SHARPLESS FAMILY CLOCK RECEIVES PLAQUE TO HONOR ITS LEGACY

Nan Potts with the Sharpless Family Clock

Visitors to Special Collections on the second floor of Magill Library will have noticed a stately grandfather clock, crafted in Trenton in the late 1700s. This clock was once owned by William Truman Sharpless, brother of Isaac Sharpless, who served as Haverford’s president from 1887 to 1917. William gifted the clock to Isaac’s son, Frederic Cope Sharpless, in the fall of 1947, and it took its place in Frederic’s Rosemont, Pa., home, where it would spend several decades admired and beloved by the family.

The clock was donated to Haverford in 2004 by Catherine Dutilh Sharpless, wife of Frederic’s son Isaac, as per a stipulation in her will. “She felt the clock was an important part of Haverford’s history, and so it was only appropriate to return it to the College,” says Jeffrey McCallum, executor of Catherine’s will.

On November 2, a plaque was installed in dedication to the clock. Among the attendees at the installation was Frederic’s daughter, Nan Potts, the last living descendant of the Sharpless family. She spoke of her father’s singular love for Haverford; he had been born in Founders Hall and raised virtually on campus, graduating from the College in 1900. “He would be very proud to have the clock here,” she says.

—by Brenna McBride, staff writer