John B. G. Rinehart Dies at 77; Original Butt of Famous Shout

John Bryce Gordon Rinehart, the legendary recluse whose name has been shouted across the Yard by succeeding generations of University men, died Saturday in Waynesburg, Pa. at the age of 77.

According to legend, Rinehart habitually stood below his window at Greys Hall in the evenings and shouted up "Oh Rinehart" in the hope of impressing other undergraduates with his popularity. In truth, legend says, he had no friends.

After living with the legend for 36 years, Rinehart returned to the University in September, 1936, as a guest speaker at the tercentenary celebration. There he told his version of the story.

Rinehart said that he was in his room in the spring of 1900 when friends began calling him from the walk below. He ignored the cries until Frank Simmonds, a freshman in Matthews, joined the shouting. "Almost immediately," Rinehart said, "the Yard became a bedlam as the shouts rose into a chant, and the cry caught the fancy of the undergraduates."

From the Yard the cry spread. In Singapore former undergraduates were in the habit of greeting each other by calling "Rinehart." The more familiar Grand Central Station often reverberated with cries of "Rinehart" during the 30's, and riot once started in the Taft Hotel the day of the Yale game when a Mr. Rinehart was paged by a bellboy.

The Rinehart cry became an official University legend in 1936 when it was included in Samuel Eliot Morison's "Three Centuries at Harvard," published by the Harvard University Press in honor of the tercentary.

Rinehart came to the University as a law student, in the days in which graduate students lived in the Yard. A graduate of Waynesburg College, he returned to Waynesburg several years ago, after retiring from the practice of law.