Latest news with #Harvard-on-Harvard

Boston Globe

The bad boys of Harvard

With chapters grouped alphabetically by transgression, e.g., 'Battery, Bribery, Burglary, Cybercrime,' the book serves up a seemingly endless list of miscreants from the nearly 400-year history of The World's Greatest University. There are 90 pages devoted to 'Homicide,' with a delectable subchapter about Harvard-on-Harvard murders. That would include John Webster's (class of 1811) notorious 1849 murder of Boston businessman George Parkman (class of 1809). The ensuing Harvardians, it could be argued, were rotten from the get-go. Cadbury relates how Harvard's first headmaster, Nathaniel Eaton, faced Advertisement Cadbury even unearthed an actual Harvard pirate, Tom Bell, class of 1734 (expelled). A thief and a swindler, Bell was condemned to death in 1771 for plundering a Spanish schooner near Cuba. Instead of facing the gallows, Bell died by suicide. I'll just tease a few more names from these pages: Richard Whitney, class of 1910, known as the Advertisement What? No women? Not many. Harvard only The worst of them all? Per Cadbury, that would be Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, who planned the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. Yamamoto was a special student at Harvard, where he developed an affinity for poker. In a 2010 Harvard magazine piece, Seymour Morris Jr. A strong candidate for second most odious grad would be Cadbury and I chatted twice about the book, which he said sold well after he took out a display ad in Harvard's alumni magazine. I delicately broached the idea that he might be a Harvard Scoundrel himself. Advertisement Known as Robin Crosfield when he graduated from Harvard 64 years ago, he said he changed his name because of family problems that he declined to discuss. And wasn't it true that the American Stock Exchange True enough, he said: 'I did some end-of-the-session trading that didn't sit well with them.' Time for a volume two? Stay tuned. Alex Beam's column appears regularly in the Globe. Follow him