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 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 OP CALIF. LIBRARY, LOS ANGELES
 
 .LEAZAR WHEELOCK WAS A VERY 
 
 PIOUS MAN; 
 HE WENT INTO THE WILDERNESS 
 
 TO TEACH THE INDIAN, 
 WITH A GRADUS AD PARNASSUM, A 
 
 BIBLE AND A DRUM, 
 AND FIVE HUNDRED GALLONS OF 
 
 NEW ENQLAND RUM. " 
 
 - DARTMOUTH COLLSCI SOHG -
 
 
 
 President's House 
 Frontispiece
 
 BY 
 
 WILDER DWIGHT QUINT 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY 
 
 JOHN ALBERT SEAFORD 
 
 BOSTON 
 LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 
 
 1914
 
 Copyright, 1914, 
 BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. 
 
 All rights reserved 
 Published, October, 1914 
 
 THE COLONIAL PRESS 
 C. H. SIMONDS CO., BOSTON, tT. S.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 I HAVE to acknowledge gratefully my indebted- 
 ness in writing this " Story of Dartmouth " to the 
 remarkable " History of Dartmouth College, Volume 
 I," by the late Frederick Chase, and the equally 
 excellent " History of Dartmouth College, Volume 
 II," by John K. Lord. Other useful and interesting 
 material I have found in the Rev. Francis Brown's 
 " Origins of Dartmouth College; " Professor Charles 
 F. Emerson's historical sketch introductory to the 
 Dartmouth General Catalogue of 1911; " The Dart- 
 mouth Roll of Honor," by Redington and Hodgkins; 
 " Dartmouth Athletics," by John H. Bartlett, '94; 
 Dr. W. T. Smith's " Hanover Forty Years Ago; " 
 Crosby's " First Half Century of Dartmouth Col- 
 lege " and various letters, diaries, and magazines. 
 
 w. D. Q. 
 
 October i, 
 
 21 ru 98
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 :HAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. " The Indian Charity School "... i 
 
 II. The Evolution 17 
 
 III. " Vox Clamantis in Deserto " . . 32 
 
 IV. Getting Under Way 40 
 
 V. The Reign of the Crown Prince . . 63 
 
 VI. The Great " Case " .... 88 
 
 VII. Dana and Tyler . .... 115 
 
 VIII. Nathan Lord and his " Young Gentlemen " 127 
 
 IX. The "Dartmouth Roll of Honor" . .150 
 
 X. The First City President . . . .166 
 
 XI. The Man of Iron 183 
 
 XII. The Great Awakening 199 
 
 XIII. " The Old Traditions " .... 222 
 
 XIV. " Dartmouth Out-O'-Doors "... 239 
 XV. What Men Do at Dartmouth . . .255 
 
 XVI. Why Men Go to Dartmouth . . .268 
 Index 281
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 President's House Frontispiece 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 Rollins Chapel 20 
 
 The Old Bridge 32 
 
 Dartmouth Hall 74 
 
 College Church 90 
 
 Wheeler Hall 106 
 
 Webster Hall 114 
 
 Hanover Inn 130 
 
 North Massachusetts Hall 166 
 
 The Tower 188 
 
 College Hall 204 
 
 Tuck Hall 210 
 
 Wilson Hall (Library) 240 
 
 The Alumni Gymnasium 252 
 
 Reed and Bartlett Halls 264 
 
 Observatory Slope 272
 
 THE 
 
 STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 ON the evening of February 6, 1766, an oddly 
 assorted pair of Americans reached London, 
 the great Babylon of its day, after a seventeen-hour 
 coach ride from Salisbury. Since the twenty-third 
 of December, the two had been on their journey 
 from Boston, in the far-away colony of Massachu- 
 setts. Neptune and Aeolus had played them scurvy 
 tricks. Their passage in the ship Boston Packet, 
 Captain John Marshall, toward the cost of which 
 John Hancock, one of the ship owners, had remitted 
 five pounds, had been sufficiently trying to men of 
 little marine experience; to add exasperation to 
 physical ill-being, an easterly gale had kept them 
 from port for twenty-two days, and within two 
 hundred miles of Land's End. But on February 3 
 they were landed at Brixam in a fishing-boat. 
 
 By horses' backs and coaches they made their 
 
 1
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 way to the metropolis, reaching it when oil wicks 
 were guttering in the street lamps, and torches 
 flaring as the link-boys rushed hither and thither, 
 like the saucy young imps of darkness they were. 
 That the travelers from America were confused, 
 startled, and astounded may be taken for granted, 
 but need not be; their letters and diaries give notable 
 testimony to the perturbed state of their feelings 
 at being projected into London life for the first 
 time. 
 
 These men could and did attract the attention 
 of the London crowds, even at a time when it was 
 the fashion to pretend a cool indifference to any- 
 thing but the doings of the " Macaroni." Samson 
 Occom, the older of the two, was a full-blooded 
 Mohegan Indian from Connecticut. With his 
 lithe, athletic figure, his strong, copper-tinted face, 
 his straight black hair hanging over his shoulders, 
 his broad, white bib-tie and sober clerical clothes, 
 he made a picture of contradiction that caught the 
 eye of serious and frivolous alike. 
 
 Occom's companion, Nathaniel Whitaker, was 
 tall, handsome, and distinguished in bearing. He, 
 too, was a man of God of that robust and somewhat 
 quarrelsome type that New England produced so 
 prodigally in the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- 
 turies. He was a Princeton College Presbyterian,
 
 'THE INDIAN CHARITY SCHOOL" 
 
 and destined later to raise his voice in fiery denun- 
 ciation of Toryism; to squabble with his people 
 in every pastorate he held; to be accused of trying 
 to " corner " the wine and raisin market in Nor- 
 wich, Connecticut, while a pastor there, and to be 
 called by the historian of that town " a worldly 
 man and frequently irregular." Possibly the Rev- 
 erend Mr. Whitaker was a too-jaunty shepherd for 
 Puritan flocks; but his qualities certainly gave him 
 efficiency for his London mission. 
 
 Samson Occom, " the glory of the Indian nation," 
 and Nathaniel Whitaker, of more doubtful glory, 
 had come to London to stir up subscriptions for the 
 " Indian Charity School," located in Lebanon, 
 Connecticut, and the direct ancestor of Dartmouth 
 College. This institution was owned and conducted 
 by Eleazar Wheelock, Yale 1733, already a noted 
 pulpiteer, pamphleteer, controversialist, and edu- 
 cator. The pilgrims were accredited to George 
 Whitefield, that flaming sword of Zion, who knew 
 Wheelock well and was eager to help him in his 
 great plans for educating and then Christianizing 
 the young savages of the eastern border of America. 
 As a matter of fact though they themselves could 
 not have known it they were on their way to 
 the highly respectable and God-fearing nobleman 
 who was to give his name to the collegiate child of 
 
 3
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 Eleazar Wheelock's mind and heart. After Whee- 
 lock, the " Great Awakening," the American Indian, 
 and the British peerage formed the trio most influ- 
 ential in the founding of Dartmouth. 
 
 These American ambassadors from the learned 
 Connecticut parson and school-teacher spent their 
 first somewhat disturbed night in London at the 
 house of Dennis De Berdt, a rich merchant who 
 had been in correspondence with Wheelock through 
 Whitefield's influence. The next morning they 
 were taken to the house of the revivalist, afterward 
 being provided with a furnished house hard by the 
 Temple through his generous effort for their com- 
 fort. 
 
 Evidently Whitefield had long held prophetic 
 vision of the Earl of Dartmouth as one who would 
 listen to the Macedonian call from Wheelock and 
 his Indians; that if he would not go over and help 
 them, he would at least provide some of the sinews 
 for the holy war and induce others to do the same. 
 The Americans had been in London hardly a week 
 before he arranged a meeting with the peer, who was 
 at that time First Lord of Trade and Plantations 
 and afterward (1772) Secretary of State for the 
 Colonies. Says Occom in his diary: " Monday, 
 Febru' loth, Mr. Whitefield took Mr. Whitaker 
 and I in his Coach and Introduced us to my Lord 
 
 4
 
 "THE INDIAN CHARITY SCHOOL" 
 
 Dartmouth, and he apear'd like a Worthy Lord 
 indeed Mr. Whitefield says he is a Christian Lord 
 and an uncommon one." l 
 
 But Occom's naive approval of the second Earl 
 of Dartmouth did not extend to Londoners en masse. 
 " Last Sabbath Evening," continues the diary, " I 
 walk'd with Mr. Wright to Cary a letter to my 
 Lord Dartmouth and Saw Such Confution as I 
 never dreamt of, there was some at Churches Sing- 
 ing p'g and Preaching, in the Streets Some Cursing, 
 Swearing and Damming one another, others was 
 holloaing, Whestling, talking, gigling, and Laugh- 
 ing, and Coaches and footmen passing and repass- 
 ing, Crossing and Cress-Crossing, and the poor 
 Begers Praying Crying and Beging up on their 
 Knees." 
 
 Of the two, Whitaker was the more practised 
 man of the world. It is not on record that any of 
 the sights of London, either sacred or profane, hurt 
 his sensibilities in any way. He knew that his 
 mission was to raise money, and he realized the 
 
 1 That closing statement, while evidently written in sober earnest 
 by the Indian minister, was the cause of tremendous hilarity when 
 quoted by Professor Francis Brown in his address, The Origins of Dart- 
 month College, at the proceedings incident to the laying of the corner- 
 stone of the new Dartmouth Hall, October 26, 1904. The sixth Earl 
 of Dartmouth, who was seated on the platform, was the first to see the 
 joke, and his roars of laughter belied the reputation of his countrymen 
 as to quick appreciation of humor. 
 
 5
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 value of a friend in high places. With all his ap- 
 parent lack of tact Whitefield termed him " for- 
 ward," but admitted that he was " certainly very 
 indefatigable " - he was a good promoter and 
 doubtless knew something of the science of adver- 
 tising, since Occom soon became quite the rage in 
 London, where he was mimicked on the stage. The 
 Mohegan preacher " little thought," he wrote, " I 
 should ever come to that honor." But if the un- 
 godly played upon his fame, the godly did some- 
 thing to atone therefor by naming a popular new 
 hymn-tune Lebanon in honor of his American place 
 of residence, and by singing his own hymn, Awaked 
 by Sinai's Awjul Sound, which is still in use in some 
 of our church collections. 
 
 Lord Dartmouth's favor having been won, to- 
 gether with an initial subscription of fifty pounds 
 for the Indian Charity School, the road to success 
 was well opened. Under date of March 19, 1766, 
 Whitaker wrote to Wheelock: 
 
 " Mr. Whitefield is entirely friendly, and by his 
 friendship I have my Lord Dartmouth's, so our 
 way to the throne is very short. The kg. hath not 
 seen Air. Occom as yet because of this plagy stamp 
 act. But now thats all over I expect he will see him 
 as soon as Mr. Occom is well of ye smallpox, which 
 tis likely will be in 8 or 10 days. The K. has prom- 
 
 6
 
 'THE INDIAN CHARITY SCHOOL" 
 
 ised 4OO-/ace, when this is done and comes to 
 be known; then the carnal Presbyterians will be 
 obliged to follow, as well as the Church folks." 
 
 The king finally gave two hundred pounds, and 
 there is a poetically pleasing, but unconfirmed tra- 
 dition that Occom preached before the royal George. 
 However, it is known that the Indian and his clerical 
 manager met the Archbishop of Canterbury, who 
 then seemed friendly enough, though he afterward 
 observed that " as the Dissenters did not help us, 
 neither will we help them," and the Bishop of 
 Gloucester, who, as Whitaker notes, " would not 
 give us a penny nor ask us to sit down! " As a 
 matter of fact, the hostility of the established church 
 toward the Connecticut enterprise grew marked 
 as time went on. 
 
 But Dartmouth's patronage was powerful enough 
 to overcome many sneers and even threats by 
 others. With it came the interest of Robert Keen, 
 a woolen-draper who was generous to the cause, 
 and John Thornton, a rich Clapham merchant, 
 whose portrait, now in possession of the college, 
 presents a perfect picture of the bluff, stormy, big- 
 hearted father of the Old Comedies. 
 
 Thornton was an eccentric genius, with a penchant 
 for giving away money that would have brought a 
 less wealthy man to the almshouse. He would lend 
 
 7
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 large sums to young tradesmen without security; 
 he would amuse himself by buying church livings 
 and making gifts of them to struggling clergymen; 
 he would publish religious books at his own expense 
 and send them all over the world in his ships. To 
 a man of his temperament, the Indian Charity 
 School idea, with its substratum of religious prose- 
 lyting, must have appealed strongly. The redskin 
 preacher, who was so great a factor in the money- 
 raising because " he was himself the embodiment 
 of his cause," was a better argument for Thornton 
 than a dozen polished exhorters could possibly have 
 been. 
 
 Occom's activity, doubtless kept warm by Whit- 
 aker's superior energy and sense of publicity values, 
 was extraordinary. During their stay in Great 
 Britain, he preached over three hundred sermons, 
 and so well did he comport himself in the pulpit 
 that he aroused visions of a great- conversion of the 
 Indian race. He had something of the redskin's 
 native eloquence and imagination, and he was 
 practical enough to know that he wanted money 
 and to ask for it. Contributions flowed in. All 
 sorts and conditions of men and women, from the 
 throne to the peasant's farmhold, gave to this 
 strange, new cause. There were twenty-five hundred 
 names on the final list, and not the least appealing 
 
 8
 
 to the Dartmouth of to-day are the entries: "A 
 Widow, 55 " and " Two Widows, ros. 6d." l 
 
 Before coming across the sea on their quest of 
 gold, Whitaker and Occom had been warned of the 
 not too Christian animosities that lay between the 
 two great missionary societies of London and of 
 Edinburgh, " The Society for the Propagation of 
 the Gospel in Foreign Parts " and " The Society in 
 Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge." 
 Wheelock had received money from each for his 
 Lebanon school and had diplomatically kept peace 
 between their Boston branches. It was Whitaker's 
 business to do the same in England, and he seems 
 to have been fairly successful. Even Whitefield 
 counseled deception; Whitaker must wholly dis- 
 avow any connection with the Scotch Board, for 
 Lord Dartmouth himself " would by no means lift 
 for it " and he did it like a gentleman while 
 below the Scottish border. 
 
 In Scotland, where the two later made a success- 
 ful tour, it was a different story. At Edinburgh, 
 the Scotch Society made a proposition to assume 
 the complete patronage of the Indian Charity 
 School, promising more subscriptions if Wheelock 
 
 1 Among the earlier gifts in America to the Indian Charity School 
 was one marked as coming from Benedict Arnold, Esq., amounting to 
 " a large proportion of the profits of a venture which he sent to sea." 
 
 9
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 would give up the English allegiance. Wheelock's 
 worldly sense thought the scheme " worth consid- 
 ering, as perhaps we can control both, and so have 
 two strings to the bow." The Scotch Society did, 
 in fact, become the trustee of the collections made 
 in Scotland, and to this day has a fund for " cloth- 
 ing, boarding and maintaining such Indians as are 
 designed for missionaries and schoolmasters " at 
 Dartmouth, which moneys they do not know how 
 to use. 1 
 
 After the Scotch tour, the two propagandists 
 thought of Ireland as a fertile field for their labors, 
 and went across the channel. But here Whitaker 
 found that for once he had been overreached in 
 enterprise, and that one Morgan Edwards was there 
 gathering in the pounds and shillings for a " Bap- 
 tist college to be set up in Rhode Island " (after- 
 ward Brown University). Whitaker honorably left 
 the ground to his predecessor, and he and his pro- 
 tege returned to England by the next ship. . 
 
 In truth, neither Wheelock nor the friends of the 
 Indian Charity School had any cause to complain 
 of the results thus far attained. By the autumn of 
 1766, the English fund amounted to five thousand 
 
 1 The last Indian graduate of Dartmouth was Charles A. Eastman, 
 of the class of 1887, the Sioux who is now well known as a physician 
 and author. 
 
 10
 
 "THE INDIAN CHARITY SCHOOL" 
 
 pounds, a goodly sum for that day. So goodly was 
 it that many of the donors began to grow restless. 
 How was it to be administered and by whom? 
 Was a man in distant America, whom not one of 
 them had ever seen, to be given control of so much ? 
 Who knew that Whitaker would turn it over intact 
 to Wheelock. The demand for a board of trustees 
 began to be heard. At first neither Lord Dart- 
 mouth nor Whitefield favored the plan. They had 
 implicit faith in Wheelock and believed that all the 
 money should be placed in his hands, he to make 
 immediately a will that should provide for the 
 fund's use in the event of his death and for naming 
 of a successor. " You must immediately make your 
 will and fix your Successor, to give him the monies 
 in trust for the School," Whitaker sent word to 
 him. 
 
