Herbert C. Lakin

Herbert C. Lakin graduated from Harvard in 1894, summa cum laude. He was the Class Orator. He had worked his way through college, becoming the regular Cambridge correspondent of the “Boston Herald.” Then he went into the Harvard Law School, from which he graduated in 1898. He was a lively young man who ran the half-mile on the track team most successfully, was editor of the “Law Review,” and emerged from Harvard with a brilliant record that secured him a job in the offices of Evarts, Choate & Beaman. As one of his old friends remarks: “He continued this Horatio Alger story by marrying the boss’s daughter”—Miss Helen Beaman.

In 1905 he became a partner in Lord, Day & Lord and practiced law there for many years. His main interests were centered in Cuba, and he became general counsel for the Cuba Company and for the Cuba Rail Road. When the Hawley-Smoot tariff was in the process of being compiled, he went to Washington and labored hard and long to keep the duty on cane sugar down to two cents a pound. This he succeeded in doing, to his great satisfaction.

He lived at Scarsdale and was President of the Board of Education there and later in Greenwich. He was well-fitted to deal with education, and his contributions to the operation and policies of the public schools were important and timely. His wife was interested in this also, and for many years she was a Director of the Brearley School.

Lakin was a somewhat intense man, ready in conversation and exceedingly well informed. He was more of an administrator than a lawyer, and he gradually drifted away from law practice into the more congenial field of management where the problems seemed more immediate and vital.

He lived his last years in Stockbridge, near where he was born, and we saw him but seldom in the Century. He was a member for forty-two [sic: forty-three] years.

George W. Martin
1953 Century Association Yearbook