Robert Fletcher wasn't just the founding director of Thayer School. For 65 years, he was Thayer School.
“We all love our Bobby — many of us received our life’s inspiration from him,” wrote a Thayer School alumnus on the occasion of Dean Robert Fletcher’s retirement in 1918. It was difficult to imagine Thayer School without Robert Fletcher, for from the beginning, Fletcher was Thayer School.
Fletcher’s service to Thayer began in 1871, when he came to Hanover as Thayer School’s founding director and sole faculty member. He retired only because he reached Dartmouth’s mandatory retirement age of 70. He didn’t actually leave, however. He stayed on as a lecturer and overseer until his death in 1936 at the age of 88. Clearly, Dartmouth loved Fletcher, and Fletcher loved the College.
Dartmouth and Fletcher’s relationship was not quite love at first sight. It grew from a complicated courtship that eventually required White House intervention.
In 1867 General Sylvanus Thayer, the “Father of West Point” and a member of Dartmouth’s class of 1807, bestowed on Dartmouth the means to establish a school of civil engineering. Dartmouth President Asa Smith announced that the engineering school would open the following year. Thayer tapped a trusted friend, West Point professor Dennis Mahan, to suggest a suitable candidate for the position of director of the new school. The search proved harder than expected. By 1870 nearly a dozen candidates had turned down the job and its paltry $1,500 salary. Then Mahan suggested an “industrious and reliable” young second lieutenant, Robert Fletcher.
Fletcher made mixed first impressions on both Thayer and Smith. Thayer worried about “a defect in his speech.” Smith thought twice about Fletcher’s age and bearing.
Fletcher, too, had reservations about linking himself to Dartmouth. There was no guarantee that the College was committed to him or to the nonexistent engineering school, and he was reluctant to resign his Army commission. He decided to keep his options open by seeking a leave of absence from his duties at West Point.
Getting the leave wasn’t easy. Fletcher had to bring his request all the way up to President Ulysses S. Grant. Grant approved the leave. But, claiming that the President didn’t understand the request, Grant’s Secretary of War overruled him and revoked Fletcher’s leave. Fletcher resigned from the Army, committing his future to the uncertainty that awaited him at Dartmouth.
Neither Fletcher nor Thayer actually expected the school to open in 1871. They had planned to spend a year or two writing the curriculum. But President Smith wanted the school to open immediately, and he prevailed.
Fletcher continued to develop the course of studies. The curriculum he introduced in 1879 formed the mainstay of Thayer School until 1918. During that time courses were updated, but with the exception of new classes in electrical engineering and the dropping of a class called “Masonry and Foundations” the core remained constant.
FIELD DAY: Surveying, the first course Fletcher taught, was a curricular staple for decades.
In addition to tending to Thayer School, Fletcher embraced the civic side of civil engineering, bringing the same limitless energy to public works projects all over Vermont and New Hampshire. He was a member of the Hanover School Board for 17 years. He was the project leader for determining the exact boundary between Vermont and New Hampshire. He had a hand in building Wilder Dam and was the consulting engineer for the iron bridge across the Connecticut River in West Lebanon. He was a founder, president, and chief engineer of the Hanover Water Works and was consulting engineer for water projects throughout New England. During 40 years as a member and chair of the New Hampshire State Board of Health, Fletcher spread the use of septic tanks and other marvels of sanitary engineering, inspecting hundreds of septic tanks, sewers, and cesspools along the way.
FLETCHER’S BIG DIG: Robert Fletcher, first dean of Thayer School, constantly applied his engineering expertise outside the classroom. Numerous New Hampshire communities benefited from his interest in clean water systems. As a founding member of the Hanover Water Works, established in 1892, Fletcher oversaw the construction of the town’s first reservoir. Enlarged in 1954, the 425-million gallon reservoir still provides Hanover – and Dartmouth – with drinking water. Now one of three Hanover reservoirs, it carries the distinction of bearing Fletcher’s name.
Carnegie’s opinion notwithstanding, Fletcher took great pride in the achievements of the graduates he sent off into the world. He visited alumni working on engineering projects all over the country. He toured the Panama Canal during its construction and recorded the Dartmouth men engaged on the project. In public forums, when he recounted the projects managed by Thayer alumni, he often included a sly reference to the fact that Harvard brought in a Thayer grad to direct the construction of its stadium after the project fell behind schedule.
