Inducted in 2025
Co-Founder, Fordham Student Media
Co-Founder, Fordham Speech and Debate
Biographer of Our Founder
Journalist; Author
Cryptographer
 

In every decade of the Prep’s long and storied past, there have been students who stand out — and not just for their accomplishments, academic or otherwise. They stand out because these students keep the Fordham Prep spirit alive. Their cheers are the loudest, their applause the most thunderous, and their devotion to the Long Maroon Line the deepest. As much as any prudent administrator, inspirational teacher, or generous benefactor, these are the men who have kept the Prep alive for nearly two centuries. After all, a school without a soul is just another pile of bricks and books.

From the early days of Old St. John’s Second Division, however, the first generations of the Prep’s more than 20,000 alumni always hold a special place in our institutional memory. These were the young men who started it all — who kindled the torch of school spirit. From their cohort, we honor the evereloquent John Rose Greene Hassard, Class of 1855. Through his love of Fordham, his keen intellect, his deep faith, and, yes, his unquenchable teenage gumption, he helped shape the Fordham Prep experience we know today.

John Hassard was born on Houston Street in Manhattan on September 4, 1836, the son of Thomas Hassard, a civil engineer involved with railroad bridge construction, and Augusta Palmer Greene Hassard, a patroness of the arts from a well-established Massachusetts family. John was raised in New York as an Episcopalian and attended The Trinity School during his early years. As was tragically common in those days, his brother, Samuel, passed away young, and another brother, David, died in infancy. There also seems to have been older half-siblings from his father’s first marriage.

John converted to Catholicism early in his teenage years, of his own volition — a difficult decision in those days when anti-Catholic sentiment was rife. Inspired by her son’s devotion to his newfound faith, John’s mother would become a Catholic.

An extraordinarily bright young man with a love for the sacramental life of the Church, the Manhattanite found his way up to the Bronx to continue his education at Fordham Prep and University, the premier Catholic institution in the area, known in those days as St. John’s College in Fordham, New York.

The distinction between high school and college were not as clear cut in the mid-19th century as they are today, and so, it seems, Hassard was able to complete his Second Division (Prep) and First Division (College) work simultaneously, even being permitted to skip full years of study, according to one biographer. Sometime during the 1854-1855 school year, young Hassard completed what we would call his Prep years and received his bachelor’s degree in 1855 at the top of his class.

Hassard was among a core of intellectual, loyal, and headstrong young men who forged what would become some of the school’s most enduring traditions.

All student journalism at Rose Hill, for instance, dates to 1853 and the school’s first publication, The Goose Quill. The president of the school at the time, Rev. John Larkin, SJ, had very conservative ideas about journalism, and refused to support any official periodicals. Undeterred, Hassard and his classmates Arthur Francis and fellow Prep Hall of Honor inductee, Martin T. McMahon, produced a handwritten document (hence the title) under the pseudonym of “Ham,” and published it by posting it monthly in the Reading Room. Fr. Larkin was not amused — though eventually gave his grudging approval.

Beyond journalism, Hassard and McMahon were inaugural officers of the St. John’s Debating Society, making the Fordham Prep Speech and Debate Team, its direct descendant, one of the oldest institutions on campus. The topic of their first debate: “Is the pen mightier than the sword.” Hassard would also have been among the young men who chose the team’s motto: “Πολεμέω φίλως καὶ νικάω,” or “I fight fairly in a friendly manner and I win” — still in use by Prep debaters today.

After graduation, Hassard remained at Fordham, receiving his master’s degree in 1857, and intended to study for the priesthood. Repeated health issues, however, helped him to discern that his calling in life lay elsewhere, and so, Hassard took a post as secretary to Fordham’s founder, fellow Hall of Honor inductee, Bishop John Hughes.

Hassard remained in Hughes’ service until His Excellency passed away in 1864. Hassard wrote “Dagger John’s” official biography, copies of which are proudly maintained by the Prep and University libraries. Hassard had begun to pen articles for the American Cyclopedia, and later held various positions in media, including literary editor at the New York Tribune, editor of Catholic World, and assistant to Charles A. Dana, eminent journalist and editor and part owner of the New York Sun. By the early 1870s, he would be back at The Tribune, serving first as managing editor, but eventually gaining notoriety as literary and music critic, becoming one of the voices that helped popularize the works of Richard Wagner in this country.

Hassard authored several books, including A Pickwickian Pilgrimage (a tour of the settings of the works of Charles Dickens), a biography of Pope Pius IX, and A History of the United States, which became the standard social studies textbook in Catholic schools across the country.

In 1872, he married Isabella Eugenia Hargous, an alumna of the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Manhattan. She was sister of one of John’s contemporaries from his Fordham years, Peter Hargous, and would be remembered as a benefactress of Catholic institutions.

In addition to his literary accomplishments, Hassard earned a footnote in American politics during the contentious 1876 election as the decipherer of coded telegrams that were an attempt to tip the close election. Hassard seems to have paid the price for his high-pressure (if short-lived) career as a cryptographer with his health — the stress exacerbated a childhood respiratory condition. Despite winter travels to the warmer climes of Jamaica, California, and the South of France, and summers spent in the fresh air of the Adirondacks, he never fully recovered.

John Rose Greene Hassard passed away on April 18, 1888. Isabella was at his side.

On the twenty-fifth anniversary of his passing, fellow Hall of Honor inductee James Walsh, Class of 1880, would recall the life and times of his Maroon brother in The New Catholic World, remembering Hassard as “one of Fordham’s contributions of the better part of the life of New York City.” Of Hassard’s character he would write: “an extremely quiet and peaceful man, and yet, when aroused, he was well capable of fighting out a question very thoroughly, especially when the question involved was one that touched him deeply. This was particularly true of religious bigotry and prejudice.”