 Wheelock wrote that this was satisfactory, and 
 that he would name Whitaker as his Elisha. It was 
 probably a happy circumstance that the mantle was 
 not so to fall. Whitaker's subsequent career was 
 not such as to suggest a very pleasing picture of 
 him as president of Dartmouth College, although 
 he might have been the cause of no more trouble 
 than was Wheelock's own son, as will appear later. 
 
 However, the trusteeship scheme won ground 
 rapidly. In June, Whitaker, who scented the com- 
 
 11
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 ing bondage, wrote to his chief: " A charter is not 
 necessary the most of the Societies here are self- 
 formed and yet some have very large funds, yet I 
 will try to obtain a charter, if friends will agree 
 but I know you will object that it will tie your 
 hands. The Serious here are sick of trusts." 
 
 The last sentence has a curiously modern sound. 
 , The " Serious " are still with us. 
 
 Returning to London from a tour of the western 
 counties of England, which proved to be a com- 
 forting money-getter, Whitaker and Occom found 
 that the trust had been arranged and its nine mem- 
 bers chosen. Lord Dartmouth was president; the 
 jovial plutocrat, John Thornton, was to handle the 
 finances, and Robert Keen was to be the secretary. 
 It was a strong board, hardly to be bettered through- 
 out the whole of England in its neat balance of 
 varied humans and their diverse influences. Whit- 
 aker surrendered to it at once, as indeed he knew 
 he must, and Wheelock a little later, though with 
 many pangs, for he feared that the absent treat- 
 ment his little institution might receive from 
 trustees thousands of miles away might make his 
 work futile. But he knew when to yield diplomat- 
 ically. " The gentlemen of y e Trust," he wrote to 
 Whitaker, November 28, 1767, " shewed a laudable 
 and Christian Integrity toward y e Redeemer's 
 
 12
 
 "THE INDIAN CHARITY SCHOOL" 
 
 cause as y e matter appeared to them I never 
 blamed them so much as in a tho't." 
 
 The work of the Mohegan minister and his tireless 
 protector was now nearing its end. The freshness 
 of Occom's personal appeal was wearing away, and 
 there were signs that the movement was going 
 stale. Unfortunately, too, the almost inevitable 
 scandal accompanying the raising of educational 
 funds in those days made its appearance here. It 
 came from a misunderstanding, but had an ugly 
 look for a time. It appears that Wheelock, believing 
 that the disposal of all the moneys collected would 
 be by his own hands, had written Whitaker early in 
 1766: 
 
 You are hereby empowered to remit in goods, to 
 the amount of two or three, thousand pounds lawful 
 money, for the Supply of the Indian Charity School 
 under my care and for the missionaries, from time to 
 time, upon the credit of the donations given in Europe 
 for that purpose, and to assure the merchants of whom 
 you have said goods, that upon your advice of them 
 I will draw orders upon persons in whose hands the 
 donations are for the payment of the same. 
 
 That seemed fair and well; the trouble was that 
 the trustees, when they came into power, were not 
 informed of the plan. Opening some letters to 
 Whitaker from a Mr. Eells, a friend and co-worker 
 
 13
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 of Wheelock's, they found various mention of this 
 plan. They at once thought they scented a swindle, 
 dishonored one of Wheelock's drafts that came over 
 about that time, and sent him this stinging rebuke: 
 
 MR. ELEAZAR WHEELOCK. 
 
 REV. SIR, We must acknowledge we have been 
 very much alarmed at finding some clandestine deal- 
 ings betwixt the Rev. Mr. Eells, of Stonington, and 
 Mr. Whitaker, which had we been apprised of, we 
 should have declined accepting the trust; and we con- 
 sider it in such an iniquitous light that if it is not put 
 a stop to, we shall decline acting any further as trustees 
 for your school; which we desire therefore you would 
 see immediately done, and then we shall rejoice to give 
 you all the assistance we can. 
 
 Even the faithful Whitefield was furious. 
 
 " I think the scheme concocted with Mr. Eells 
 very iniquitous and exceedingly imprudent," he 
 wrote to Wheelock. - " How came you to draw so 
 many hundreds this last year, and why no account 
 of the disbursements? I hope no money is lodged 
 in traders' hands. If it is, it must be drawn out, 
 expended and accounted for, before any more is 
 transmitted." 
 
 Wheelock, acknowledging that the thing looked 
 " shocking " in its nakedness, was able to dress it 
 with such reasonable explanations that the trustees 
 
 14
 
 'THE INDIAN CHARITY SCHOOL" 
 
 were satisfied with his honesty. They continued to 
 mistrust Whitaker, however, and demanded that 
 Wheelock change his will, cutting out the suspected 
 parson from the succession and bequeathing every- 
 thing to the board of trustees in England, which 
 was to have a veto power over an American board 
 of eight. 
 
 Under the lash of necessity Wheelock acquiesced. 
 He writhed, for he had not the meekness of a pro- 
 verbial Moses; but his yielding was in the end a 
 blessing. And it is but fair to the English trustees 
 to say that they were ever sensible, liberal, and 
 decent toward Wheelock during the whole life of 
 the trust, which ended in 1775, when the collections 
 were all expended. Lord Dartmouth, if perhaps 
 regarded as something of a prig by the roaring, 
 stout-drinking, fox-hunting types of the British 
 nobility of his time, was a gentleman and a good 
 friend of America. He doubtless influenced the 
 other members of the board to fair treatment of the 
 Charity Indian School and its somewhat irascible 
 preceptor. 
 
 In April, 1768, the Charity School collectors sailed 
 for home, arriving at Boston in eight weeks. They 
 had easier weather, and their spirits were high. 
 No wonder. In their two and a half years' pilgrim- 
 age they had been instrumental in getting together 
 
 15
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 for the glory of God and the conversion of the In- 
 dian over eleven thousand pounds. No school in 
 America had ever won so handsome an amount in 
 England. Wheelock's confidence in the drawing 
 power of Occom had been justified. His first pupil 
 had paid his debt many times over. 
 
 16
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE EVOLUTION 
 
 WHILE Samson Occom and Nathaniel Whit- 
 aker were tapping the English rocks and 
 bringing forth such pleasing streams of gold for the 
 Indian Charity School, Eleazar Wheelock was 
 wrestling mightily with the angel of discontent, 
 despite the fact that he had turned out some very 
 fair specimens of Anglicized and Christianized 
 Indians. One of these was Joseph Brant, the great 
 chief of later days and one of the ablest redskins 
 civilization ever produced. Others were Joseph 
 Woolley, David Fowler, and Hezekiah Calvin, all 
 three of whom had been sent out as missionary- 
 teachers to the Mohawks. They had the valuable 
 favor of Sir William Johnson, that picturesque 
 Irishman who lived in baronial style at Johnson 
 Hall in the Mohawk Valley and became a quasi- 
 lord of the manor to the Indians of the Six Nations 
 by reason of his tact, his fairness, and his infinite 
 knowledge of their language, thoughts, and habits. 
 
 17
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 In October, 1765, Wheelock's " boys " in the 
 field had one hundred and twenty-seven pupils all 
 told. One of Wheelock's white pupils, Samuel 
 Kirkland, who was to be the father of a president 
 of Harvard College, was already with the Oneidas 
 and doing splendid service so splendid that 
 Wheelock seems to have been jealous of his rising 
 fame, and at one time feared that the English board 
 would have been pleased to oust him from control 
 of the Charity School funds in favor of his young 
 graduate. 
 
 Wheelock saw with uneasiness that the Indian 
 teachers had not been so successful and that they 
 were not overmuch in love with their work. Fowler, 
 writing from " Canavarohaie in Oneida," under 
 date of June 15, 1765, thus aired his grievances: 
 
 This is the twelfth day since I began to keep my school, 
 and I have put eight of my scholars into the third page 
 of the spelling book. ... I never saw children exceed 
 these in learning. The number of my scholars is twenty- 
 six, when they are all present, but it is difficult to keep 
 them together; they are often roving about from place 
 to place to get something to live on. Provisions are very 
 scarce with them. I am also teaching a singing-school. 
 They take great pleasure in learning to sing; we can 
 already carry three parts of several tunes. ... I have 
 been treated very kindly since I came to this place. . . . 
 My cooks are as nasty as hogs, their clothes are black 
 and greasy as my shoes, their hands are as dirty as my 
 
 18
 
 THE EVOLUTION 
 
 feet; but they cleanse them by kneading bread. Their 
 hands will be clean after kneading three or four loaves 
 of bread. I am obliged to eat whatever they give me, for 
 fear they will be displeased with me. After this month I 
 shall try to clean some of them, for I must move along by 
 degrees. If I once get out with them, it is all over with 
 me. 
 
 Wheelock was coming to realize that Indian was 
 a poor mentor for Indian, and his dissatisfaction 
 grew with several fresh reverses in the field. Though 
 his training-school at Lebanon was prosperous 
 enough, he felt that the work of the kingdom lay 
 in the wilderness, and he saw that he was not get- 
 ting results. He had sent to the Onondagas his 
 oldest son, Ralph, who was now heir apparent by 
 the terms of the will changed at the order of the 
 English trustees. The fond father was singularly 
 misguided as to the character of his son, who lacked 
 everything that a missionary to the Indians should 
 have had in the way of tact, forbearance, and a 
 sense of justice, and who made redskin enemies 
 faster than the elder Wheelock could make friends. 
 Joseph Brant told a story of him that illustrates the 
 point. 
 
 One day, according to Brant, Ralph brusquely 
 ordered a Mohawk half-breed at the Lebanon school, 
 William (Major) by name, and an illegitimate son 
 
 19
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 of Sir William Johnson himself, to saddle his horse 
 for him. William refused on the ground that he 
 was not there for any such menial purpose, and that 
 he was a gentleman's son. 
 
 " Do you know what a gentleman is? " sneeringly 
 asked the young Wheelock. 
 
 " I do," promptly returned William, doubtless 
 with the picture of his titled father in mind. " A 
 gentleman is a person who keeps race-horses and 
 drinks Madeira wine; and that is what neither you 
 nor your father do. Therefore, saddle the horse 
 yourself." For this retort courteous, Ralph induced 
 Eleazar Wheelock to send William back to Johnson 
 as " too proud and litigious." This did not tend to 
 make the powerful lord of Johnson Hall any the 
 more pleased with the Wheelocks, though he had 
 for some time given them and their branch schools 
 great help in his domain. He had safeguarded their 
 native teachers and had even fed them from his 
 stores. But his favor was rapidly being alienated. 
 
 Ralph Wheelock's last trip to the Onondagas 
 was most disastrous. Upon his arrival, he found 
 Kirkland ill and just departing for Connecticut, 
 whereupon he bitterly attacked the missionary 
 before an Indian council, calling him " no more than 
 a servant of my father who is at the head of the 
 ministers of New England and known beyond the 
 
 20
 
 . 
 
 - 
 
 
 
 Rollins Chapel
 
 THE EVOLUTION 
 
 Great Water." He pompously boasted: " When he 
 dies, I shall succeed him and manage all the affairs 
 of instructing the Indians." 
 
 The redskins were angered beyond measure, both 
 because they hated Ralph and liked Kirkland. Ac- 
 cording to the narrative of " Indian Thomas ", this 
 was their answer, delivered by a chosen orator: 
 
 Brother, we heartily thank you that we now understand 
 the whole of your messages as you are come with the 
 word of God. You have spoken exceedingly well, very 
 sweet words indeed, as coming from the tongue from 
 whence we perceive you have spoken. But, brother, do 
 you think we are altogether ignorant of your methods 
 of instruction? [Then taking and shaking him by the 
 shoulder,] Why, brother, you are deceiving yourself! 
 We understand not only your speech but your manner of 
 teaching Indian. Brother, take care; you are too hasty 
 and strong in your manner of speaking before the children 
 and boys have any knowledge of your language. Why, 
 brother, if another hears my dog barking, or having hold 
 of a creature, and bids him get out and perhaps he don't 
 obey him immediately, not understanding the voice. 
 Upon which the stranger catches up a club and mauls 
 my dog. I shall resent it, because he is my dog. Brother, 
 I love my dog. What do you think of children, in like 
 case ? 
 
 Young Wheelock was " much affrighted ", says 
 " Indian Thomas ", who asked the speakers to 
 cease their shouting and yells of contempt. Finally, 
 
 21
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 as quiet was restored, came this gravely significant 
 remark from one of the tribe: 
 
 Brother, you must learn of the French ministers if you 
 would understand and know how to treat Indians. They 
 don't speak roughly, nor do they for every little mistake 
 take up a club and flog them. It seems to us that they 
 teach the word of God. They are very charitable, and 
 can't see those they instruct naked or hungry. 
 
 Never from an Indian 'mouth was there a more 
 pungent estimate of the difference between the 
 methods of the domineering English and those of 
 the suave, tactful French in the handling of the 
 essentially proud men of the forests. 
 
 This was the last exploit of Ralph Wheelock in 
 the role of enfant terrible, but it was sufficient to 
 estrange Sir William Johnson still further. It is 
 but just to the boy, however, to remember that even 
 at this time he was subject to epileptic attacks, 
 which later so wrecked his intellect that he was 
 put under guardianship and even kept a prisoner 
 at times. Disease shattered forever his dream of 
 succession. 
 
 But the final blow to Eleazar Wheelock's hopes of 
 establishing intimate Christian relations with the 
 Six Nations was dealt by the inept hand of another 
 of his emissaries. The story is picturesque. 
 
 In the summer of 1768, Wheelock, whose ears 
 
 22
 
 THE EVOLUTION 
 
 were keenly attuned to the public sounds that 
 might be of advantage to his enterprise, heard from 
 some Oneidas who visited him at Lebanon, of a 
 great council shortly to be held at Mount Johnson 
 under the auspices of Sir William. All the tribes 
 in this feudal lord's jurisdiction were to take part; 
 presents and plenteous rum were laid in stock, for 
 the intent was, as usual, to win something from the 
 Indians at small cost in this case land. The 
 Connecticut pedagogue believed that in the general 
 allotment he might be lucky enough to obtain a 
 grant at a new location for his Charity School he 
 was by now despairing of any further advance in 
 Connecticut. He decided to send an agent to the 
 congress, and finally picked Reverend Jacob W. 
 Johnson, of Groton. Never was choice of ambas- 
 sador more unfortunate. 
 
 At Fort Stanwix more than three thousand In- 
 dians had gathered in their most splendid panoply. 
 Their hosts, beside Sir William Johnson, were 
 Governor Franklin of New Jersey, and Governor 
 Penn of Pennsylvania, together with, according to 
 Chase, " a number more of great and wealthy gentle- 
 men from those provinces and from Virginia, with 
 a -great sum of gold and silver and numerous bat- 
 teaux of blankets and other goods; their purpose 
 being to obtain from the Indians the cession of a 
 
 23
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 large tract of their lands under cover of a settle- 
 ment of boundaries " in other words to swindle 
 them. 
 
 Upon his arrival at this extraordinary camp, 
 Reverend Mr. Johnson immediately proceeded to 
 attack the land cession scheme of the governors and 
 plutocrats. He voted himself counsel for the In- 
 dians and did his utmost to stir up among them 
 opposition to the plan. He " even had the face ", 
 wrote Sir William to General Gage, " in opposition 
 to his majesty's demands and the desire of the 
 colonies to memorial me, praying that the Indians 
 might not be allowed to give up far to the North 
 or to the West but to reserve it for the purposes of 
 Religion." 
 
 The Groton parson was very likely more scrupu- 
 lous in his attitude toward the Indians than were 
 the powerful negotiators for their lands, and he 
 may have been morally correct in opposing the 
 scheme of cession. But diplomatically he was 
 impossible. At once he aroused the hot enmity of 
 Sir William, and he managed to make a bad matter 
 worse by revealing the fact that Wheelock was him- 
 self after a land grant. That was an irretrievable 
 blunder. When the dire tidings of its making 
 reached Wheelock by special messenger, he at once 
 despatched another friend, Reverend Ebenezer 
 
 24
 
 THE EVOLUTION 
 
 Cleaveland, to see if the damage could not be un- 
 done. This gentleman found himself powerless, but 
 he saw the end of the council. It came on a Satur- 
 day, and that night Sir William and his family pru- 
 dently departed and advised all the other pale- 
 faces to do likewise. He knew what was about to 
 happen. 
 
