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A memorial, but to whom?

By Mark Alden Branch ’86 | 9:01am September 27 2019

Usually, when we post a picture and ask you to identify it, it’s just to test your campus recall. But this time, we’re actually stumped. This carving is in the passage between Wrexham Court and Saybrook Court in Saybrook College. Can anyone identify this “guide to all things fine”?

Filed under stone carving, Saybrook College, Memorial Quadrangle

4 comments

  • Maro Sciacchitano
    Maro Sciacchitano, 4:56am September 28 2019 | Ico flag Flag as inappropriate

    Maybe one of the Harkness family perhaps? There is a passing resemblance to Stephen V. Harkness.

  • A. Schapiro
    A. Schapiro, 11:10pm September 28 2019 | Ico flag Flag as inappropriate

    I read on a Saybrook webpage that somewhere in that area there's a carving of Anson Phelps Stokes (1874–1958), former Secretary of the University. Maybe that's what this is. Here's a photo of (and article about) him: https://yalealumnimagazine.com/articles/3048-midlife-career-change

  • Mark Branch
    Mark Branch, 8:00am September 30 2019 | Ico flag Flag as inappropriate

    We wondered the same thing, A. Schapiro, but it turns out the Stokes carving is around the corner in Wrexham Court. Maro Sciacchitano, I think a member of the Harkness family is a good guess—-possibly Charles W., for whom the entire quadrangle is a memorial. Someone on Instagram posited that it's Wilbur Cross. She noted that the carving seems to have been added after the building was built; Cross became especially prominent after the quad was built and died in 1948.

  • Anon
    Anon, 4:54pm October 10 2019 | Ico flag Flag as inappropriate

    It looks like Cross and he was both prodigal in labors for the public good (governor of CT) and a guide to all things fine (Professor of English, Dean of the Grad School, and literary critic).

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