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most lost out to an obscure member of the board of trustees named Roberts, and to an 1890s version of Anthony Lubrano, the well-to-do alum who do- nated money to name Penn State's cur- rent baseball facility, Medlar Field at Lubrano Park. And here is how it all happened. Beaver was raised in the rural town of Belleville, Pa., near Lewistown, and at age 19 he graduated from what is now Washington & Jefferson College. He then moved to Bellefonte to study law under Hugh McAllister, one of the founders of Penn State (then known as Farmers' High School). In 1859, Beaver was admitted to the bar and joined McAllister's practice. When the Civil War broke out in 1861, he volunteered and saw heavy combat, rising to the rank of brigadier general and losing a leg in the 1864 Battle of Ream's Sta- tion (Va.). After returning to Bellefonte, Beaver married McAllister's daughter in 1865. When McAllister died in 1873, Beaver succeeded him on the Penn State board of trustees. But except for be- ing a war hero, he was just another lawyer and a guy who married the boss's daughter. However, the next year, the man they would call General Beaver for decades out of respect was elected president of the trustees, and he continued in that role until the summer of 1882 when he won the Republican nomina- tion for governor. Penn State was struggling with its academic curricu- lum and was nearly destitute at the time. The Pennsylvania Legislature was investigating, and there was some pressure to close the school. Candidate Beaver resigned as president of the trustees but continued on the board. His allegiance to Penn State became a campaign issue, and he lost. Beaver returned to his law practice, expanded his business interests into coal, railroads and local manufactur- ing, and, as the most influential trustee, he teamed up with the man he helped hire as the new school president the year before, George Atherton. The duo would combine to become the sav- iors of Penn State. In 1886 the General ran again for governor and won. Coincidentally, during Beaver's first year in office in the fall of 1887, the students at Penn State organized a team to play football against other colleges. The governor soon became one of the team's biggest fans. During the next two decades, General Beaver and his wife, Mary, at- tended games home and away. They of- ten were on the sidelines with the play- ers and coaches. In an era when open gambling was legal, the Gener- al didn't hesitate to bet a few dollars on his Penn State team. After the first football games in 1887, the faculty forced the students off the Old Main lawn, and they moved their practices and games to a clear- ing northeast of Old Main, near the baseball diamond that had been con- structed in 1875. But the football and baseball teams wanted a better play- ing field. Many other students want- ed a running track and a building with a gymnasium. The governor, who was still an ex-officio trustee, was listen- ing. Since becoming governor, Beaver had worked with Atherton and the Pennsylvania General Assembly to appropriate $277,000 – about $6.7 mil- lion in today's dollars – for a major building program at the school. That included an all-purpose building named the Armory, which had a gym- nasium that would one day help the students form intercollegiate teams in wrestling, basketball and gymnas- tics. Then in his last year as governor in 1891, Beaver weaned another $15,000 – about $371,000 today – from the Leg- islature for new outdoor athletic grounds in a field northeast of Old Main. By the spring of 1892, the new area was ready, complete with a cin- der track surrounding the football- baseball playing field, and a 500-seat grandstand was being planned for 1893. Most of the 244 students were elat- ed about the new athletic grounds, and the monthly student newspaper, The Free Lance, declared in its March 1892 issue that it was time to think of a name for the facility. The student journalists were far ahead of their time in suggesting that a prosperous alum- ni donor might be willing to throw in a lot of cash to receive that honor: "We might honor some past benefac- tor of our college by giving his name to the field or if some one [sic] of our alumni should be so generous to do- nate a liberal sum it would be a fitting honor to give his name to the grounds. "By the way of a suggestion, should W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M these thoughts be acted upon we would like to mention two names that deserve more than passing atten- tion when it comes to the considera- tion of to whom we should pay honor. Gen. James A. Beaver and Capt. Chas. W. Roberts are two names so in- timately connected with the history and success of our college, that it would be impossible to make a more fitting choice than one of these names." Now, if you're wondering who Roberts was, so are Bezilla and Stout. They never heard of him. That is apparently the only mention of Roberts in the historical files of the student newspaper. However, his name is found in the school yearbooks, LaVie, 1890 to 1897, as an "elected member" of the Penn State board of trustees. He was a trustee from 1885 to 1895 and was from West Chester. After considerable research, I learned just a few things about him, including that his given name was Charles W. Roberts. He was born in 1807, with a younger brother Jacob born three years later. It's not certain what he did for a living, but in 1888 he was a di- rector of the West Chester Board of Trade and was identified in that orga- nization's literature as a "capitalist." He also was a member of the West Chester City Council from 1878-83, and he was not only a Penn State trustee but also a trustee at Delaware College and West Chester Normal School (1877-87). He had earned the respectful title of cap- tain after his nine months in the Civ- il War at 54 years old, rising from sec- ond lieutenant to captain of the 100- man 124th Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers, which fought as part of the Army of the Potomac at the Battle of Antietam in September 1862. There's a little more about Roberts, but more research is required. What remains unknown is why the Penn State students thought so highly of him that they were open to naming the new athletic grounds for him. Perhaps it had something to do with Roberts be- ing a member of the three-man Trustees' Building Committee when the college received the appropriations for the extensive building projects and the athletic grounds. Or maybe the alert students who suggested his name believed he could be the "past benefactor of our college" who might also donate the money for the naming honor. Of course, it never happened. The Free Lance reported on what did hap- pen with a small item in its issue dat- ed June 1, 1892: "At a meeting of the athletic association on Monday evening, June 9, the students of the college showed in a measure their ap- preciation of the interest taken by ex- Governor James A. Beaver in our col- lege athletics by naming the athletic grounds after him, which will hereafter be known as the Beaver field." The dedication was set for the only home game of the five-game 1893 sea- son, on Nov. 4 against a new opponent, the Western University of Pennsylva- nia, which would later become Penn State's bitterest foe: Pitt. A severe rain- storm forced the game to be postponed until Monday, and with the General and his wife present for the pregame dedication ceremonies, Penn State won, 32-0. Almost immediately after leaving as governor, General Beaver was re- elected to the board of trustees. In 1898 he again became board president and he held the position the rest of his life. Meanwhile, in 1895 he was ap- pointed one of the judges of the first state Superior Court and was also still a judge when he died on Jan. 31, 1914. What's more, in 1906 he also became the interim president of the college for two years when Atherton died unex- pectedly. By then there was a need for more expansive athletic grounds that in- cluded new outdoor and indoor facil- ities. At the recommendation of the school's first athletic director, Pop Golden, Beaver authorized 18 acres of woods and vineyards, about a quar- ter of a mile northwest of Old Main for the project. Beaver was able to help obtain $15,000 from the Legislature and additional money from donors to complete the first phase of the proj- ect. On Oct. 2, 1909, the first football game was played on what would be known as New Beaver Field, which in- cluded an adjoining baseball field and tennis courts. Of course, Beaver was there to see it. Fifty years later, when the football field was moved a mile east to an old cow patch, reconstructed and ex- panded, it was renamed Beaver Sta- dium. Roberts Stadium just doesn't seem appropriate. M A R C H 2 , 2 0 1 2 35

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