 The good Mr. Cleaveland remained overnight, 
 believing that Sunday would at least be fairly 
 tranquil. But he counted without the firewater. 
 :< Within two hours after the rum had been given 
 out ", he reported, " the whole street and parade 
 was filled with drunkenness, and nothing could be 
 heard or seen but yelling and fighting, as though 
 hell itself had broke loose." Four had been slain 
 in the orgies before Cleaveland fled the spot at ten 
 the next morning. The result of this deliberate 
 debauchery of the Indians was a new strip of land, 
 eight hundred miles long and one hundred wide, 
 for the English. 
 
 But this fiasco helped to hasten the locating and 
 the founding of Dartmouth College. Schoolmaster 
 Eleazar now knew that his eye was cast upon the 
 Mohawk country vainly. Even the region of the 
 Susquehanna, long favored by him, was not ob- 
 tainable under conditions that suited. Where to 
 go, then? for going he had determined upon, as 
 
 25
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 well as to pay more attention to the educating of 
 white pupils. He must have English blood in 
 better proportion for his work. 
 
 Offers of locations for the Charity School had 
 been and still were plentiful. Dozens of towns and 
 small settlements from the Kennebec to the " Father 
 of Waters " applied for the honor of becoming the 
 seat of the future Dartmouth College. Reverend 
 Charles J. Smith had devised a scheme for its settle- 
 ment in Virginia or Carolina. People in the vicinity 
 of Albany offered a location only to have it declined 
 on the ground that " the religious character of 
 Albany is such that it would by no means do to 
 take the school into it ", whereat the good burghers 
 of that town were somewhat disconcerted, and 
 " took your reflections upon their city a little in 
 dudgeon." Captain A. J. Lansing offered money 
 and land at Lansingburg in New York. Some 
 Philadelphia Presbyterians proposed a gift of terri- 
 tory not far from Pittsburgh; Stockbridge, in Massa- 
 chusetts, became a candidate for the location; so 
 did Pittsfield, upon which it was reported to Whee- 
 lock: " the commissioners in Boston oppose the 
 school, and will do so if it be placed in New Hamp- 
 shire, if they think it vies with Cambridge. But the 
 greatest part of the people want another College 
 as a check upon the extravagant demands made 
 
 26
 
 THE EVOLUTION 
 
 there." The suggestion was made by New York 
 patrons of the school that it be made " an annexa- 
 tion to the College of New Jersey." This met 
 short shrift with Wheelock, who had no notion of 
 letting anybody but the Almighty have any division 
 of authority with himself. 
 
 In all this period of sifting, selecting, and then 
 rejecting, New Hampshire had ever stood as a sort 
 of promised land if others failed. As far back as 
 1765, Governor Benning Wentworth of that prov- 
 ince had promised five hundred acres of land " to 
 encourage the school." His son, the brilliant, deb- 
 onair, luxury-loving, yet sensible and honorable 
 Governor John Wentworth, was as well inclined, 
 and in March, 1768, wrote Wheelock: " I shall be 
 ready to grant a township on Connecticut River 
 of six miles square for an endowment of the 
 school." 
 
 This real promise of substantial help; the fact 
 that many of Wheelock's Connecticut friends and 
 neighbors had gone north and settled along the 
 river; the belief that the Canadian Indians could 
 be induced to attend a school located in New Hamp- 
 shire, and above all the strong probability of being 
 able to obtain a charter decided Wheelock to pull 
 up the Indian Charity School by the roots and 
 transplant it to the new lands far up the east bank 
 
 27
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 of the Connecticut River. The English trustees 
 were agreeable to the change; Wheelock set about 
 the framing of a charter which he sent to Governor 
 Wentworth August 22, 1769. In it he termed the 
 new institution an academy, but added as a post- 
 script this historic suggestion: 
 
 " Sir if proper to use the word ' College ' in- 
 stead of ' Academy ' in the charter I shall be well 
 pleased with it." 
 
 That postscript was the real founding of Dart- 
 mouth College. 
 
 The completed charter was delivered into the 
 hands of its first president in March, 1770. It used 
 the name " College " as he had wished and named 
 the institution for Lord Dartmouth, after Governor 
 Wentworth had modestly put the honor by. But 
 the English trustees, including Dartmouth himself, 
 were wrathful over the rather subtle evolution of 
 the Indian Charity School into Dartmouth College. 
 Even the good-natured Thornton wrote: " I am 
 afraid there is too much worldly wisdom in this 
 charter, and that it is trusting man instead of resting 
 on the living God." It is probable that the unex- 
 pectedness of the move shocked the Englishmen 
 more than any imagined evil in it; truth to tell, 
 Wheelock had kept his trustees entirely in the dark 
 as to the charter until it was obtained. Their charge
 
 THE EVOLUTION 
 
 of disingenuousness against him was deserved. 
 Still they doled out money to him as an individ- 
 ual they never officially recognized him as Presi- 
 dent of Dartmouth College until the fund was 
 exhausted. 
 
 That the idea of Indian education was still strong 
 with Wheelock and his friends is made clear by the 
 phrasing of the charter. Said Governor Wentworth 
 in the name of George III: 
 
 We do of our special grace, certain knowledge and 
 mere motion, ordain, grant & constitute that there be 
 a college erected in our said province of New Hampshire 
 by the name of Dartmouth College for the education & 
 instruction of Youth of the Indian Tribes in this Land in 
 reading, writing & all parts of Learning which shall ap- 
 pear necessary and expedient for civilizing & christianizing 
 Children of Pagans as well as in all liberal Arts and 
 Sciences; and also of English Youth and any others, . . . 
 and not excluding any Person of any religious denomina- 
 tion whatsoever from free & equal liberty & advantage of 
 Education or from any of the liberties and privileges or 
 immunities of the said College on account of his or their 
 speculative sentiments in Religion, & of his or their being 
 of a religious profession different from the said Trustees 
 of the said Dartmouth College. 
 
 Even with the charter safely signed, sealed, and 
 delivered, Eleazar Wheelock's troubles were not 
 ended. Immediately there arose such a clamor 
 
 29
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 from New Hampshire towns eager to possess the 
 college that one would have thought the chief end 
 and aim of each of them was to be the seat of an 
 institution of learning. 
 
 Wheelock made an eight weeks' tour of the north 
 country in the spring of 1770, and when the wran- 
 gling and backbiting were over, chose Hanover as 
 the home for his college; the site was the finest and 
 most advantageous in his eyes, and the town was 
 " settled with the most serious, steady inhabitants." 
 They have left many descendants. 
 
 Thereupon arose an almost incredible bedlam of 
 protest from some of the disappointed places. 
 Wheelock was jeered at as a visionary, called a 
 double-dealer, and even accused of some sort of 
 underhand scheme to feather the nest of himself 
 and his family by the settling in Hanover. Even 
 his friend Colonel Jonathan Moulton wrote to him 
 from Orford: 
 
 I have been in Portsmouth, and there to hear all 
 mouths opened against you, and laughing at me and all 
 my neighborhood, flinging, " Ah! I always told you Dr. 
 Wheelock was making a purse to himself; and now this 
 of fixing the College proves it." Your usefulness at 
 present in the dear Redeemer's kingdom seems over. Oh, 
 sir! consider, this affair seems to overthrow in the minds 
 of sinners all you have been building up so many years, 
 and it is currently talked that those that have largely 
 
 30
 
 THE EVOLUTION 
 
 subscribed will not pay one farthing, except forced, if 
 the College stands in Hanover; and others say it can't 
 prosper, for it's all a jockey trick from first to last. 
 
 Wheelock stood up to the blast unmoved, like the 
 strong man that he was. " The site for Dartmouth 
 College ", he replied, " was not determined by any 
 private interest or party on earth, but the Re- 
 deemer's." 
 
 The first president of Dartmouth was, it is evi- 
 dent, firmly of the opinion that the Almighty and 
 himself were on terms that admitted of no disruption 
 by any terrestrial powers. 
 
 31
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 " VOX CLAMANTIS IN DESERTO " 
 
 THERE are those who from time to time and 
 for reasons peculiar to themselves venture to 
 question the entire appropriateness of many of the 
 mottoes that adorn college seals. '' Truth " and 
 " Light " and " Onward " and " Upward " and the 
 whole tribe of self-congratulatory parts of speech 
 have had their doubters here and there. But of 
 Dartmouth it may confidently be asserted that the 
 " Vox Clamantis in Deserto " was absolutely and 
 indisputably fitting when it was engraved upon her 
 Great Seal. 
 
 The wilderness where her voice was raised was per- 
 vasive, insistent, omnipresent. Some ultra-urban 
 young gentlemen, it is occasionally whispered, 
 profess to find like conditions to this very day when 
 they first arrive in Hanover, but they generally 
 develop into the most ardent champions of the 
 great out-of-doors the college can boast. 
 
 However, there was no quibbling as to nature's 
 primitive garb when in early August, 1770, Eleazar 
 Wheelock, with his ox-teams and his laborers and 
 
 32
 
 
 -o 
 O
 
 "VOX CLAMANTIS IN DESERTO " 
 
 two companions, Sylvanus Ripley and John Crane, 
 pushed his straggling and struggling way up from 
 Connecticut and at last reached the grant which 
 was to be the home of the Indian Charity School 
 and Dartmouth College. To the westward flowed 
 the Connecticut, that beautiful boulevard for Indian 
 travel from north to south, and upon the sparkling 
 waters of which the redskin's canoe was still occa- 
 sionally to be seen, but which was as yet uncurbed 
 by dams and uncrossed by bridges. To the east 
 were rugged, densely wooded hills, presently to rise 
 into bare and towering mountains. 
 
 On the level plateau selected as the location for 
 the college, giant pines nearing three hundred feet 
 HI height shut out the very sun, save at noon, and 
 calmed the fiercest blasts of the upper air into a 
 cathedral quietude. To the north it was two miles 
 to the nearest human habitation " through one 
 continued and dreary wood." The bear, the wolf, 
 the lynx, and the panther roamed the forest and 
 doubtless scented the approach of President Whee- 
 lock's domestic animals with an instinct toward 
 making trouble for them, which they afterwards 
 did. The good doctor had desired a place for his 
 college " remote from the allurements of more 
 populous towns." He had surely found it. 
 
 A few axemen had preceded the Wheelock party 
 
 33
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 and had carved a small resting-place from the pro- 
 digious pines. Soon after the president's arrival, 
 a log house, eighteen feet square, with windows of 
 mica and oiled paper, was erected for his use. This 
 was " the first sprout of the college ", and around 
 it later were built huts for the student dormitories. 
 That .that first dwelling was highly honored by 
 Wheelock was made evident by the inclusion of it 
 in his will as a bequest to his son and successor. It 
 long since vanished into the limbo of regretted 
 things, torn down in 1783 to feed the flames of some 
 unappreciative student revel. 
 
 Mahomet had gone to the mountain, and now 
 Mahomet's students must come to Mahomet. 
 Wheelock, whose comparison with the prophet is 
 not altogether forced, found his " primitive Alca- 
 zar " in a few weeks ready for the translation of his 
 pupils of the Indian Charity School from Lebanon 
 to the wilds of Hanover. Madame Wheelock and 
 the family were also to come, together with four 
 slaves, Exeter, Brister, Chloe, and Peggy. The 
 independent^ ways of these bondsmen at that time 
 appear from the report of Wheelock's nephew and 
 chief teamster, Jabez Bingham, who wrote from 
 Connecticut that " Exeter is very high in the instep, 
 and says he won't go without Peggy goes and all 
 his things." 
 
 34
 
 'VOX CLAMANTIS IN DESERTO " 
 
 Wheelock had arranged with his wife that she 
 was to start in mid-September; on the tenth he 
 wrote her some final instructions, quaint, religious 
 and practical at once. " I hope I am in God's way ", 
 he said, and then: " It will not be best for Brister 
 to bring his cow unless she gives milk; it will cost 
 403. at least to winter her here. Let some factor 
 buy 100 Ib. or more of tobacco and bring ... If 
 you have a barrel of Old Pork, bring it with you. . . . 
 You would do well to bring a gross of pipes." Bing- 
 ham reported to his uncle before the start from 
 Lebanon that " Sir Cluet has got a barrel of rum 
 and a barrel of molasses, a cag of wine and half a 
 barrel of Shuggar ", and that the articles would 
 be brought up. 
 
 The president found soon after his letter of the 
 tenth that failure to discover water near his newly 
 built house necessitated its removal, with the conse- 
 quent delaying of even a shelter over the heads of 
 Madame Wheelock and the students. He made 
 strenuous efforts to prevent the departure from 
 Lebanon, sending Doctor Crane as a special mes- 
 senger, with license, so far as he was concerned, to 
 travel on Sunday. This was Crane's credential: 
 
 This may certify that the urgency and importance of 
 the journey of Dr. Crane the Bearer is such as that I 
 suppose will be tho suff to justify his riding upon the 
 
 35
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 Sabbath in order to accomplish the Design on which he is 
 sent, which is to prevent my family & the members of 
 Dartmouth College setting out from Lebanon on Tuesday 
 next according to appointment, which by reason of some 
 unforeseen providences will be earlier than provision can 
 be made for their reception, the occasion & circum- 
 stances of which the Doctor is able to relate, and therefore 
 his encouragement and countenance in his journey is 
 humbly requested of all concerned by their humble 
 servt. 
 
 Wheelock was not above compromising with the 
 powers of darkness when it seemed best to him. 
 
 Doctor Crane rode gallantly and well down the 
 rough valley, and he met the northern bound pro- 
 cession indeed, but too late to turn it back. Madame 
 Wheelock, from the rocking depths of her great 
 English coach, a gift from John Thornton, declared 
 that having begun the journey, dux femina facti, 
 she would carry it through. Doctor Crane could do 
 nothing but turn himself about and join the strange 
 procession. 
 
 Strange it surely was. A horseman or two at the 
 head; Madame Wheelock's splendid coach, long 
 the marvel of the countryside, drawn by disgruntled 
 and panting steeds; the ox- teams, bearing the 
 justly celebrated barrel of rum and the other lesser 
 appurtenances of life; the negro servitors and the 
 cow, and the thirty students, of whom but two
 
 'VOX CLAMANTIS IN DESERTO " 
 
 were Indians, tramping along on foot never was 
 there a more remarkable pilgrimage for the intel- 
 lectual than these elements presented. Pushing 
 forward a few miles a day; at the last part of the 
 journey toiling up the fearfully rough " Great 
 Road " skirting the Connecticut River; staggering, 
 lurching, jouncing over the scarcely opened way, 
 the cavalcade reached the college clearing only to 
 find everything in dire confusion. 
 
 Wheelock, who saw the hand of the Lord in most 
 exigencies, was undismayed. He housed his stuff 
 with his wife " and the females of my family " in 
 the original log hut, and compelled his sons and 
 students to make booths and beds of hemlock 
 boughs the woodcraft of the two Indians doubt- 
 less being of much assistance in this work of estab- 
 lishing Dartmouth's first dormitories. 
 
 Tutor Woodward, arriving from Boston at this 
 juncture, with a few more students, vividly de- 
 scribes the state of things at the clearing. " It was 
 near the close of the day," he says: " there was 
 scanty room in the Doctor's shanty for the shelter 
 of those who were on the ground, and none for us 
 who had just arrived. All constructed for a tem- 
 porary residence a tent of crotched stakes and poles 
 covered with boughs. It was soon ready, and we 
 camped down wrapped in our blankets, and for a 
 
 37
 
 time slept very comfortably. During the night, 
 however, a storm arose of high wind and pelting 
 rain. Our tent came down and buried us in its ruins. 
 After mutual inquiry, we found no one injured, and 
 as the storm raged without abated fury, we resolved 
 to abide the issue as we were, and wait for the day. 
 When fair weather returned, we made more sub- 
 stantial booths for our protection till better accom- 
 modations could be provided." 
 
 These conditions were soon improved. A house 
 of timber and boards, brought from sawmills some 
 miles away, was built for the president. It was 
 forty by thirty-two feet and one story high, with a 
 little attic for the doctor's office, while the servants 
 were given a better dwelling eighty by thirty-two 
 and two stories high. Wheelock assumed no airs 
 of greatness. Huts for the students were hastily 
 constructed, and, with his brood around him, 
 Eleazar Wheelock set his institution in order for 
 the facing of its first winter. 
 
 Snow came heavily down upon the " groves of 
 the academy ", as a later president was fond of 
 saying, before the roof of the new college building 
 was laid on. There was no chapel. " Sometimes," 
 wrote David McClure, one of the faculty, " Dr. 
 Wheelock presented to God their morning and 
 evening prayers standing at the head of his numer- 
 
 38
 
 'VOX CLAMAXTIS IN DESERTO " 
 
 ous family in the open air; and the surrounding 
 forest for the first time reverberated the solemn 
 sounds of supplication and praise." Surely a scene 
 for the historical painter who will some day arise 
 with the love of the ancient Dartmouth in his heart 
 and the genius for a noble picture in his brush. For 
 his title he will need but borrow from the Great 
 Seal: " Vox Clamantis in Deserto." 
 
