Arthur H. Masten

It is so long since Arthur Haynesworth Masten had, because of failing health, ceased to be a familiar figure at the Century, that he will not be so vivid a remembrance to the present Club-house generation as to the generation past. There was a time when Masten’s cheerful personality with the pleasant eyes and the close-cropped beard, his cordial greeting, easy and reminiscent conversation, his absorbing interest in the Club’s affairs, were known to every Centurion. He was one of the most efficient and highly-esteemed of Admissions committee chairmen; in which always difficult office he guided the policy of that committee with the soundest judgment, drawing wisely the line between applicants for membership of the genuinely “amateur” description and applicants who had no claim to it.

Masten was a well-known New York lawyer; as master in chancery, he had successfully handled some of the most intricate corporation cases of the Nineties. He was an active figure in the “draft board” of war-time and, along with all these up-to-date duties, he was personally absorbed in the work of the New York Historical Society, of which he was a high officer and whose investigations interested him deeply. But the older Century membership will remember Masten for himself.

Alexander Dana Noyes
1936 Century Association Yearbook