Francis R. Arnold

Francis Rose Arnold was the oldest resident member of the Century, his continuous term of membership dating from 1866 and exceeding by two and four years respectively the records of such comparatively young recruits as Mr. Henry Holt and Mr. George Haven Putnam. Mr. Arnold’s successful mercantile career had the somewhat unusual introduction of a doctor of philosophy degree at Bonn and Heidelberg. It was the unhappy fortune of his long and prosperous life to be overclouded by family tragedy of a peculiarly distressing kind. The disappearance of Dorothy Arnold in New York City, and the absence of the slightest clue to the mystery after twelve years of unremitting search throughout the United States and Europe, became in a way the news sensation of the time. The heartbreaking strain was undoubtedly one cause for Mr. Arnold’s retirement from active life; even the Century saw him seldom during recent years.

Alexander Dana Noyes
1923 Century Association Yearbook