 39
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 GETTING UNDER WAY 
 
 EARLY in 1770 the main building, the " col- 
 lege ", was completed. Its unreadiness in the 
 autumn before, together with an actual scarcity of 
 food, had been the cause of the return of a number 
 of the pupils to Connecticut for the winter. Eat- 
 ables were costly for those days, owing to the im- 
 mense labor of hauling and the difficulty in raising 
 crops. Beef was at twenty shillings a hundred and 
 pork at thirty-three. Wheat cost six shillings a 
 bushel; rye, three shillings, sixpence, and Indian 
 corn two shillings, sixpence; molasses brought five 
 shillings a gallon. 
 
 As the tuition and board of a student was but 
 twenty pounds a year, Dartmouth's profits were 
 slim enough, if the students were to get anything to 
 eat. The greater part of their provender had to be 
 transported more than a hundred miles through 
 new and bad roads. Some of it came up the Con- 
 necticut in bateaux, in which case it was necessary 
 to carry the stuff around a dozen falls or rapids. If 
 
 40
 
 GETTING UNDER WAY 
 
 there was a lack of luxuries, the savagery of nature 
 was mostly at fault. 
 
 But the new building was something of a triumph 
 under the circumstances. It was two stories in 
 height and twice as long as any of the other struc- 
 tures. Sixteen rooms, besides kitchen, hall, and 
 storeroom, furnished the students with commons 
 and dormitories. There was a smaller " school 
 house ", presumably for recitations. Soon a barn, 
 a wash-house, and a bakehouse were added to the 
 outfit. The president's new frame dwelling was 
 found, " through God's favor ", to be fairly com- 
 fortable. By the summer of 1771 a good deal of 
 land had been cleared, and the college seat took on 
 the airs and appearance of a village. 
 
 Dartmouth's first commencement was a great! 
 event for the wilderness. Riding up from Ports-/ 
 mouth on horseback came Governor WentwortH 
 with a company of sixty gentlemen from Ports- 
 mouth, making camp two nights on the way. With 
 them came the glorious silver punch-bowl that is 
 still one of the cherished possessions of the college, 
 though the years of disuse have long since obliter- 
 ated the faintest odor of the New England rum that 
 was wont to waft good cheer from its capacious 
 interior. Four students took their degrees as 
 bachelors of arts: Lev! Frisbie, Sylvanus Ripley, 
 
 41
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 Samuel Gray, and John Wheelock, all of whom had 
 emigrated from their Yale classes to graduate at 
 Dartmouth. The exercises, which took place on 
 August 28, were as follows: 
 
 1. A Salutatory Oration in English, by Ripley, upon 
 the Virtues, succeeded by an Anthem. 
 
 2. A Clyosophic Oration in Latin, by Frisbie. 
 
 3. A Syllogistic Disputation, wherein Gray held the 
 question, An vera cognitio Dei Luce Naturae acquiri 
 potest ? Opposed by Frisbie, Wheelock, and Ripley; and 
 
 4. A Valedictory Oration in Latin, by Wheelock, 
 " followed by an anthem composed and set to music by 
 the young gentlemen, candidates for a degree." 
 
 This appeal to the Muses must have been a 
 moving performance. Wheelock says that Ripley's 
 oration " produced tears from a great number of 
 the learned ", and this, too, before the punch was 
 ladled from the silver bowl. Frisbie recited an origi- 
 nal poem, with these concluding lines: 
 
 " Thus Dartmouth, happy in her sylvan seat, 
 Drinks the pure pleasures of her fair retreat, 
 Her songs of praise in notes melodious rise 
 Like clouds of incense to the skies. 
 Her God protects her with paternal care 
 From ills destructive and each fatal snare; 
 And may He still protect, and she adore, 
 Till heaven, and earth, and time shall be no more." 
 
 42
 
 GETTING UNDER WAY 
 
 Semi-official history says that the various orations, 
 disputations, and the poem were delivered al fresco, 
 a crude stage of logs and hewn boards, to which 
 access was given by a broad, inclined hemlock 
 plank, furnishing the rostrum for the four who were 
 forever to hold their conspicuous place in Dart- 
 mouth annals. There is a tradition, characteristic 
 enough to be true, that an Indian under-classman 
 had some share in the public exercises, and that he 
 refused to have anything to do with the platform 
 but spoke his piece in aboriginal tongue, from the 
 huge branch of an adjacent pine. However that 
 may be, there is no gloomy cloud of scepticism over 
 the statement that Governor Wentworth paid for 
 the ox that was barbecued on the green, nor that a 
 barrel of rum was broached, to the great satisfaction 
 of the settlers for miles around. 
 
 But to the president, this first Commencement 
 was not an unalloyed joy. Madame Wheelock was 
 too ill to receive any guests, and the presidential 
 cook, with the almost inevitable instinct of that 
 profession, seized upon the occasion to get drunk. 
 But Eleazar Wheelock was ever of undaunted soul, 
 and he invited the dashing governor and his merry 
 suite to dinner, some of which he perhaps prepared 
 with his own hands. Under the circumstances it 
 could hardly have been a luxurious feast, yet some 
 
 43
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 of the Portsmouth visitors were of mean and little 
 souls enough to sneer at the bareness of their 
 entertainment after they had returned home. 
 
 Wheelock's answer, resembling somewhat John- 
 son's famous letter to Chesterfield in its simplicity, 
 its dignity, and its touch of pathos, must have made 
 those snobbish critics ashamed of themselves. " We 
 were indeed", he said, "in very trying circumstances; 
 but we got ajbng as well as we could, depending on 
 the candor and clemency of our friends. As to the 
 table-linen, which I hear is complained of, that 
 must come, I suspect, wholly upon me, through my 
 poverty. My expenses having been so long inade- 
 quate to my means, I had provided no better, 
 though I did not know till then that their want was 
 so great as not to be able to appear decent in home- 
 made, till the Commencement was over. As to 
 the College, it owns but one [tablecloth], that was 
 lately given by a generous lady in Connecticut, and 
 of her own manufacture. But we are getting along, 
 and things are growing better." 
 
 We may feel sure that Governor Wentworth had 
 no part in the petty fault-finding. He honored and 
 assisted Wheelock in every way possible until the 
 approaching storm of the Revolution swept him 
 out of the country. He attended two more Com- 
 mencements, and he put through the building of a 
 
 44
 
 GETTING UNDER WAY 
 
 new road from his summer seat at Wolfeboro to 
 Hanover a terrible affair across the shoulder of 
 Moose Mountain and long since given over to the 
 newer forest, the plough, and the stone-heap. If 
 Yale gave much to Dartmouth in the person of 
 Wheelock and the first graduating class, Harvard's 
 gift of the brilliant, well educated cavalier who was 
 the college's best friend in the days of its dawning, 
 was hardly less valuable. 
 
 The first college year ended so auspiciously that 
 the president felt justified in sending forth a pro- 
 spectus in which he declared that: "The Rev. Dr. 
 Wheelock, through the surprising smiles of Heaven 
 upon his unwearied endeavors, has now so nearly 
 effected his great and arduous undertaking to 
 settle and accommodate his Indian school and 
 college in a howling wilderness that he has the 
 fairest prospect in a little time to be able to support 
 an hundred Indian and English youths upon charity, 
 and all with a view to the first and grand object of 
 the Institution, viz., the spreading the blessed 
 gospel of the Redeemer among the savages." 
 
 Poverty's white horse rode o' nights in the Han- 
 over forests, however, and must have caused the 
 resolute Wheelock many waking hours. The Indian 
 Charity School fund in England was becoming ex- 
 hausted, with no hope of renewal. The Scotch 
 
 45
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 board in Edinburgh was so angry at the develop- 
 ment that it expressed " apprehensions that Dart- 
 mouth College will contribute little to the conversion 
 of the heathen, and after the Doctor's death fall 
 into Episcopal management " this a rap at 
 Governor Wentworth, the Church of England man, 
 and some of the trustees. Only a few driblets of 
 money were forthcoming from that strait-laced and 
 suspicious quarter. 
 
 " My necessities really call for help," wrote 
 Wheelock to John Thornton, May, 1773. Of course 
 there was the Provincial Assembly to look to for 
 aid, as in the cases of so many other ante-Revo- 
 lution colleges. But the New Hampshire Assembly 
 was not easily aroused to enthusiasm for Dart- 
 mouth. The quarrel over the location still rankled, 
 and even Governor Wentworth's repeated recom- 
 mendations were coldly received. In March, 1771, 
 the Assembly had voted the munificent sum of 
 sixty pounds for Wheelock " in consideration of his 
 great services for the interest of said College." 
 Good John PhillipSj of Exeter, did much better than 
 that with gifts of 175 and 125. In June, 1771, 
 the Assembly was stormed by a couple of student 
 lobbyists, John Wheelock and Sylvanus Ripley, but 
 in vain. The trustees' prayer that a salary be 
 granted President Wheelock from the Provincial 
 
 46
 
 GETTING UNDER WAY 
 
 treasury was expeditiously tabled. Even the presi- 
 dent's own appeal for the right to set up a lottery 
 to raise five thousand pounds for the erection of the 
 proposed " large house " was denied, though proba- 
 bly not from any squeamishness at the notion of a 
 learned doctor of divinity promoting a gambling 
 affair. 
 
 But willing to do something if it cost no money, 
 the Assembly fished for Lord Dartmouth's aid when 
 he was appointed Secretary of State for the Colo- 
 nies, imploring " your Lordship's patronage for the 
 good people we represent, and especially for our 
 established seminary of literature, to which we hope, 
 if your Lordship be a nursing father, it will be a dif- 
 fusive blessing and thereby merit in some measure 
 the exalted name of Dartmouth College." In May, 
 1773, the Assembly did pass a grant of five hundred 
 pounds to help erect the new college building. Thus 
 the sum of 560 was the limit of the Provincial 
 Assembly's aid to Dartmouth. Subsequently Whee- 
 lock trained his guns on the Continental Congress, 
 and through the powerful favor of Patrick Henry, 
 Chairman of the Committee on Indian Affairs, 
 obtained a grant of five hundred dollars. 
 
 A subscription was ordered by the trustees in the 
 spring of 1775, and it gave every appearance of 
 being a great success, as between four and five 
 
 47
 
 thousand pounds were promised. But not a dollar 
 was ever collected; the onset of the war gave the 
 subscribers other things to think of in connection 
 with their money than the necessities of a struggling 
 college and Indian school far in the north wilderness. 
 So the College Hall remained for many years the 
 remodeled and enlarged first Wheelock house (after 
 the log hut), to which thirty feet and a belfry had 
 been added. This structure was innocent of paint, 
 inside and out, and the platform of the " great 
 room ", used as chapel, meeting-house and public 
 hall, was built of axe-hewn planks. The building 
 stood near the old well, from which the college pump 
 supplied long generations of students with water 
 even up to modern times. The first College Hall 
 was in the southeast corner of what is now the 
 campus and close to the site of the present Reed 
 Hall. 
 
 By Commencement, 1774, the college was well 
 under way. Its general appearance was accurately 
 described by Doctor Jeremy Belknap, that famous 
 theological tilter, who rode up from Dover on 
 horseback to witness the exercises. In his diary he 
 wrote : 
 
 " After dinner walked down to the Connecticut 
 River opposite to the College, where is a ferry. Ob- 
 served on a tree, where the bark was cut off, the 
 
 48
 
 GETTING UNDER WAY 
 
 figure of an Indian painted, which was done by one 
 of the Indian scholars. At evening prayers, by the 
 President's desire, I preached a sermon in the 
 College hall. Supped and lodged at the President's. 
 In the evening the front of the College was illumi- 
 nated. 
 
 " The plain where the College stands is large and 
 pleasant, and the land good. The College is about 
 seventy or eighty feet long and thirty broad, con- 
 taining twenty chambers. The hall is a distinct 
 building, which also serves for a meeting-house, 
 and the kitchen is in one end of it. The President's 
 house stands on a rising ground east of the College, 
 and to the north of this is the place proposed to 
 build the new college, near a quarry of gray stone 
 which is intended for the material of the building. 
 There is another quarry, much larger, about three 
 quarters of a mile distant. The tutors are Messrs. 
 Woodward, Ripley, Wheelock, and Smith; the two 
 former are married to the President's daughters. 
 Several tradesmen and taverners are settled round 
 the College in good buildings, which gives the 
 place the appearance of a village. ... It is really 
 surprising to observe the improvements that have 
 been made in few years. . . ." 
 
 With progress came early, in Dartmouth's case 
 - the inevitable revolt that every college faces at 
 
 49
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 some time in its career: the uproar over poor pro- 
 visions for the appetite and stomach in Commons. 
 The trouble was started by some young gentlemen 
 students from Portsmouth, to whom Eleazar Whee- 
 lock's backwoods fare did not appeal after their 
 luxurious home tables. They wrote hot letters 
 of protest to their parents and even sent by special 
 messenger some samples of a particularly repulsive 
 bread as evidence of the justice of their protests. 
 The president, returning from a trip to the down- 
 country in a towering rage, expelled the ringleader 
 in the uprising and indefinitely suspended several 
 others. But, though he could play the imperator 
 at Hanover, he could not suppress the scandal, 
 which had gotten far beyond his precincts. Even 
 the genial and always friendly Governor Wentworth 
 was stirred to action. Under date of July 6, 1774, 
 he wrote to Wheelock: 
 
 MY DEAR AND REVEREND FRIEND, Amidst the vari- 
 ety of important and naturally perplexing affairs which 
 deeply engage my mind at this very disquieted juncture 
 of American agitations, nothing lies nearer my heart 
 than the interest and honor of Dartmouth College, with 
 which yours is inseparably connected. It is therefore 
 with the utmost grief that I perform the strict duty of 
 friendship to both in telling you that it is reported and 
 rapidly gains belief that your provision for the students is 
 extremely bad, their entertainment neither clean, plenti- 
 
 50
 
 GETTING UNDER WAY 
 
 ful, nor wholesome, though the price and expense exceeds 
 for comfortable living; that the youth are thereby un- 
 healthy and debilitated, their constitutions impaired, 
 and their friends and parents highly disgusted. These 
 reports assail me on all sides from those who have and 
 those who have not children under your care. . . . 
 
 Wholesome, sound, and plentiful food must be pro- 
 vided. The very name of putrefied, stinking provisions 
 in a College alarms parents, who wish to secure health 
 to their sons. Twenty oxen badly saved had better be 
 cast into the river and perish, than one month's improper 
 diet be given to the students. I would not wish to see 
 profusion or delicacy enter our walls. Cleanliness, 
 plenty, and plainness should never be absent. 
 
 Belknap evidently found the uprising in full 
 swing on his Commencement visit to Dartmouth. 
 " The President," says his diary, " appears to be 
 much affected with the reports that are circulated 
 concerning the badness of the provisions, on which 
 account some have left the College. Last evening he 
 entered into a large and warm vindication of him- 
 self, declaring that the reports are all false, and that 
 he did not doubt but ' God would bring forth his 
 righteousness as the light, and his judgment as the 
 noonday.' He has had the mortification to lose two 
 cows, and the rest were greatly hurt by a contagious 
 distemper, so that they could not have a full supply 
 of milk; and once that the pickle leaked out of the 
 beef barrel, so that the meat was not so sweet. He 
 
 51
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 had been ill-used with respect to the purchase of 
 some wheat, so that they had smutty bread for a 
 while. The scholars, on the other hand, say they 
 scarce ever had anything but pork and greens, 
 without vinegar, and pork and potatoes, that fresh 
 meat comes but very seldom, and that the victuals 
 are very badly dressed." 
 
 To this the paying students (the charity pupils 
 having been shown the wisdom of signing a paper 
 declaring that the bad food stories were " false and 
 abusive ") added that their Commons breakfast 
 was " mostly the leaves of wintergreen made into 
 a tea, and even that often sweetened with molasses; 
 many times only broth for breakfast, then coffee 
 or chocolate, usually sweetened with molasses, and 
 beef unfit to eat." 
 
 The trustees finally felt compelled to take cog- 
 nizance of the outcry. They investigated and re- 
 solved that the complaints were groundless, " only 
 that for a few days some beef was served by the 
 cook which (though accidentally tainted in a small 
 degree) was judged by them to be such as the stu- 
 dents will generally approve." 
 
