In the spring of 1952, allegations of police brutality swept the Harvard campus, following the arrest of 28 undergraduates who were charged with disturbing the peace. The students were detained after they hosted a rally in Harvard Square, mocking the upcoming presidential election and declaring Pogo the Possum, the main character in a popular comic strip, their favored candidate.

The author of the Pogo strip was set to speak at Harvard that evening, and the crowd swelled to over 1,600, causing something of a police panic. Though all charges against the students were eventually dismissed, the incident came to be known as the “Pogo Riots.”

Despite the acquittal, many undergraduates still felt that the officers had been unduly harsh, and the incident fostered lingering resentment toward the city’s police.

So years later, one of the Harvard students on campus that day—former Adams House resident Francis H. Duehay ’55—decided to ensure that his fellow classmates got the last laugh.

Duehay had remained in Cambridge after graduation, but had taken on a new role—serving on the Cambridge City Council, where he would remain for almost 30 years, with several short stints in the mayoral seat.

As Warren M. Little ’55 fondly recalls, Duehay used his power as the mayor of Cambridge to absolve the students of any charges of wrongdoing at the Class of 1955’s 25th reunion in 1980.

The Class, according to Little, was cheered by the news, and applauded the late move towards reconciliation.

While perhaps not Duehay’s most significant achievement, this absolution was one of many bridges between Duehay’s life as a Harvard student and his later career as a prominent Cambridge politician.

“Frank is one of these level-headed individuals who can see both sides to a problem and then present solutions,” Little says. “He thinks things through, but he acts so that everybody wins.”

This level-headed personality, along with what many call his “gentlemanly” demeanor, helped Duehay throughout his 36-year career in public service.

“I think that he was the yin and yang of [Harvard and Cambridge],” says Cambridge’s current mayor, Michael A. Sullivan.

THE PAWN AND THE CASTLE

Duehay was born in Somerville, but moved to Cambridge when he was eight years old.

“The schools were much better in Cambridge, and I was behind, and I had to work very hard to catch up to where the Cambridge schools were,” Duehay says.

But despite the difficulty, Duehay caught up, graduating near the top of his class and going on to Harvard.