100 



TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY 



CHARLES PIERPONT PUNCHARD, JR. 



A MINUTE ON HIS LIFE AND SERVICE 



Charles Pierpont Punchard, Jr., Land- 

 scape Architect, Landscape Engineer to 

 the National Park Service, and a Mem- 

 ber of the American Society of Land- 

 scape Architects, died at his home in 

 Denver, Colorado, on November 12, 1920, 

 in his thirty-sixth year. 



He was born in Framingham Center, 

 Massachusetts, June 3, 1885, the son of 

 Charles Pierpont and Mattie Frost 

 (Blanchard) Punchard. He was of old 

 New England stock, the first Punchard 

 in this country having come from Dev- 

 onshire, England, with John Endicott's 

 company and settled in Salem. He at- 

 tended school in Framingham till the age 

 of fifteen ; and then, when his family re- 

 moved to Brookline. attended high school 

 there until in 1901 at the age of sixteen 

 he entered the office of his uncle, Wil- 

 liam H. Punchard, Landscape Architect, 

 with whom he got his first professional 

 training. In fact, he was associated with 

 his uncle for eight years, at the end of 

 which, the firm being then Punchard & 

 Negus, he was urged by Mr. Negus to 

 apply for admission as a Special Student 

 to the Harvard course in Landscape 

 Architecture. For two years he studied 

 Landscape Architecture at Harvard 

 where his clear head, sound judgment, 

 and his natural response to the beautiful 

 in art, as well as in nature, coupled with 

 his characteristic conscientiousness and 

 devotion, enabled him to stand high in 

 all his work. By his fellow-workers he 

 was respected for his practical knowl- 

 edge, and was beloved by all because of 

 his winning personality. Not holding a 

 Bachelor's degree he could not become a 



candidate for the professional degree of 

 [Master in Landscape Architecture from 

 the Harvard School, though he did, at 

 the time he left, have a very large meas- 

 ure of the professional equipment of a 

 graduate. 



During this period of work in the Har- 

 vard School, he had formed a friendship 

 with Frederick Noble Evans. They 

 formed a partnership under the firm 

 name of Evans & Punchard, and in the 

 fall of 1911 opened an office in Cleve- 

 land, Ohio, for the all-round practice of 

 the profession. The new firm prospered 

 and extended its practice widely, even to 

 the Pacific Coast. About April 1, 1913, 

 however, when Evans was in California, 

 Charles, as a result of a cold caught on 

 a professional trip, contracted a serious 

 throat-disorder and was obliged to quit 

 work and go to a sanitarium at Colorado 

 Springs. Professor Evans, in a letter to 

 the writer under date of December 22, 

 1920, writes of Charles as follows: 



"I saw ill Charles a personality which com- 

 l)incd in an unusual way professional skill and 

 keen judgment and likable manly qualities. 

 The proposition of going with me to Cleve- 

 land appealed to him, and we opened an office 

 in the Scliofield Building at a time when the 

 term "Landscape Architect" required explana- 

 tion after an introduction there. As I had cal- 

 culated, his experience in handling details of 

 field work and measured drawings for con- 

 struction proved invaluable to us and from 

 him I learned a great deal. He worked with 

 a speed and exactness and a neatness in pre- 

 sentation that one finds inspiration in thinking 

 of. It was always a pleasure to introduce him 

 to personal and business friends, because these 

 invariably were glad to claim him as a friend 

 thereafter. The necessity of making his own 

 way to a great extent and of making his own 