 Wheelock's cooks, it may be said, were the bane 
 of his life, what with their affiliation with New 
 England rum and their unclassical lack of the proper 
 distinction between meum and tuum. On one oc- 
 
 52
 
 casion a couple were ordered to the whipping-post 
 together for their thievery. 
 
 But the cooks were not altogether responsible for 
 the protests against the college provender that came 
 to the surface periodically for years, under the re- 
 gimes of all sorts of stewards, agents, purveyors, or 
 whatever their titles may have been. Chase records 
 that in the reign of one Roger Sargent, " at one 
 time, the butter being persistently strong, one of 
 the students (afterwards a distinguished lawyer of 
 New Hampshire) was deputed, while all the others 
 stood at their places, to apostrophize the offensive 
 stuff and bid it ' down ' from their sight. It is said 
 that the rebuke was effectual." 
 
 Another of Wheelock's troubles were the tavern- 
 keepers in the settlement and across the Connecti- 
 cut River. In spite of the president's protest and 
 even Governor Wentworth's influence, they received 
 licenses from the court to sell liquor. Payne's inn, 
 near the college, which seems to have been the most 
 disreputable of all, obtained its permit by reason 
 of the pique of one Sympson, the high sheriff, 
 who thought he had been slighted at the first 
 Commencement. Payne did not hesitate to sup- 
 ply the students with rum, and, though a stern 
 edict against visiting taverns had been issued in 
 the second year, the place was much frequented. 
 
 53
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 Even Wheelock's sons were occasional sinners in 
 this regard. 
 
 The Dartmouth of July, 1843, printed a reminis- 
 cence of Reverend Noah Miles, a student in the 
 first Wheelock's time, on this subject: " It seems 
 that Mr. Miles's chum, having indulged in a spree 
 at Payne's tavern, came home very drunk and sick. 
 He was sent for to the President's study, but being 
 too sick to go, Miles went in his stead, rapped, and 
 entered. The President was busy at his writing- 
 table, with his great white wig on his head. The 
 conversation was something like this: 'Ah, Miles! 
 it is you. But where is your chum? I sent for him; 
 why does he not come? ' ' Sir, he is not able to 
 come.' ' But he can walk, can he not? ' ' Sir, he 
 cannot stand upon his feet.' ' Indeed, then he is 
 badly done up. This is a miserable affair. That 
 tavern is a nuisance. But can you tell me, Miles, 
 whether my sons Eleazar and James were there? ' 
 ' Sir, I understand that they were.' ' Ah! I sus- 
 pected it. Bad boys of mine! I have some hopes 
 of James yet; but as to Eleazar he will be damned, 
 I believe.' " 
 
 Wheelock thundered against the .nuisance even 
 in the pulpit. Payne responded by tearing down 
 the president's fence under some pretext or other 
 and with authority as highway surveyor. Then 
 
 54
 
 GETTING UNDER WAY 
 
 one Joseph Skinner, " not knowing the fear of God 
 before his eyes and being moved by the instigation 
 of the Devil ", tacked up on the door of the College 
 Hall a writing calling the president a liar and a 
 hypocrite who was bound for hell. For this pleasan- 
 try he had to pay twenty shillings and costs. Some 
 sophomores and freshmen petitioned that they 
 might use some of their spare time " in stepping the 
 minuet and learning the sword." Such were a few 
 of the crosses of the founder. Yet he had some 
 consolation. In February, 1775, he wrote of a great 
 religious revival: 
 
 Love, peace, and joy reign triumphant. The only dis- 
 course now in fashion when students visit at one another's 
 rooms is of the things of the Kingdom of Heaven. And 
 it would be a reproach to anyone if he should introduce 
 anything frothy, vain, trifling, or unprofitable into con- 
 versation. ... It has seemed to be wholly confined to 
 the College, until within a few days it has spread to all 
 the houses in the neighborhood, excepting one, viz., a 
 tavern [Payne's]; and my little captive boys discover 
 that something uncommon is the matter, and are often 
 in tears. 
 
 But Dartmouth grew in spite of, perhaps because 
 of, its trials and difficulties. In March, 1772, it 
 housed fifty students, including six Indians; in 
 November, 1774, there were a hundred, of whom 
 twenty-one were Indians. The reputation of the 
 
 55
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 college spread abroad. In 1775 Reverend Joseph 
 Huntington wrote that in Connecticut it " was 
 generally esteemed the best on the continent." 
 Very likely Wheelock's statement that he thought 
 it proper " to let the world know that there is no 
 encouragement given that such as are vain, idle, 
 trifling, flesh-pleasing . . . will be admitted here " 
 had something to do with enhancing admiration 
 for the college among the Connecticut godly. 
 
 By the beginning of the Revolution, the Indian 
 problem became serious. Some good redskins had 
 come to Hanover, among them sons of the St. 
 Francis chiefs to the north. In fact, Canada had 
 now become the recruiting ground for Wheelock, 
 who maintained as late as in 1773 that " the Indians 
 are the first object in the charter." Ten came from 
 the Caghenanagas in 1772. A few Hurons were 
 obtained. But it was evident from the moment of 
 the trouble on Lexington Green that the supply of 
 aborigines for Dartmouth was to cease. The Cana- 
 dian Indians were restless ever and not so amenable 
 to restraint as their brothers of the New England 
 and New York provinces had been. The white 
 students disliked and mistrusted them and com- 
 plained of their perpetual " hollowing and making 
 all manner of noise." They had a penchant for 
 " big beer ", as they called it, even the youngsters. 
 
 56
 
 GETTING UNDER WAY 
 
 Had there been no Revolution, it was still inevi- 
 table that the Indians would have been lost to 
 Dartmouth, retreating into the forests before the 
 white man's overwhelming civilization and refusing 
 to come out. The Indian Charity School could 
 never again have been pulled up to follow them. 
 Wheelock's intentions remained honest to the last, 
 but circumstances were stronger than his will, of 
 iron though it was. 
 
 Dartmouth's career during the Revolutionary 
 War was peaceful enough, compared with the 
 troubles of other American colleges. Her isolation 
 was an advantage, though rendering her open to 
 Indian attacks, which, however, came no nearer 
 than Royalton in Vermont. Undoubtedly her 
 peculiar relations to the red tribes counted much 
 in her favor. As to the war itself, no military opera- 
 tions reached anywhere near the college, .though 
 Lord Dartmouth was anxious enough to entreat 
 " that the safety of the College might be recom- 
 mended to both General Sir William Howe and his 
 brother the Admiral ", thus revealing an impression 
 on the noble earl's part that the Connecticut could 
 be ascended by a fleet of war-ships. 
 
 But if not visible, warfare was audible, for it has 
 always been asserted that the booming of the guns 
 of Bunker Hill was heard in Hanover. The presi- 
 
 57
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 dent's diary contains this: " June 16 The noise 
 of cannon supposed to be at Boston, was heard 
 all day. iyth The same reports of cannon. We 
 wait with impatience to hear the occasion and the 
 event." The noise was first noted by Daniel Simons, 
 an Indian sophomore, who happened to be lying 
 with his ear to the ground. Hard to believe as the 
 story is, the diary, the noises, and the dates would 
 seem to establish its accuracy. 
 
 It is proudly held by local historians that there 
 never was a Tory in Hanover after Concord and 
 Lexington. Certainly, if any one there had justifi- 
 cation for leaning toward the royalists, it was the 
 president of Dartmouth College. His funds had 
 mostly come from England and were now to be shut 
 off. His location and many favors of all kinds were 
 from the powerful hand and the kindly heart of the 
 royal governor, John Wentworth. His outlook, 
 with these sources of assistance gone, was gloomy 
 enough. But when once the irrepressible conflict 
 was seen to be preparing, he did not waive his alle- 
 giance to liberty. As early as November, 1774, he 
 dared write to Wentworth of " the cause of liberty 
 which is so justly dear to them " (Bostonians) and 
 in April, 1775, to Thornton, the Englishman: 
 
 " I believe there never was a more dutiful, loyal, 
 and well-affected people to Government than has 
 
 58
 
 GETTING UNDER WAY 
 
 ever been in these colonies till the Stamp Act. And 
 the colonies have ever been propense to peace and 
 reconciliation till those horrid murders and savage 
 butcheries, so inhumanly committed under pre- 
 tence of reducing rebels to obedience. The wringing 
 of the nose bringeth forth blood. Our liberties were 
 dearly bought, and we have tasted the sweetness of 
 them, and esteem them our birthright; and perhaps 
 his Majesty will find they will not be given up so 
 tamely as he imagines. The colonies seem to be 
 determined they will not be slaves." 
 
 The British friends of the college were tremen- 
 dously enraged at this, but the patriotism of 
 Eleazar Wheelock had been proven, to his eternal 
 glory. He had the satisfaction of seeing no Com- 
 mencement, nor scarcely any regular exercise of the 
 college omitted during the war, so long as he lived. 
 Nor was there any interruption after his death. 
 
 Wheelock's son John was a lieutenant-colonel in 
 Bedel's regiment and did good service against 
 Brant's Indians in New York, where one of his 
 father's former pupils, Butler, was committing many 
 atrocities against the whites. He afterward was 
 on General Gates' staff with the same rank. James 
 and Eleazar also saw military service of one sort 
 and another, the latter arousing the anger of his 
 sire by enlisting one Denning, " a laborer which I 
 
 59
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 most depended on, and I think it a flagrant evidence 
 of want of duty, affection and tenderness in my son 
 toward an aged and afflicted father, on the verge of 
 the grave and oppressed with a weight of cares 
 enough for an angel." The elder Eleazar was no 
 doting parent. 
 
 At the time of that writing in his diary, the 
 president was, indeed, nearing the Angel of the 
 End, and he knew it. For some years he had been 
 tormented by asthma and a persistent skin ailment. 
 In the first month of 1779 epileptic seizures began 
 to rack his frame. Pathetically he wrote to Na- 
 thaniel Whitaker: " I now feel more than ever the 
 want of a pension, which I think the world owes me, 
 with which I might buy a cask of wine and other 
 suitable spirits which my physicians all advise to be 
 necessary for me, also coffee, chocolate, tea, etc., 
 which I am obliged to live wholly without for want 
 of money to purchase the same." 
 
 But outwardly Wheelock fought death as he had 
 fought nature, and obstacles, and men; slanders, 
 politics, and hostile intrigues. He could no more 
 have laid down life and its all-possessing interests 
 without a struggle, pious fatalist though he was, 
 than he could tamely submit to the charge of 'being 
 a Tory because he chanced to celebrate Thanks- 
 giving at Dartmouth on the wrong date through a 
 
 60
 
 GETTING UNDER WAY 
 
 perfectly pardonable error. He taught and preached 
 till he had to be carried to the hall in a chair, and 
 then, too weak for that, received the students in 
 his own house. He died almost standing, for on 
 the last day it is told of him that " he walked the 
 room without assistance and talked with composure." 
 " O my family, be faithful unto death " was his 
 final, and, in the light of the after years, strangely 
 significant utterance. On the day of his passing, 
 April 24/1779, he was a few days less than sixty- 
 eight years of age. 
 
 Thus went to his fathers a man around the esti- 
 mate of whose qualities there has long been and 
 perhaps will always be a conflict of opinion. It is 
 clear that those who liked him could never be 
 shaken in their loyalty, and that those who disliked 
 him did so with a cordiality usually reserved for 
 the devil in that era, which proves his individuality 
 and strength of character. We know his tenacity 
 of purpose and his unfailing courage. That he was 
 quarrelsome and vain and given to assuming too 
 much of a monopoly in the knowledge of the plans 
 of Providence may be more than suspected. But 
 his littlenesses were very little and his greatness 
 very great indeed. 
 
 Eleazar was a supreme dictator in the college he 
 had made, but to be just that was a necessity under 
 
 Gl
 
 the circumstances. He was patriarchal in his ways, 
 and there must have been a gentler side to his nature 
 that history rather loses sight of, for many of his 
 students have written of him with genuine affec- 
 tion. On the simple slab that covers his tomb in 
 the lovely cemetery at Hanover, where trees and 
 grasses and mossy glens form a perfect picture of 
 peace, is inscribed this epitaph to a man of action: 
 
 " By the Gospel he subdued the ferocity of the savage; 
 And to the civilized he opened new paths of science. 
 
 Traveller, 
 
 Go, if you can, and deserve 
 The sublime reward of such merit." 
 
 That challenge, which in effect bids the traveler 
 fare forth and create another Dartmouth College, 
 if he is able, might have come from the very lips 
 of him of the lion heart who lies under it.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE REIGN OF THE CROWN PRINCE 
 
 WHEN John, the Crown Prince of the dynasty 
 of Wheelock, received word of his accession 
 to the rule of Dartmouth College, he was in New 
 Jersey with General Gates. Bezaleel Woodward, 
 Eleazar's son-in-law and the ranking member of the 
 faculty, acted as president in the brief interval 
 before the soldier should return. Woodward was a 
 man of great ability, an astute politician and a 
 skilful contender. He might have made a better 
 president than did Prince John, had his selection 
 been possible, yet the very failings of the founder's 
 son produced a condition that did more for Dart- 
 mouth and every other college in the country than 
 any successful administration could possibly have 
 accomplished. 
 
 But the charter had given Eleazar Wheelock the 
 power to name his successor, and in his will he 
 declared: " I do therefore hereby nominate, consti- 
 tute, and appoint my said son, JOHN WHEELOCK, 
 to be my successor in said office of President of my 
 Indian Charity School, and Dartmouth College, 
 
 63
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 with and into which said School is now incorporated. 
 And to him I give and grant all my right, title, and 
 claim to said seminary, and all the appurtenances, 
 interest, jurisdiction, power, and authority to, in, 
 and over the same belonging to me, as the founder 
 of it, or by grant in the charter to me, or by any 
 other ways or means whatsoever." 
 
 The colonel, who reached Hanover for the August 
 Commencement, was a bit inclined to shy at the 
 difficult task. The college was like a ship without a 
 rudder, now that the elder Wheelock had gone and 
 with him the one-man paternalism that was the 
 very essence of the institution. The finances were 
 in sorry shape; it was estimated by Colonel Elisha 
 Payne, the treasurer, that if all the corporate 
 property were sold at public vendue, the proceeds 
 would not pay the college's debts. Receipts from 
 students were less than eighty pounds a year. The 
 buildings were constantly growing more shabby and 
 some were dry-rotting. 
 
 To add to the general gloom, the war had depleted 
 the supply of students until there were now only 
 about thirty altogether; although the " School ", 
 the" preparatory department, was well attended. 
 Even food was scarce, owing to crop failures and the 
 falling purchasing power of Continental money. 
 Sylvanus Ripley believed " that the College would 
 
 64
 
 THE REIGN OF THE CROWN PRINCE 
 
 have been broken for want of provisions, if it had 
 not been for the resolute exertions of Professor 
 Woodward." The trustees, however, seem to have 
 felt no particular alarm, for they permitted the 
 college to pay three hundred pounds (currency at 
 twenty to one) for their delectation at Commence- 
 ment, bills for spirituous comforts having no small 
 share in the expenditures. 
 
 Another thing that had torn and harassed the 
 college, made powerful enemies for it, and hurt its 
 usefulness was the bitter political fight that had 
 been raging for some years between New Hampshire 
 and New York for the possession of Vermont and 
 the strip east of the Connecticut River. Hanover 
 had become the storm-center of the battle, and the 
 " College Party " most active in the affair. 
 
 The Dartmouth part of the town now set up a 
 separate organization, calling itself Dresden. A 
 printing-press was hurried up from Connecticut at 
 the elder Wheelock's request, and a paper called the 
 Mercury established on the college plain, from 
 which vitriolic editorials and pamphlets issued regu- 
 larly to assail the really scandalous policy of New 
 Hampshire in refusing any of the college officers a 
 seat in the Assembly and otherwise insulting and 
 browbeating the " grant land " towns along the river. 
 
 When the famous Westminster Convention of 
 
 65
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 January 15, 1777, declared the territory known as 
 the " New Hampshire Grants " a free and inde- 
 pendent State under the name of " New Connecti- 
 cut ", the " College Party " was strenuous in its 
 support and had the beatific vision of a new com- 
 monwealth, with Dresden as its capital and Dart- 
 mouth College its ruling power. In fiery opposition 
 at once had arisen the Bennington party, under the 
 lead of the Aliens, Ethan and Ira, who termed the 
 " College Party " as made up of " a Petulent, Pette- 
 foging, Scribbling sort of Gentry, that will keep 
 any government in hot water till they are thor- 
 oughly brought under by the exertions of authority." 
 Again, the " Exeter Party ", representing New 
 Hampshire's interests in the territory, was equally 
 offended and bitter. 
 
