Lawyer
Centurion, 1908–1955
Born 29 July 1863 in Davenport, Iowa
Died 16 December 1955 in New York (Manhattan), New York
Buried Dellwood Cemetery
, Manchester, Vermont
Proposed by Adrian H. Joline and Otto T. Bannard
Elected 7 November 1908 at age forty-five
Archivist’s Note: Nephew of William Packer Prentice; great-nephew of James H. Prentice; cousin of Robert Kelly Prentice and William Kelly Prentice; brother-in-law of John D. Rockefeller Jr.; uncle of David Rockefeller, John Davison Rockefeller 3d, and Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller
Century Memorial
E. Parmalee Prentice graduated from Amherst in 1885 and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He was admitted to the bar in Chicago in 1886, and then came East again and studied for a year at the Harvard Law School. In 1890 he left Chicago and came to live in New York and to ractice law here. For many years he was a partner in the firm of Murray, Prentice, and Howland.
Prentice was never particularly interested in the law. Other matters more urgently engaged his attention; and the chief of these was a large farm, “Mount Hope,” he had at Williamstown, where he conducted elaborate experiments in breeding dairy cattle. He was responsible for the “proved sire” method of improving milk production, and he developed an index for judging the value of a bull that is the recognized technique among breeders today.
He was also interested in Latin and published a seven-volume set of modern stories translated into Latin which he called the “Mount Hope Classics.”
Prentice was a member of the Century for forty-seven years. After he retired, in 1924, he came to the Club very seldom. He was a quiet, modest man, friendly and comfortable to be with.
Integer vitae scelerisque purus.
George W. Martin
1956 Century Association Yearbook