Apr 16, 2019 - Sale 2505

Sale 2505 - Lot 195

Price Realized: $ 1,300
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
(SPORTS--HOCKEY.) Moulton, Westcott E.S. Diaries of a Hall of Fame player and coach at Brown University and the Williston Academy. 31 manuscript volumes: 29 yearly diaries from 1926, 1935-42, 1945-59, 1964, 1966, 1973, 1976 and 1983, plus a 1945 naval address book and 1938 memorandum book; various sizes (mostly 12mo), condition generally strong. Vp, 1926-83

Additional Details

Westcott E.S. Moulton (1906-1983) was an important figure in early American amateur hockey. A Boston native, he starred as a player for the Williston Academy in Easthampton, MA and then Brown University (class of 1931), and went on to a long career as a coach. This collection includes one diary kept as a student at Williston, January to August 1926, and then begins in earnest with 8 yearly diaries written as a history teacher and hockey coach at the Pomfret School in Connecticut, 1935 to 1942. The diaries resume in May 1945 with the tail end of his naval service, moving to Yale University. In 1946 he became an assistant professor of physical education at his alma mater, Brown University. Finding that its hockey program had been discontinued during the Great Depression, he prevailed upon the president to revive it, and coached the team to its first Ivy League titles in 1949-50 and 1950-51. He continued to coach hockey while serving as an associate dean. The diaries continue straight through 1959; he left Brown in 1961. Also included are his stray later diaries from 1964 and 1966 (while serving as an official at the Williston Academy), and 1973, 1976 and 1983 (while retired in Providence and still involved with Brown hockey affairs). He remained active on the ice. For example, his 6 January 1976 diary entry reads "Skated at varsity hockey practice. Felt great. I will be 70 yrs old on June 1. I am amazed how I can continue to skate so well." The final volume continues through his death. Coach Moulton was later inducted into the Brown Athletic Hall of Fame and the National Collegiate Hockey Hall of Fame.