 When the " New Connecticut " scheme was killed 
 by the Aliens, and the State of Vermont proclaimed, 
 Dresden and the other " grant towns " to the 
 number of sixteen seceded from New Hampshire 
 and joined the new commonwealth. The first 
 Wheelock, smarting over his treatment by New 
 Hampshire, had then asked the Vermont Assembly 
 to take Dartmouth " under your friendly and 
 Charitable patronage ", which the Assembly pro- 
 ceeded to do. But the union lasted less than six 
 months, and the " College Party " returned to its 
 
 66
 
 former dream of an independent State on both sides 
 of the Connecticut. 
 
 The squabble finally reached the Continental 
 Congress and even involved George Washington, 
 who used his influence for the Aliens and against 
 the collegians. Eventually New Hampshire's claims 
 as far as the Connecticut were enforced by Con- 
 gress. Dresden became a part of Hanover once 
 more, and Hanover became an intellectual capital 
 only, with little claim to fame, save as the possessor 
 of Dartmouth College. 
 
 Into all this turmoil, this poverty, this lack of 
 definite policy rode the youthful soldier from the 
 Revolutionary Army. Small wonder that he would 
 have preferred to remain in the military service. 
 It was not until October, 1779, that he consented 
 to enter upon the presidency of the college, even 
 nominally, and in September, 1780, he offered to 
 resign. The trustees refused to hear him, and he 
 yielded to the inevitable with something of the 
 courage of his father and a proper respect for the 
 mortmain that commanded his duty. He set to 
 work with vigor, reorganized the faculty, and es- 
 tablished a code of behavior for the students, who 
 had long complained that as they were given no 
 laws, they could not tell when they were law-break- 
 ers. This array of academic statutes included the 
 
 67
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 customary amusing and snobbish specifications, as 
 for instance: 
 
 Of their conduct and behavior towards the President 
 
 That the conduct and behaviour of the Students towards 
 the Honourable President be in every respect with that 
 filial duty and esteem as the importance and dignity of 
 his station requires (viz.) uncovering their heads at and 
 within the distance of four rods from him; also when 
 they enter his dooryard, when the weather dont render 
 it inconvenient and when their hands are not necessarily 
 otherwise employed. That they never speak of him, or 
 to him, but in a manner savory of deference and respect. 
 That they stand when in his presence till they have permis- 
 sion to sit. That they wait for his liberty to speak when 
 they would address him on any occasion. That they 
 deliver their sentiments with modesty and propriety 
 and deliberately. That they never contradict or enter 
 into disputes with him; but propose their doubts griev- 
 ances or arguments by way of decent interrogation. That 
 they wait when they return an errand to him for his lib- 
 erty to withdraw. That they carry their hats when they 
 wait on him, and use no indecent gestures in his presence. 
 
 Toward the Tutors 
 
 That they treat the Tutors and Professors with a defer- 
 ence and respect becoming their Office and relation 
 to them (viz.) That they uncover their heads at and 
 within the distance of three rods from them, when the 
 weather dont render it inconvenient, and their hands are 
 not otherwise necessarily employed. That they enter 
 not into controversy or dispute with them but purpose
 
 THE REIGN OF THE CROWN PRINCE 
 
 what they have to say by way of decent interrogation. 
 That they rise when a Tutor enters the room where they 
 are and stand till he is seated with them or they have 
 otherwise liberty to sit. That they rise when spoken by 
 them and never interupt them when speaking. That 
 they be not talkative clamourous or noisy nor use inde- 
 cent gestures before them. That they always carry their 
 hats when they visit one of their rooms. That they 
 punctually perform their orders (unless contradicted by 
 the President) and always return their errand as soon as 
 effected, and not withdraw without liberty. 
 
 Towards one another 
 
 That they behave with respect and kindness towards 
 one another avoiding everything that is against the unity 
 of the spirit or manifesting a want of friendship or con- 
 trary to the Gentleman or Christian. Junior Classes 
 shall properly acknowledge the superiority of their Seniors 
 by giving them the right hand in walking or sitting &c. 
 Freshmen when in the College or in the Hall and when 
 they speak to seniors shall have their heads uncovered 
 and when in their company shall wait to be bidden before 
 they cover them, unless their be such reasons to the con- 
 trary as have been mentioned. Freshmen shall at times 
 hereafter appointed for deversion do the necessary errands 
 for all the senior Classes who have themselves served a 
 freshmanship (provided they are not sent more than half 
 a mile) and shall faithfully perform and return the same. 
 
 Some laws to prevent disorder and immorality 
 
 That no student of this College be permitted to play 
 at cards, Dice or any other unlawful game either in the 
 
 69
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 College or any other place whatever, on penalty of a fine 
 not exceeding twenty shillings for each offense at discre- 
 tion of a President or a Tutor and if persisted in they 
 shall be expelled. That no students board at a tavern or 
 sit at a tavern unless when on a journey or with express 
 leave obtained for it from the President or Tutors or by 
 desire of a Parent or Guardian, on penalty of a fine of two 
 shillings Lawful money. And any one being convicted 
 of a breach of this law four times within the space of six 
 weeks shall be publicly admonished. Nor shall any 
 student of said College be at a tavern after nine o'clock 
 in the evening on penalty of a fine of three shillings law- 
 ful money. That no student be absent from his study 
 after nine o'clock at night without liberty or such occasion 
 as President or Tutors shall think sufficient on penalty 
 of one shilling lawful money. 
 
 That no scholar send for or procure any spirituous 
 liquors without a permit from the President or a Tutor 
 for which he shall apply in person unless especially de- 
 tained at which time he may send for one by a Freshman 
 by whom he shall assign the reason for not comming 
 himself; and the purpose for which he desires such per- 
 mit; and such permit shall specify the time and place to 
 which liberty is granted to have it procured. 
 
 Regulations for the security of the College building from 
 
 damage 
 
 That all the students keep the rooms they respectively 
 inhabit secure from damage. That if rooms that are 
 unoccupied sustain special damage the cost of repairing 
 shall be brought into contengent charges. If a student 
 is known to have broken a window or to have done any 
 other particular damage in the College or Hall or any 
 
 70
 
 THE REIGN OF THE CROWN PRINCE 
 
 other public building, he shall immediately get it re- 
 paired or be- at double the cost of reparation. 
 
 If any student shall play ball or use any other deversion 
 that exposes the College or Hall windows within 3 rods 
 of either he shall be fined two shillings for the first offense 
 45 for the 2d and so on at the discretion of the President 
 or Tutors. It is earnestly recemmended and injoyned 
 upon the students that they observe neatness and clean- 
 liness in their rooms and in their dress and avoid every 
 practice in, upon or about the College that may be dis- 
 agreeable and offensive. 
 
 But it was easier to deal 'with a refractory student 
 body than with the terrors of poverty. No sooner 
 was the Crown Prince fairly seated upon his throne, 
 than the inevitable financial troubles began to beset 
 him. It was evident that Dartmouth must have 
 money, or dwindle, perhaps to the vanishing-point. 
 The equipment was obsolete and rapidly deteriora- 
 ting. The college was in debt to everybody, including 
 the faculty and the president himself for salaries 
 due. Notes were unpaid; provision dealers became 
 persistent " duns ", and the credit of the college was 
 suffering in more ways than one. 
 
 Action was imperative. The trustees decided to 
 send the president, with our old and experienced 
 friend, Nathaniel Whitaker, and Joseph Hunting- 
 ton, to foreign parts on a new begging expedition. 
 Whitaker refused, and the matter ended in the 
 
 71
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 shire Legislature in session at Portsmouth on Octo- 
 ber 30, 1784. This permitted the raising of " 3,000 
 L. M. in silver and gold, clear of expense, provided 
 the same be finished within three years." The 
 lottery was a dismal failure, due not so much to 
 any absence of the gambling spirit in New Hamp- 
 shire, as to the lack of cash to indulge it. In Septem- 
 ber, 1785, the managers made a pathetic attempt to 
 sell the tickets for produce and grain, and about a 
 year later asked " to be relieved from their em- 
 barrassment " by the Legislature, and were duly 
 relieved. 
 
 Another lottery, that of September, 1787, had 
 somewhat better success, and a drawing of the 
 second class was held, the place being the college 
 chapel and the instrument the desk therein. Chase 
 says that this proceeding was " much to the scandal 
 of some worthy people." A few of the. good folk of 
 New Hampshire must have begun to have a primor- 
 dial glimmering of the fitness of things. 
 
 But with all the financial blows that fate at first 
 gave John Wheelock, the work of setting up the 
 new main building went bravely ahead on the site 
 bequeathed to the college by the first president. 
 By Commencement, 1787, it was so well along that 
 the exercises were held in it, and it is related as an 
 incident of that event that the official platform 
 
 74
 
 Dartmouth Hall
 
 THE REIGN OF THE CROWN PRINCE 
 
 broke down under the strain of greatness placed 
 upon it, and that some of the solemn dignitaries 
 " had to look for themselves in one place and for 
 their wigs in another." In 1791, after heroic 
 struggles to pay for the work, the building was 
 finished. Upon it were expended in all something 
 like 4,500, of which the lottery produced 366. 
 The college was in debt over it for years, yet it was 
 worth all the anxiety and trouble it caused, for it 
 did more to stimulate the growth and reputation 
 of the institution than any other thing of its time. 
 
 The hall was built of wood, but was large and 
 imposing; Timothy Dwight, on his travels, reported 
 it as of " decent " appearance, which meant more 
 than our use of the word would indicate. It was 
 graceful in its lines, perfect in its proportions, a 
 beautiful piece of unconscious Colonial simplicity 
 and good taste. When it burned in 1904, after 
 passing safely through all the perils of open fire- 
 places, stoves, candles, kerosene, and gas only to 
 fall a victim to the ultra-modernity of electric wiring, 
 the sons of the institution could hardly be blamed for 
 feeling at first that with the passing of old Dart- 
 mouth Hall had gone also the heart of the college. 
 
 No chapel was at. the outset provided for in Dart- 
 mouth Hall, and the existing place of worship in the 
 ancient College Hall was at this time in a shocking 
 
 75
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 state, so shocking that upon one dark night in 1790, 
 the long-suffering students made a characteristic 
 " nocturnal visitation " and tore the ramshackle 
 structure wooden limb from wooden limb. Nobody 
 was disciplined for this feat, and it was even hinted 
 that the president and faculty were secretly de- 
 lighted at the raid. A new chapel was built near the 
 site of the Thornton Hall of to-day. Possibly the 
 students may have felt that their wrecking of Col- 
 lege Hall had been injudicious, for the new chapel 
 was " without a chimney and never profaned by a 
 stove ", and a temperature of twenty degrees the 
 wrong side of zero is by no means uncommon at 
 Hanover in winter. 
 
 The college was distinctly growing under the 
 reign of the Crown Prince. It soon rivalled any 
 in the country as to its number of students. In 
 1786 it sheltered 100, in 1790 its total was 160. It 
 graduated in 1791, with the A. B. degree, forty-nine 
 men, to twenty-seven each at Yale, Harvard, and 
 Princeton. In the decade 1780 to 1790, Dartmouth 
 graduated 363 men, Harvard 394, Yale 295, and 
 Princeton 240. Dartmouth was not then the 
 " small, college " of Webster's time. 
 
 Apparently growth in numbers was not accom- 
 panied by growth in godliness or decorum in the 
 students. Elder Ariel Kendrick, who was a Charity 
 
 76
 
 THE REIGN OF THE CROWN PRINCE 
 
 School pupil from 1785 to 1789, gives them a rather 
 bad character. " The students at that early day ", 
 he writes, " were many of them very unruly, law- 
 less, and without the fear of God. On a certain 
 night they met according to agreement and pros- 
 trated the unsightly hall (the old Commons Hall), 
 of which I have spoken, and they all soon presented 
 to their brethren their names written in a circle. I 
 believe they paid all the building was worth. . . . 
 
 " The number of the students at this College at 
 this time (1847) is much larger than it was at that 
 early day, and if they are proportionally head- 
 strong and ungovernable, I should think the Faculty 
 need the wisdom of Solomon, the nerves of Achilles, 
 the patience of Job, and the meekness of Moses to 
 manage them. . . . The stage at that time ex- 
 hibited scenes wounding to Christian piety, and to 
 which modesty was indignant. In a quarrel on the 
 stage one would stab the other, and he would fall as 
 dead, wallowing in blood from a concealed bladder, 
 which was wittingly punctured by the point of the 
 sword. A student would take the stage, assuming 
 to be a preacher, and with a pious tone would bar- 
 becue Scripture, with a view to shower contempt 
 upon unlearned ministers. One of these young 
 preachers, in executing his purpose, said that ' Neb- 
 uchadnezzar's fundament was het seven times 
 
 77
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 hotter than ever it was before.' Another on decla- 
 mation day took the stage, dressed in a black gown, 
 a band, and a large gray wig, with a book under his 
 arm, and preached a sermon from the following 
 words: ' Give me children, or else I die.' ' 
 
 There can be no wonder, in the light of that testi- 
 mony, that the faculty made a stringent regulation 
 " that all dramatic exhibitions, either of a comic or 
 a tragic nature, and spirituous liquors or represent- 
 atives thereof, be wholly excluded from the stage, 
 and that no profane or obscene expression or rep- 
 resentation, or female habit, be introduced in any 
 exhibition on the stage on penalty of a fine not ex- 
 ceeding five shillings, or admonition." Nor was 
 piety in much better practice among the students. 
 We are told that in the class of 1799, of which Ros- 
 well Shurtleff, afterward a famous professor of 
 divinity, was a member, only one man publicly 
 professed Christianity. The natural reaction came 
 in 1801 with the establishing of the Students' Re- 
 ligious Society. 
 
 The consistent and unending battle with poverty, 
 however, kept most other considerations in the 
 background just now. John Wheelock, whatever 
 his faults as later revealed, was no weakling. The 
 " res angustae domi " aroused but did not terrify 
 him. Even the loss of ten thousand dollars spent 
 
 78
 
 THE REIGN OF THE CROWN PRINCE 
 
 in unsuccessful defense of the college's title to the 
 Landaff grant did not appall him. He sold twenty 
 thousand acres of the " First College Grant ", now 
 Clarksville, at a shilling an acre, putting a thousand 
 pounds into the treasury; a little later ten thousand 
 acres more went for 1250. 
 
 In addition, the president bombarded the Legis- 
 lature incessantly with petitions for aid. He asked 
 for an annuity of two hundred pounds " to continue 
 during the embarrassed condition of the College ", 
 and again for a loan of six hundred dollars to help 
 pay some of the institution's more pressing debts. 
 As usual, the General Court responded by giving 
 permission for a new lottery that should raise 
 fifteen thousand dollars over expenses. This brought 
 in about four thousand. dollars, some eight hundred 
 tickets having been sold in Boston alone, because 
 Harvard was not at that time competing in the 
 business of academic gambling. There was also 
 some income from rents in the town of Wheelock, 
 Vermont, a part of which had been set aside for the 
 benefit of the Charity School in 1785. 
 
 With these aids and the Wheelock tenacity of 
 purpose as its directing force, the college struggled 
 on and actually grew in grace, reputation, and 
 numbers, although from 1787 to 1803 the whole 
 instructing body consisted of the president, two 
 
 79
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 professors and one tutor. Apparently the students 
 of that period were not averse to heckling their 
 grave and reverend teachers. Doctor Shurtleff 
 relates of Professor Smith: 
 
 " He was constitutionally nervous and timid. 
 He could not well take a joke, and still less could he 
 retort one. When a little disconcerted, he at once 
 lost his balance, and could only receive with meek- 
 ness what should come next. Having a recitation 
 of the class of 1802 in Watts' Logic, on the doctrine 
 of identity notwithstanding renewals of parts, one of 
 the class, Fisk, held up his jack-knife and asked: 
 ' If I lose this blade and get a new one, is it the same 
 knife? ' ' Yes.' ' If I next lose the handle and get 
 a new one, is it still the same? ' ' As a knife it is 
 still the same.' ' Well, then, my chum finds the 
 old blade and handle and puts them together, - 
 what knife is that? ' which silenced the professor." 
 
 In 1797, the year of the founding of the Medical 
 School, Daniel Webster entered college. He came 
 immediately from his father's tavern and the 
 historic hayfield, where the only way his scythe 
 would " hang " correctly was upon the limb of a 
 shady apple-tree. But he had had a partial " fit " 
 at the Phillips Exeter Academy, and he never had 
 any intellectual struggle to maintain his place in 
 his class. He was a raw specimen when he reached 
 
 80
 
 THE REIGN OF THE CROWN PRINCE 
 
 Hanover and " put up " at what is now known as I 
 the Leeds house, but then a species of tavern. 
 In this same house, it may here be noted, Rufus 
 Choate, the friend and compeer of Webster, was 
 married. 
 
