CLUB LIFE AT CHAUTAUQUA
(1893-1896)
When the Chautauquans gathered for the twentieth Assembly on July 1, 1893, they found some changes had taken place. The old Amphitheater, which had faithfully served its generation, but had fallen into decrepitude, no longer lifted its forest of wooden pillars over the ravine. In its place stood a new Amphitheater, more roomy and far more suitable to the needs of the new day. It was covered by a trussed roof supported by steel columns standing around the building, so that from every seat was an unobstructed view of the platform. The choir-gallery was enlarged to provide seats for five hundred. The platform was brought further into the hall, making room for an orchestra. The seats were more comfortable, and could now hold without crowding fifty-six hundred people. A few years later, the old organ gave place to a greater and better one, the gift of the Massey family of Toronto, a memorial of their father, the late Hart A. Massey, one of the early Trustees of the Assembly. Under the choir-loft and on either side of the organ, rooms were arranged for offices and classes in the Department of Music.
During the previous season, 1892, a Men's Club had been organized and had found temporary quarters. It now possessed a home on the shore of the Lake, beside Palestine Park. In its rooms were games of various sorts, cards, however, being still under the ban at Chautauqua.[2] Newspapers and periodicals, shower-baths, and an out-of-door parlor on the roof, very pleasant except on the days when the lake flies invaded it. The Men's Club building had formerly been the power house of the electrical plant, but one who had known it of old would scarcely recognize it as reconstructed, enlarged, and decorated. To make a place for the dynamo of the electric system, an encroachment had been made upon Palestine Park; a cave had been dug under Mount Lebanon, and the dynamo installed within its walls. The age of King Hiram of Tyre, who cut the cedars of Lebanon for Solomon's Temple, and the age of Edison, inventor of the electric light, were thus brought into incongruous juxtaposition. A chimney funnel on the summit of Mount Lebanon, it must be confessed, seemed out of place, and the Valley of Coele-Syria, between Lebanon and Hermon, was entirely obliterated. Bible students might shake their heads disapprovingly, but even sacred archæology must give way to the demands of civilization.
An improvement less obvious to the eye, but more essential to health, was the installation of a complete sewer system. As the sewage is not allowed to taint the water of the lake, it is carried by pipes to a disposal plant at the lower end of the ground and chemically purified. The water rendered as clear as crystal is then permitted to run into the lake, while the sludge is pressed by machinery into cakes used as fertilizer. An artesian well on high ground supplies pure water in abundance, with taps at convenient places for families. Originally the water in use came from wells. These were carefully tested by scientific experts, and most of them were condemned, but a few were found to give forth pure water and are still in use, though frequently and carefully tested. Near the Men's Club is a spring of mineral water containing sulphur and iron. It has the approval of chemists and physicians, and many drink it for its healthful effect.
One who looks over the programs of Chautauqua through successive years will notice the number of the clubs for various classes and ages. Largest of all is the Woman's Club, of which Mrs. Emily Huntington Miller was the first President, succeeded by Mrs. B. T. Vincent, and carried on under her leadership for many years. When on account of failing health Mrs. Vincent felt compelled to resign her office, her place was taken by Mrs. Percy V. Pennybacker of Texas, who had been President of the General Federation of Woman's Clubs in the United States. This Club includes more than two thousand members, and its daily meeting in the Hall of Philosophy brings together a throng, often too large for the building. In 1918 the Club purchased a cottage fronting on the lake, near the Hotel Athenæum, as a headquarters, a place for social gatherings and rest rooms for women.
Besides the Women's Clubs and the Men's Club, there are at least a dozen other associations of people having tastes and interests bringing them together. We will name the most important of these without regard to their chronological order.
There is the Athletic Club for men and boys over sixteen, directing the organized sports and providing all forms of out-of-door recreation. It has a club house on the lake with bowling alleys and boat room, shower baths and lockers, and a reading room.
The Golf Club has a nine-hole course, situated on the rising ground of eighty acres opposite the traction station. The money has been contributed for a Country Club House, soon to be built at the entrance. The donors, it is understood, are Mr. Stephen J. Munger of Dallas, Texas, one of the Trustees, his wife, and Mrs. Frank B. Wilcox of St. Petersburg, Florida, in memory of her husband.
Chautauquans of some years' standing will remember the old croquet ground, where now stands the Colonnade, and the group of solemn gray-beards who used to frequent it and knock the balls through the big arches all day. No matter what popular lecturer was speaking in the Amphitheater, the passer-by would find that same serious company. I used to pass them while going to my home and coming from it several times each day. On one occasion I stopped and struck up an acquaintance with a tall old gentleman who always wore a high hat and a long double-breasted coat. I learned that he was the President of a Bank among the mountains of Pennsylvania, and that he had come to Chautauqua suffering from nervous prostration, making him utterly unable to do business and scarcely desiring to live. He passed the croquet court, sat down, and was invited to play. He began and found himself, for the first time in many months, actually interested in doing something. He began to enjoy his meals and to sleep at night. All that summer he played croquet, never listening to a lecture, and at the end of the season went home almost well. From that time croquet became more than his recreation, almost his business. He told me that there were others like himself who found health and a new enjoyment of life in the game. When the ground was needed for the new business block, the courts were removed to the ravine on the other side of the grounds, near the gymnasium. About that time croquet was developed into a more scientific game, a sort of billiardized croquet, with walls from which a ball would rebound, and arches a quarter of an inch—or is it only an eighth of an inch?—wider than the ball. To find a name for the new game they struck off the first and last letters, so that croquet became Roque, and in due time the Roque Club arose, with a group of players who live and breathe and have their being for this game. People come from far, and I am told, to attend its tournaments at every season.
There is also a Quoit Club meeting on the ground near Higgins Hall, beside the road leading up College Hill.