Yardley Chittick

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Charles Yardley Chittick (born October 22, 1900 in Newark, New Jersey) has for several years been the oldest living patent attorney in the United States. Yardley is also the oldest living member of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity.

Chittick is a graduate of Phillips Academy (while there he got into a scuffle with fellow student and future actor Humphrey Bogart after he refused to polish Humphrey Bogart's shoes) and MIT, although he did not graduate from high school. [1] [2] While a student at MIT, he was elected captain of the one-mile relay track team. [3] Chittick was once offered a job by Thomas Edison but turned it down. He said Edison gave him a 150-question test before offering him the job. A few years ago, he said he asked for a copy of the test from the Thomas Edison Museum and was shown the original with Edison's handwriting in the margins.^[1]

Chittick became registered as a patent attorney on February 1, 1934. [4] He was admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court on September 20, 1950. [5]

He was married twice and had two sons. [6] His first marriage ended in divorce, which involved a lawsuit that went to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court based on a dispute over a complex settlement and the validity of a divorce filed in the U.S. Virgin Islands. [7]

Chittick was the first recipient of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity's Beta Centenarian award in 2003. He attends the annual Beta Theta Pi convention and is annually honored for his lifetime achievement, regularly taking the podium to sing the Massachusetts Institute of Technology fight song "Take Me Back to Tech".

Chittick now lives at the Pleasant View Retirement Community in Concord, New Hampshire, adjacent to St. Paul's School. He makes occasional appearances at the nearby Franklin Pierce Law Center, which is recognized for its strong patent program, and which awarded Chittick an honorary degree in 2005.