 The " Godlike Daniel " was not impressive as a 
 freshman. He was thin, awkward, and so dark that 
 one of the villagers took him for a new Indian pupil 
 on his arrival, much to his disgust. 
 
 But he quickly made himself felt in college, 
 though not one of his classmates would have pre- 
 dicted anything far out of the common for him. 
 He had personality, and he could make speeches 
 in a somewhat better style than the dull, sopho- 
 moric manner of the day that much they felt 
 sure of. In his senior year he delivered an eulogy 
 of his classmate Simonds, which his room-mate 
 Aaron Loveland afterward said " was very good, 
 but produced no extraordinary effect." A sample 
 is quite sufficient to show its crudities of expression: 
 " The sun, as it sinks to the ocean, plays its depart- 
 ing beams on his tomb, but they re-animate him not. 
 The cold sod presses on his bosom, his hands hang 
 down in weakness. The bird of evening shouts a 
 melancholy air on the poplar, but her voice is still- 
 ness to his ears." 
 
 In his junior year, Webster gave the Fourth of 
 
 81
 
 July oration to the citizens of Hanover. This was 
 a more finished product, but still marked by ex- 
 travagances. He termed Napoleon " the gascona- 
 ding pilgrim of Egypt " and declared that France, 
 " not yet satisfied with the contortions of expiring 
 republics, spouted her fury across the Atlantic! " 
 It was a long distance from that sort of thing to 
 the reply to Hayne; but Webster was yet a boy of 
 eighteen. The beginnings of the orator were stirring 
 within him. 
 
 The college life of " Black Dan " was not particu- 
 larly eventful. He seems to have behaved rather 
 better than the times demanded; flirted a little 
 with the " college widows "; drank moderately 
 enough, so far as there is any record; studied hon- 
 estly and easily; talked in public and in his literary 
 society, the United Fraternity, on all possible occa- 
 sions and wrote poems and skits for the Dartmouth 
 Gazette, receiving in all about seventy-five dollars, 
 enough to pay a whole year's board in that glad day 
 of moderate prices. He afterwards wrote of himself 
 at this period: 
 
 " Of my college life I can say but little. I was 
 graduated, in course, in August, 1801. Owing to 
 some difficulties, haec non meminisse juvat, I took no 
 part in the Commencement exercises. I spoke an 
 oration to the Society of the United Fraternity, which 
 
 82
 
 THE REIGN OF THE CROWN PRINCE 
 
 I suspect was a sufficiently boyish performance. My 
 college life was not an idle one. Besides the regular 
 attendance of prescribed duties and studies, I read 
 something of English history and English literature. 
 Perhaps my reading was too miscellaneous. I even 
 paid my board for a year by superintending a little 
 weekly newspaper, and making selections for it 
 from books of literature, and from the contempo- 
 rary publications. I suppose I sometimes wrote a 
 foolish paragraph myself. 
 
 " While in College I delivered two or three occa- 
 sional addresses, which were published. I trust they 
 are forgotten; they were in very bad taste. I had 
 not then learned that all true power in writing is in 
 the idea, not in the style, an error into which the 
 ars rhetorica, as it is usually taught, may easily lead 
 stronger heads than mine." 
 
 At another time Webster was not so humble. 
 _Professor Sanborn, dining with him at Franklin 
 one day, observed: " It is commonly reported that 
 you did not study much in College." We are told 
 that the "Godlike" replied angrily: "What fools 
 they must be to suppose that anybody could succeed 
 in college or public life without study! I studied and 
 read more than all the rest of my class, if they had 
 all been made into one man. And I was as much 
 above them then as I am now." Whether that was 
 
 83
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 the simple and natural egoism of great genius or the 
 promptings of another sort of inspiration, Webster 
 later wrote that " my scholarship was overesti- 
 mated. Many other students read more than I did 
 and knew more than I did ", and he told George 
 Ticknor: " My Greek and Mathematics were not 
 great while I was in College, but I was better read 
 in history and English generally than any of my 
 class, and I was good in composition. My Latin 
 , was pretty strong, too." 
 
 Judge Loveland in 1857 gave the most pungent 
 estimate of Webster as a collegian that can be 
 found anywhere. " I roomed with Webster ", said 
 he, " about one year. He was very ambitious in 
 college from the first, and took every opportunity 
 to make himself conspicuous. He had unbounded 
 self-confidence, seemed to feel that a good deal be- 
 longed to him, and evidently intended to be a great 
 man in public life. He was rather bombastic and 
 always ready for a speech. One day he was reading 
 Addison's ' Cato,' putting it off in great style, when 
 he pronounced ' Utica ' as if the first letter was 
 short; I corrected him, and he said I was right. He 
 did a great deal in his college society, and received 
 almost unbounded flattery from his fellow-members. 
 They thought he was great. It was common for 
 others to say they overestimated him. He was 
 
 84
 
 THE REIGN OF THE CROWN PRINCE 
 
 not very popular with the class, owing to his being 
 so independent and assuming. 
 
 " On one occasion, when some matter was dis- 
 cussed before the class, the side which he advocated 
 received but few votes, whereupon he got up and 
 left the room. He would appear rather stuffy if 
 things did not go to suit him, though he took no 
 special pains at electioneering. On the whole, he was 
 regarded as our ablest man; if anything was to be 
 done he was generally appointed. He never refused; 
 would always take hold and get off something, and 
 generally did well. He came to college from a 
 tavern kept by his father, who was in embarrassed 
 circumstances. His father was at our room while 
 we were together. He said that if he had received 
 education in youth, he could have done anything he 
 chose. 
 
 " Dan was rough and awkward, very decidedly, 
 and I sometimes doubted whether he would succeed 
 in life on that account. Yet there was something 
 rather assuming and pompous in his bearing as well 
 as his style. He observed things remarkably, and 
 was quick to see their bearings. He was, and felt 
 himself to be, a kind of oracle. He read the news- 
 papers and kept himself posted upon political affairs 
 remarkably for a young man. He read a good deal 
 also of general reading. If any distinguished men 
 
 85
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 were about, he would manage to fall in with them; 
 met more than most students, and was distin- 
 guished in the community around the College, for 
 the extent and readiness of his political knowledge. 
 He was a good, though not a very accurate scholar. 
 He would occasionally come over here to Norwich, 
 Saturdays, to hunt with me. Dan seldom hit any- 
 thing." 
 
 The hoary, but still extant bit of fiction that 
 Webster, after receiving his diploma, went out 
 behind Dartmouth Hall and tore the document to 
 pieces because he had not been given the valedictory 
 oration, shouting as he performed the deed: "My 
 industry may make me a great man, but this miser- 
 able parchment cannot ", should be given an un- 
 honored burial and not resurrected. It has no basis 
 in fact, in the testimony of classmates, in the char- 
 acter of the man, or in his love for the college, which 
 he frequently revisited soon after leaving it, and 
 to which he sent his brother and his son. He was 
 disappointed and grieved, but he did not act like 
 an ingrate or a fool. 
 
 The facts were that Thomas A. Merrill, " the 
 most correct recitation scholar in the class ", was 
 awarded the salutatory, at that time the chief Com- 
 mencement prize. The class was asked to elect the 
 valedictorian, but it failed to do so on account of a 
 
 86
 
 THE REIGN OF THE CROWN PRINCE 
 
 bitter quarrel between the members of the United 
 Fraternity and the Social Friends. It is said that 
 the students desired and expected the faculty to 
 choose Webster, but that body gave that part to 
 Caleb Tenney and offered Webster his choice be- 
 tween an English poem or an English oration, neither 
 of which the offended Daniel would take. " The 
 faculty ", wrote Merrill afterward, " thought it 
 would be almost barbarous to set the best English 
 scholar in the class to jabber in Latin." 
 
 Thus went out from his " cherishing mother " the 
 greatest figure she has sent into the world. If there 
 was a cloud of dissatisfaction over his exit, affairs 
 were even then so shaping themselves that it was 
 soon to be lifted and reveal the man himself in the 
 sunlight of his fame and his powers, fighting the/ 
 winning battle that saved for his college her very 
 life itself. 
 
 
 87
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE GREAT " CASE " 
 
 JOHN WHEELOCK'S energy and executive abil- 
 ity of a certain sort, reflected by the self-evident 
 growth of the college through his long reign, was 
 sufficient for many years to still the sporadic mut- 
 terings against the family dynasty, within and 
 without. For almost a generation there was nothing 
 that the hostiles could do, except mutter and try 
 to block the attempts of the college to obtain a 
 crumb or two from the legislative table. Wheelock 
 was a man of determination, and in his Hanoverian 
 castle were for some time his own family retainers. 
 Doctor Benjamin Pomeroy, one of the charter mem- 
 bers of the board of ^trustees, was an uncle by mar- 
 riage. Bezaleel^ JWood ward, another trustee, was 
 his brother-in-law. Sylvanus Ripley was still an- 
 other who filled both functions. 
 
 The remaining trustees, who lived at a distance, 
 were not often at meetings of the board, for a trip 
 to Hanover over the still fearsome roads was un- 
 attractive. The dynasty trustees, themselves ruled 
 
 88
 
 THE GREAT "CASE" 
 
 by Wheelock, naturally regulated matters to suit 
 their liege. The faculty was Wheelock through and 
 through, consisting of two sons and two sons-in-law 
 of Eleazar, with the fifth man, Professor Smith, 
 practically a member of the family. 
 
 These conditions changed with time, but for the 
 first years of his reign, Prince John governed Dart- 
 mouth as an absolute monarch, firm in his belief 
 that as his father had been the college, so was he by 
 divine right and human testament. For that prin- 
 ciple he was willing to fight at any time, and fight 
 he had to with the waxing of the new century. 
 
 Gradually there arose from the necessities brought 
 about by the deaths of the older members, a board of 
 trustees that knew not Eleazar and began to dare 
 to question the edicts of his son. The new notion 
 of taking their duties and responsibilities seriously 
 gradually grew among them. In 1804 but one mem- 
 ber of the original board was left. John Wheelock 
 could no longer play Hamlet with the ghost of his 
 father and expect to see it potent. In minor ways 
 the trustees began to make this evident. 
 
 It was, however, one of those religious squabbles, 
 not uncommon in the early history of many col- 
 leges, that finally involved the president and his 
 board of trustees in an open and bitter warfare that 
 was not to cease until it reached the greatest, tri- 
 
 89
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 bunal of the world as its greatest case up to that 
 time and argued by the greatest forensic lawyer of 
 his day. From the small white church that now 
 stands in such demure simplicity at the north- 
 western end of the campus, came the discordant 
 elements, as from an ecclesiastical Pandora's box, 
 that raged for years and nearly killed the college. 
 
 The house of worship, whose walls rang with the 
 Commencement eloquence of every class from 
 1796 to 1907, was built in 1795 at a cost of about 
 five thousand dollars. It was the property of " The 
 Church of Christ at Dartmouth College ", not of 
 the college itself, although the trustees promised 
 that they would, in better financial weather, make 
 up a part of the cost and would meantime pay for 
 the college use of it. The proprietors before long 
 began to look for the rental. It was slow in coming. 
 Finally the trustees voted that " each member of 
 the College shall pay one dollar on the second 
 Wednesday in March for preaching and the use of 
 seats in the meeting house for the ensuing year." 
 
 This tax President Wheelock passed on to the 
 undergraduates, and their indignation knew no 
 bounds. It was bad enough, they protested, to be 
 compelled to listen to Professor Smith's preaching 
 without being made to pay for the ordeal. So much 
 of a storm arose that the trustees soon revoked the 
 
 90
 
 C^^-T*^ 
 
 College Church
 
 THE GREAT "CASE" 
 
 order. The president then seceded from the church, 
 taking all the students and Professor Smith to the 
 college chapel for Sunday services; this in the face 
 of the agreement of the trustees to compensate the 
 religious society for the attendance of the students 
 and the damage they should do to the pews, which, 
 judging from some venerable relics still extant 
 thirty years ago, was considerable. 
 
 The trouble was adjudicated in 1798, and the 
 students went back, with their jack-knives, to the 
 church. But it had served to arouse among the 
 trustees a fear that the domination of the president 
 was not altogether for the best. 
 
 Soon came another long church imbroglio over 
 the question of pastor. Wheelock insisted upon his 
 amiable echo, Doctor Smith. Whereupon the 
 Hanover men for the most part quit the old church 
 and organized " The Congregation in the Vicinity 
 of Dartmouth College " with Professor Shurtleff 
 as its minister. 
 
 The meeting-house was used by both factions at 
 different hours, and there is on record no story of 
 any clashes more serious than those of words. 
 Wheelock's anger took the form of several attempts 
 upon the trustees to get them to forbid Shurtleff to 
 preach for the new church, charging him with neglect 
 of his college duties. The board was by this time 
 
 91
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 more Congregationalist than Presbyterian, and it 
 'refused. At the meeting of August 27, 1811, it 
 drew up a statement concluding with these words: 
 
 " The trustees have long labored to restore the \ 
 harmony which formerly prevailed in this Institu- 
 tion, without success: and it is with reluctance they ) 
 express their apprehension, that if the present state J 
 of things is suffered to remain any great .length of / 
 time, the College will be essentially injured." / 
 
 That may be set down as the first official notice 
 to John Wheelock that he would have a fight on his 
 hands if he did not mend his cantankerous ways. 
 The trustees had reached the point where, as one 
 of them said, they were no longer willing that even 
 the son of his father should be " the omnis homo of 
 the College." They began to pass laws curbing his 
 powers. He retorted that they were guilty of usurpa- 
 tion and perversion of funds. 
 
 The_Jirst shot of the great contest was fired from ^ 
 ambuscade, and took the form of a paragraph in J 
 the^Boston Repertory, of April 26, 1815, stating that / 
 as a result of " difficulties of a serious and unpleasant S 
 nature ", the president of Dartmouth College might j 
 be expected to resign shortly, and that the trustees 1 
 and alumni were looking about for his successor. ^/ 
 
 As this was what John Wheelock had no remotest 
 intention of doing, the effect on him may be im- 
 
 92
 
 THE GREAT "CASE" 
 
 agined. He had the Dartmouth Gazette say that the 
 item was " a gross and infamous misrepresenta- 
 tion ", and followed up this retort by the publica- 
 tion of an anonymous pamphlet entitled " Sketches 
 of the History of Dartmouth College and Moor's 
 Charity School ", accompanied by another called 
 " A Candid and Analytical Review " of the former. 
 The president wrote the first, and his friend, Rev- 
 erend Elijah Parish, of Byfield, Massachusetts, the 
 second. Both were vitriolic in their denunciations of 
 the trustees, whom they accused of subordinating the 
 interests of the college to their religious prejudices, 
 the inference being that Wheelock was liberal and 
 the board a set of hard-shelled ecclesiastical Tories. 
 
 The newspapers promptly jumped into the fray, 
 the Concord Patriot, the Portsmouth Gazette and the 
 Windsor (Vt.) Washingtonian supporting Wheelock, 
 and the Concord Gazette, the Portsmouth Oracle and 
 the Dartmouth Gazette lining up for the trustees. 
 Soon the quarrel became political, with the Feder- 
 alists in general on the side of the trustees, and the 
 Democrats espousing the cause of the president. 
 In a few months the fight was an issue at the polls, 
 and the members of the Legislature were elected 
 as Wheelockites or anti-Wheelockites. 
 
 In June, 1815, the beleaguered president applied 
 to the Legislature for help, now alleging that the 
 
 93
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 trustees were scheming " to strengthen the inter- 
 est of a party or sect, which by extending its influ- 
 ence under the fairest professions, will eventually 
 affect the political independence of the people, and 
 move the springs of their government." 
 
 This arrant nonsense and characteristic bombast 
 must have been regarded seriously by the solons, 
 for a committee was appointed to hear Wheelock's 
 plea. He asked for legislation to enlarge the board 
 of trustees, so that his enemies would be outnum- 
 bered, promising to leave half his estate to the col- 
 lege if that were done. The Legislature replied by 
 appointing a committee to go to Hanover and in- 
 vestigate. The session was fixed for August 16. 
 Wheelock immediately sent for Mr. Webster, whom 
 he* had retained after a fashion some months before 
 to represent him in case of trouble. But the message 
 reached Portsmouth too late, and Webster, as it 
 appeared from a letter to one Dunham, who had 
 attacked him viciously for alleged breach of good 
 faith, would not have come in any event. 
 
