Abernathy

Homer Ficus Abernathy College - Boston, Massachusetts - Abernathy Hall

HFAC, or Homer Ficus Abernathy College, has been a college in Boston since after the United States Civil War in the mid-1800s. The large, oversized statue of Homer Ficus is the first thing everyone sees as they enter the campus quad through a wrought iron and stone wall gate. 

Homer Abernathy's family raised the money to start the school the old-fashioned way, off the backs of poor people. 

Charle's Abernathy, Homer's father,  saw the possibilities and opportunities the later years of the Industrial Revolution provided. He looked north in Massachusetts for flowing water to be converted into a power source. 

He bought property along the Pow Wow and Merrimack Rivers in the Merrimack Valley. 

Then, he built factories to produce sturdy horse-drawn carriages better suited for transporting goods than people.

Charles's timing for cargo wagons was perfect. There were rumblings about a War between the states, and Charles wanted to build a product that would be useful during a war.

When the Civil War arrived, Charles Abernathy made an ungodly fortune selling his work carriages to the Union and the Confederacy. The factories ran 24 hours a day.

Charles built communities of small houses he sold to the factory workers. The houses were solid, close to the factories, and pleasant to come home to after a 16-hour workday.  

Abernathy had two sons and a daughter, but his second son badgered him to buy property in the Fens area of Boston and build a college for women to rival schools in New York specializing in creating teachers.

Homer convinced Charles that having the name Abernathy on a college would be helpful in the future.

He was correct. When other businessmen were charged with sedition for dealing with the enemy during the war, Abernathy and his factories were not. Too many daughters of essential people went to Abernathy College.

Homer, the second son, was not military material and was not conscripted due to some unnamed medical reason. 

Charles the Second (Abbie) joined the Union Army after graduating from Harvard and receiving a commission.  He was later killed when a train he was on derailed due to sabotage in Pennsylvania. The last thing Abbie saw as he died broken inside the overturned railroad car was a carriage from his family's factory being loaded up with looted cargo from the train.

When Abbie died, Charles was beyond sad and took to staying at the Somerset Club on Beacon Street in Boston every night, drinking heavily and playing poker instead of going home to his wife.

Homer oversaw the construction of the first two buildings that became Abernathy College, and he managed the school until Charles the First died in bed at the Somerset Club. 

The always proper club did its duty and helped cover up the fact Charle's secretary was in bed with him when he died. The Boston papers kept quiet.

Hortense Abernathy, a loose spinster, took over the duties at the College at age twenty-eight, and Homer moved up to the Merrimac Valley to run the factories.

Homer was a natural manager. He liked utilizing and directing cheap labor. By the early 1900s, the Abernathy factories produced metal bed frames, ​comfortable mattresses, and buggy whips.

Abernathy College flourished under Hortense, an organizational genius for running and expanding a college.

Today, the modern version of Abernathy still has its reputation as an above-average school that provides an education at a modest price. The school's endowment is famous for its generosity to students in need, and the graduation rate is higher than the national average. 

The college's board of trustees always has an Abernathy as the chair.

The new generation pushed the college into online learning, one of the first in Boston, which allowed the college to expand enrollment beyond the capacity of the dormitories.

I'm standing before Abernathy Hall, the second-oldest dormitory on campus. It was built in 1914 and is a beautiful brick building covered in ivy.

Looking at the large row of windows on the first floor, I started thinking about how many young college men had to make hasty late-night exits through these windows, even from the second and third floors.

All three of our victims attended and graduated from HFAC, and all three of them were assigned to this dormitory.

Eve and I will meet with a college legal team member. We had to submit requests for answers about a few things.

"We need a list of everyone housed in Abernathy for four years in the late eighties and ​early nineties." 

When asked why we needed the list, I explained that I thought one or two more people were in danger.

I also mentioned that I had a dozen Blueberry Muffins from the Cardinal and The Jack in Cambridge as a gift for the short notice.

We got our requested list without question within ten minutes.

Was it my charming personality or the muffins?

Eve is laughing.

As we were leaving to grab a cold one at The Cask, two investigators from the Cambridge Police Department were coming in.

They did not have a box of muffins with them. Good luck with that.

The only way to be stepping, is ahead of the competition.