son’s future.
Perhaps he met Perry while ‘riding on nimble ponies over rutted trails’ and the two struck up a conversation. Perry must have suggested he visit Exeter and the fine prep school he presided over. Pershing was known to be a great football fan, how about visiting for the big game against the rival team – Phillips Andover?
Twenty-three year-old Betty Tufts of Exeter boarded a “special” train at the Lincoln Street depot at 12:30 on the day of the big game. Throngs of Exeter students and guests traveled with her. The Exeter Andover rivalry extended back 40 years and Exeter was eager to win back the trophy, having lost it the previous year. The teams, as usual, were well matched but in the end, Andover triumphed 6-3. The Exeter crowd, saddened by the loss, headed back to New Hampshire looking forward to mollifying their grief at the dance held at Thompson Gym. Betty dined at home with her brother’s family. Her father, an Academy professor, and mother dined at Principal Perry’s house. “Mother sat on Pershing’s right at a little table of 4!” she excitedly wrote in her diary. Like her parents, Dr. Perry and General Pershing, Betty went to the dance and “met the general there.” “He said to me, ‘I have enjoyed sitting with your mother at the Perry’s this evening.’ When I told him I was sorry he didn’t see our team win he said, ‘But I saw a very prettily played and hard-fought game.’” She called him a “Very Attractive man.”
Pershing stayed at the Perrys’ overnight and attended the Phillips Church for the usual Sunday service. Betty attended her own Unitarian church on Elm Street where they tried to pull together an acknowledgement of Armistice Day but forgot to bring the music for “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The congregation sang the first verse without accompaniment, much to Betty’s horror – she was the organist. At Phillips Church, Bishop James De W. Perry of Rhode Island led the service. General Pershing, “made brief remarks inspired by Armistice Day, in which he paid tribute to the courage and determination of our troops and commended these qualities shown by the Academy players in the game of the previous afternoon.” There was lunch followed by a recital and then it was time for the General to leave on the 5:14 train for Boston to catch the Federal Express to Washington.
The visit proved worthwhile for Pershing. Three years later, he returned to enroll his son at the Academy. What did he see in Exeter? Perhaps it was as Richard Moser, who attended PEA with young Francis, recalled. “America was a world of knickers, flappers, jazz and Prohibition. That is what we went home to during vacations. Our isolated New England community was oddly free from the cheapness and tawdriness of the era. We lived in an atmosphere of earnestness, friendliness, democracy, and decency.” Pershing must have hoped that his son’s turbulent childhood would be grounded in the relative calmness of Exeter. The Twentieth Century had other ideas. Francis Warren would serve during World War II and lose a son, Richard, to the conflict in Vietnam.
Barbara Rimkunas is curator of the Exeter Historical Society. Support the Exeter Historical Society by becoming a member! Join online at: www.exeterhistory.org
Image: Phillips Exeter Academy yearbook PEAN, commemorated the visit of General John “Black Jack” Pershing’s 1920 visit. Used by permission of Phillips Exeter Academy.