Fletcher did not support the performing arts either. Her skipped a famous 1879 performance of “HMS Pinafore” staged by Dartmouth students (Little Buttercup was a tackle for the football team) because he did “not think it consistent with my Christian profession to attend such a play.” In 1886 he grudgingly attended a student production of “Julius Caesar.” “Except for the fact that the entire affair was gotten up and managed by the students and all the parts taken by them, I would not have stepped inside the building,” he noted.
LEADING BY EXAMPLE: Fletcher set Thayer School’s academic and moral tone.
It would be easy to think of Fletcher as someone who was all work and no play. But that’s probably a mistake. To be sure, he had a strong moral compass, high professional standards, and a biblically inspired hobby — the study of ancient engineering projects in the Holy Lands. The truth is that Fletcher enjoyed his work so much that it doubled as a form of play. How else might one interpret why the eminently practical Fletcher drew up plans in 1899 for a subway line running between Hanover and White River Junction?
Robert Fletcher frequently lectured students on the need to draw lessons of inspiration from history’s great engineers. Famous in their time, some of their names and accomplishments have been forgotten as technology advanced. More important, however, is the fact that all the engineers Fletcher singled out reflected his beliefs in what made a great engineer: education and hard work.
“The name of Watt,” wrote Fletcher, “is inseparably connected to the steam-engine. His genius and persistent study developed it from a wasteful and hence nearly impractical motor, to a working success.” Fletcher noted that Watt studied German and Italian so he could remain current with the latest works in his field.
English coal miner Stephenson was made a mining engineer at age 17 because of his inventions. One project reduced the number of horses required in the mine from 100 to 16. In 1825 he built a railroad line and a locomotive capable of reaching 36 mph. Fletcher was impressed that the self-taught Stephenson had achieved so much — and that Stephenson believed in formal engineering education despite lacking one. Stephenson made it a primary project of his life to send his son Robert, who also became a famous engineer, to the University of Edinburgh.
West Point professor Dennis Mahan recommends 2nd Lieut. Robert Fletcher to Gen. Sylvanus Thayer for the post of Thayer Professor of Civil Engineering.
Fletcher makes his first visits to Dartmouth President Asa Smith in Hanover and Gen. Thayer in Braintree, Mass.
Fletcher resigns his Army commission.
Fletcher takes Thayer School appointment.
En route to Hanover, Fletcher visits scientific departments at Yale, Harvard, and M.I.T.
Fletcher writes Gen. Thayer, “I have the honor to report that the Thayer School of Civil Engineering has fairly opened.” The sole professor, Fletcher teaches 14 courses.
Albert Porter and Thomas Green lay become Thayer School’s first graduates.
Thayer School expands into rooms in Thornton hall.
Fletcher gets some teaching relief as Charles H. Pettee, Thayer 1876, becomes a Thayer School instructor for one year. Between 1877 and 1882, three more graduates hold one-year instructorships.
Fletcher adds courses in “Sanitary Engineering” to the curriculum.
Hiram Hitchcock, Thayer 1881, joins the faculty.
Fletcher takes students to Boston to visit the Boston Bridge Works, Meigs Elevated Railway Construction Co., and other engineering firms.
Thayer School moves into its own building on Park Street. Fletcher pays part of the purchase price himself. Dartmouth reimburses him two years later.
Fletcher becomes a founding member of the Hanover Water Works Co.
Dartmouth allows students to take first-year Thayer courses during their senior year.
Toot Worthen, class of 1904, skis down the stairs of Thayer School and crashes into Fletcher.
Thayer School moves into Bissell Hall.
Fletcher visits Thayer School graduates working on the Panama Canal.
Fletcher travels around the country visiting Thayer School graduates.
Fletcher reaches Dartmouth’s mandatory retirement age of 70. The College awards him an honorary Doctor of Science degree. He joins Thayer School’s Board of Overseers.
Robert Fletcher is buried in the old Hanover cemetery. Three years later Thayer School moves nearby, to Cummings Hall.
Thayer School institutes the annual Robert Fletcher Award, given to a graduate or friend of Thayer School in recognition of distinguished achievement and service in the highest tradition of the School. The first award is presented posthumously to Robert Fletcher.
By all accounts Robert Fletcher was a methodical, down-to-earth engineer whose main interest was the improvement of the lives of the citizenry. Bridges, roads, water works, and septic systems were his primary concerns. Dartmouth’s archives are filled with articles he wrote promoting the civic, health, and economic virtues of sensible civil engineering.
—Lee Michaelides is the managing editor of the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine.
For more photos, visit our Thayer’s Past set on Flickr.