Geoffrey Chaucer, the mascot of the senior class, was handed down to each succeeding senior class. This tradition was started in 1904 and lasted until the 1960’s, when Sir Geoffrey retired.

The genesis of the toy bear is of some dispute, but the birthplace of the phrase “teddy bear” clearly dates to a bear-hunting expedition that President Theodore Roosevelt took in 1902 in Onward, Miss. As the story goes, newspapers reported that Roosevelt’s guide knocked a black bear unconscious and tied him to a tree, but Roosevelt refused to shoot it. Impressed, a Brooklyn candy storeowner, Morris Michtom, made the teddy bear in the President’s honor. (The New York Times, September 1928)