 :< If I had received it earlier," he wrote, " I could 
 not have attended, because the court engaged me 
 at home; and I ought to add here, that if I had no 
 other engagements at the time, and had also been 
 seasonably notified, I should have exercised my own 
 discretion about undertaking to act a part before 
 
 94
 
 THE GREAT "CASE" 
 
 the committee at Hanover. I regard that as no 
 professional call. ... I am not quite so fully con- 
 vinced as you are, that the president is altogether 
 right, and the trustees altogether wrong." 
 
 That disposes of the assertion that Webster be- 
 trayed Wheelock and shifted his opinions to suit the 
 political winds. It is evident that he was not on 
 the president's side at any time after the real lines 
 of the struggle had been drawn. 
 
 On the assembling of the investigators, Wheelock 
 immediately presented his case against the trustees, 
 charging them, among other things, with: 
 
 Separating the church founded in College, and blending 
 the ecclesiastical concerns of the College with those of 
 the neighboring people and clergy; thus subjecting this 
 public institution to inconvenience and degradation, by 
 means of private interference. 
 
 Expending the funds to an amount unnecessary and 
 extravagant, compared with the sum total of instruction. 
 
 Refusing to apply any of the funds, of which they have 
 control, to the instruction of Indians. 
 
 Interfering with the power of the President, as granted 
 by charter, in the education of the students, and also with 
 his rights, as an executive officer. 
 
 To this the gentlemen responded rather feebly, 
 so far as their appearance before the committee was 
 concerned; but they acted vigorously enough. 
 Wheelock was declared to be and denounced as the 
 
 95
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 author of the seditious " Sketches." The president 
 replied with an ungrammatical and pompous blast 
 of defiance, refusing to meet with the board and 
 denying its jurisdiction. Its counter- thrust was 
 startling: Wheelock was deposed. At six in the 
 morning of August 26, the trustees met and voted 
 the Crown Prince's academic execution, with reso- 
 lutions charging him with libel on the college; with 
 usurpation of the whole executive authority; with 
 fraud in the application of the funds of Moor's 
 School by passing off a white man as an Indian; 
 and with lying as to the cause of the contest. Thus 
 they concluded: 
 
 They consider this crisis as a severe trial to the institu- 
 tion, but they believe that in order to entertain a hope 
 that it will flourish and be useful, they must be faithful 
 to their trust, that they must not approve of an officer 
 who labors to destroy its reputation, and embarrass its 
 eternal concerns. They will yet hope that under the 
 smiles of Divine Providence this institution will continue 
 to flourish, and be a great blessing to generations to come. 
 
 Therefore, Resolved that the appointment of Dr. John 
 Wheelock to the presidency of this college by the last will 
 of the Rev. Eleazar Wheelock, the founder and first Presi- 
 dent of this College, be and the same is hereby, by the 
 trustees of said College, disapproved, and it is further 
 Resolved that the said Dr. John Wheelock for the reason 
 aforesaid, be and he is hereby displaced and removed 
 "from the office of President of said College. 
 
 96
 
 THE GREAT "CASE" 
 
 On the same morning the board chose Reverend 
 Francis Brown, 1805, of Yarmouth, Maine, presi- 
 dent in Wheelock's place. The latter immediately 
 wrote the Maine clergyman that in his view the 
 action of the trustees was illegal and void; but Mr. 
 Brown was inaugurated as president on the twenty- 
 seventh of September. 
 
 Now ensued a civil war within the confines at 
 Hanover, the like of which no college town in 
 America has ever seen. The Democrats won the 
 next election and, with Governor Plumer and the 
 Legislature partisans of Wheelock, it was easy to 
 obtain the enactment of a bill changing the name of 
 the college to Dartmouth University, increasing 
 the number of trustees to twenty-one, and estab- 
 lishing a board of overseers of twenty-five, including, 
 ex officio, the Governor and Council, the President 
 of the Senate and Speaker of the House, and the 
 Governor and Lieutenant-Governor of Vermont. 
 These boards made Wheelock president of the 
 university. 
 
 The trustees of the college declined to take places 
 in the new board. But Judge Woodward, the 
 secretary and treasurer, went over to the enemy, 
 carrying with him the Great Seal and the records and 
 the college property, which he refused to surrender. 
 This seeming misfortune turned out to be the real 
 
 97
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 foundation for the suit at law which proved the 
 salvation of the college. 
 
 To add to the difficulties of the trustees, the 
 Legislature passed a bill of penalties providing that 
 any person assuming to perform the duties of presi- 
 dent, trustee, or any officer of the college, except in 
 conformity to the acts of the Legislature, should 
 forfeit for each offense five hundred dollars, to be 
 recovered by any person who should sue therefor, 
 one half to go to the complainant and one half to 
 the university. President Brown, with all his 
 gentleness and culture, had plenty of steel under 
 his velvet exterior, and he declined to be frightened. 
 As a matter of fact, no action was ever taken under 
 this penal law. 
 
 In the midst of the turmoil, John Wheelock fell 
 a victim to " a dropsy of the chest " and died, on 
 April 4, 1817, at the age of sixty-three. He had 
 lived many years too long for the good of his fame. 
 The qualities of fearlessness, energy, and undoubted 
 devotion to the college which did such excellent 
 service in the first half of his administration, became 
 obstinacy, autocracy and almost incredible vanity in 
 the last half. Nor was he shrewd enough to mitigate 
 his domineering by any claims to partnership with 
 the Almighty, as his father had done. Possibly the 
 era was too late for the success of that sort of thing. 
 
 98
 
 THE GREAT "CASE" 
 
 He lacked culture and in his writings was turgid 
 and almost illiterate. Lord relates that-his prayers 
 at chapel were marvels of grotesque taste. " Having 
 one day chanced to attend to some experiment in 
 the chemistry of gases, he thanked the Lord in his 
 next chapel prayer for the elements in detail: * We 
 thank thee O Lord for the oxygen gas; we thank 
 thee O Lord for the hydrogen gas; we thank thee O 
 Lord for the nitrogen gas and for all the gases.' At 
 another time he was impressed in the same way 
 by the wonders of anatomy and expressed his grati- 
 tude in like form ' for the cerebrum, for the cere- 
 bellum and for the medulla oblongata.' ' 
 
 A composite by two of the students who took the 
 trouble to write of him afterward furnishes as ac- 
 curate a picture of John Wheelock as the world 
 of to-day cares for. Thus Stephen Farley, of the 
 class of 1804: 
 
 It was his habit to speak in a stiff and affectedly ele- 
 vated style; to assume some empirical airs of the polite 
 gentleman; to exact attention from others and to pay 
 for them by making superfluous bows, and lighting up 
 his face with smiles, while he gracefully lifted and waved 
 his tri-cornered beaver. Notwithstanding the stilt-walk- 
 ing character of his style he acquitted himself well in his 
 lectures, which were always unwritten. 
 
 In personal presence he made in his prime a good ap- 
 pearance. His stature was of the average, his shoulders 
 
 99
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 rather broad, and he was very erect. He had a light com- 
 plexion; abundant brown hair, clubbed behind, and 
 parted in the middle of the forehead. His nose was 
 large and aquiline; his eyes bright, and his eyebrows and 
 mouth rather uncommonly elongated. 
 
 He wore a dun colored coat as often as a black one; 
 and always small clothes and white stockings; and, when 
 the weather required, a drab double-breasted great coat. 
 The barber visited his study twice a week, and so at 
 prayers on Wednesday and Saturday evenings he ap- 
 peared all shaven and shorn with a sprinkling of powder 
 on the crown of his head. 
 
 George Ticknor, 1807, gave this as his contribu- 
 tion: 
 
 Doctor Wheelock was stiff and stately. He read con- 
 stantly, sat up late and got up early. He talked very 
 gravely and slow, with a falsetto voice. Mr. Webster 
 could imitate him perfectly. . . . He was one of the most 
 formal men I ever knew. I saw a great deal of him from 
 1802 to 1816 in his own house and myiather's, but never 
 felt the smallest degree of familiarity with him, nor do I 
 believe that any of the students did. They were gener- 
 ally very awkward, unused to the ways of the world. 
 Many of them when they went to the President on their 
 little affairs did not know when the time had come for 
 them to get up and leave him. He was very covetous of 
 his time, and when the business was settled, and he had 
 waited a little while he would say, " Will you sit longer, 
 or will you go now? " It was a recognized formula, and 
 no young man that I ever knew of, ever sat longer after 
 hearing it. 
 
 100
 
 THE GREAT "CASE" 
 
 Perhaps it is as well to take leave of the second 
 president with the thought that he was courteous, 
 at any rate. Lord says " he had pleasant personal 
 qualities and had some devoted friends and sup- 
 porters." In the life of Doctor A. Alexander we 
 find that " It was pleasantly said that he suffered no 
 man to have the last bow. This, it was reported, was 
 put to the test by a person of some assurance who 
 undertook to compete with him in a contest of polite- 
 ness. He accordingly took his leave, bowed him- 
 self out of the mansion, and continued to bow as 
 long as he was upon the premises, but the President 
 followed him to the gate, and remained in possession 
 of the field." 
 
 When Wheelock passed out of the fight for the 
 academic control of Hanover, and William Allen, 
 of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, came into it as presi- 
 dent of Dartmouth University there was still some- 
 thing of the dynasty tinge to the succession, for 
 Allen was Wheelock's son-in-law. But he was an 
 amiable gentleman and went through his difficult 
 role with as little offense as possible. 
 
 The two institutions by the name of Dartmouth 
 on Hanover plain proceeded for a while under an 
 understood truce. The university had the build- 
 ings, which they seized with the aid of a couple of 
 village " huskies ", but the college had the students, 
 
 101
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 who stood loyally by to the number of 130, while 
 their rivals were so few that they were ashamed to 
 get out a catalogue. President Brown hired a hall 
 over Stewart's hat store for use as a chapel and for 
 senior recitations, while the lower classes met in 
 various student's rooms. But " we all followed one 
 bell ", wrote Nathan Crosby in his " First Half 
 Century of Dartmouth College ", " and for two long 
 years a hundred or more students were crossing the 
 plain, at every ringing of the bell, to their chapel 
 and various recitation rooms, while a dozen univer- 
 sity students were crossing our paths in other direc- 
 tions, giving ample opportunity to crack a joke and 
 chaff each other." 
 
 Henry K. Oliver says much the same -thing: 
 " There was, by a sort of tacit consent, a general 
 harmony between the several students. The same 
 tintinnabulum summoned both parties to prayers, 
 recitations, and meals, and they crossed the same 
 campus; yet not without a muchness of good- 
 natured chaff and banter, we the ' hoi polloi ', and 
 they the ' few yet brave.' ' 
 
 The first Commencements under the dual system 
 were held on the same day, August 27, 1817. Each 
 party claimed the church for its exercises. The 
 pewholders disagreed. General Poole, Colonel 
 Brewster, and Colonel Perkins, of the university 
 
 102
 
 THE GREAT "CASE" 
 
 persuasion, swore they would call out the militia to 
 support President Allen, whereupon a party of 
 sixty college students took possession of the sacred 
 edifice by night and held it for three days, armed 
 with canes and clubs and provided with stones to 
 hurl from the belfry upon the heads of university 
 invaders. President Brown offered to compromise 
 by giving the university the auditorium after one 
 o'clock on Commencement day, but President Allen 
 refused to yield precedence and held the Com- 
 mencement in the chapel in the college yard, grad- 
 uating eight men to the college's thirty-nine. 
 
 Manifestly it was impossible for two sets of 
 college boys, lively young Americans of that rather 
 " cocky" period after the war of 1812, to get on 
 in such strange fashion without at least one serious 
 clash. The wonder is that riot was not frequent, 
 instead of nearly unknown. The one example was 
 sufficiently exhilarating. 
 
 The university people had early seized the college 
 library, amounting to about four thousand volumes, 
 and the student societies, the United Fraternity and 
 the Social Friends, feared that their books would 
 likewise be carried off. Each appointed a Com- 
 mittee of Safety. Rufus Choate, then librarian of 
 the Socials, hired a room in Professor Adams' house, 
 where he lived, and under cover of darkness super- 
 
 103
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 axe, and declaring that no Social could remove a 
 single book and live to tell the tale. But no blood 
 was spilt, for the university crowd, finding itself 
 overwhelmingly outnumbered, surrendered grace- 
 fully and submitted to imprisonment in an adjacent 
 room until the society adherents had removed all 
 their books. President Allen had nine of the college 
 boys arrested for riot, among them " R. Choate." 
 They retaliated by swearing out warrants against 
 Professors Dean and Carter and some others of the 
 university raiders. No one was indicted, and the 
 excitement died out almost as suddenly as it had 
 arisen. 
 
 All this time the great " Case " had been steadily 
 in the making, and with a trend adverse to the 
 college. Helped incalculably by the gift of one 
 thousand dollars from John B. Wheeler, of Orford, 
 New Hampshire, without whose money the fight 
 would not have been made, 1 the trustees brought 
 suit of trover against Treasurer Woodward to recover 
 the seal, the charter, the records, and the accounts, 
 
 1 In November, 1817, President Brown appealed to Harvard for 
 financial aid in a cause common to all the chartered colleges. President 
 Kirkland replied that he was in full sympathy with Dartmouth, but 
 that Harvard had no funds for the purpose of helping the legal battle, 
 adding also that his friends and advisers feared that the college would 
 be beaten in the United States Supreme Court, which would make the 
 situation of Harvard and the other colleges precarious. Dartmouth 
 fought out the cause of the rest single-handed. 
 
 106
 
 Wheeler Hall
 
 THE GREAT "CASE" 
 
 which he had carried over to the university, all to 
 the alleged value of fifty thousand dollars. 
 
 The first argument of the case was made at 
 Haverhill in the spring of 1817. Those intellectual 
 giants, Jeremiah Mason and Jeremiah Smith, ap- 
 peared for the college, while George Sullivan and 
 Ichabod Bartlett, both keen and able pleaders, were 
 for the university. The case was continued to the 
 September sitting at Exeter, and there Webster 
 joined the others, making the closing plea for the 
 college. The counsel on this side argued that the 
 acts of the Legislature of New Hampshire were not 
 obligating: 
 
 1. Because they are not within the general scope 
 of legislative power. 
 
 2. Because they violate certain provisions of the 
 Constitution of this State, restraining the legislative 
 power. 
 
 3. Because they violate the Constitution of the 
 United States. 
 
 To these claims Sullivan and Bartlett replied that 
 the college, being a public corporation, was intended 
 for the benefit of the public and of those composing 
 it, and that while the contention of the plaintiffs 
 might apply to Moor's Charity School, it did not 
 apply to Dartmouth College, and that the grant did 
 not come within the meaning of the " obligation '* 
 
 107
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 clause of the Constitution of the United States. 
 The court, in spite of the statement that it was left 
 in tears by Webster's eloquence, decided in favor 
 of the university. Webster had expected this. " It 
 would be queer ", he had said, " if Governor 
 Plumer's court did not sustain his own law." 
 
 The " Case " next moved on to Washington. By 
 agreement of both sides, the New Hampshire court 
 rendered a special verdict carrying it directly to the 
 Supreme Court, on the sole point that the Legis- 
 lature had violated the Constitution by " impairing 
 the obligations of contracts." The matter came up 
 for argument on March 10, 1815. Mason and 
 Smith did not appear, but Webster was aided by 
 Joseph Hopkinson, of Philadelphia, now best known 
 to fame as the author of Hail Columbia, but a great 
 jurist in his day. 
 
 The university was clearly outclassed, with John 
 Holmes, a Maine lawyer of political proclivities, 
 and William Wirt, the amiable builder of florid 
 word-pictures, who was then attorney-general of the 
 United States, pitted against " Black Dan." Yet 
 the latter's task was herculean, and he knew it. 
 Chief Justice Marshall and one associate were be- 
 lieved favorable to the college; two others were 
 known to be hostile. The other three were unde- 
 cided in their views; two of them must be won, and 
 
 108
 
 THE GREAT " CASE " 
 
 Mr. Webster set all of his mighty powers to winning 
 them. 
 
 Of that historic scene in the old Supreme Court 
 room in the Senate wing of the basement of the 
 Capitol, Chauncey A. Goodrich, professor of oratory 
 at Yale, who went to Washington for the express 
 purpose of hearing Webster, has left the best de- 
 scription in a letter sent afterward to Rufus Choate. 
 Thus he wrote: 
 
 Mr. Webster entered upon his argument in the calm 
 tone of easy and dignified conversation. His matter was 
 so completely at his command that he scarcely looked 
 at his brief, but went on for more than four hours with a 
 statement so luminous, and a chain of reasoning so easy 
 to be understood, and yet approaching so nearly to abso- 
 lute demonstration, that he seemed to carry with him 
 every man of his audience, without the slightest effort 
 or uneasiness on either side. It was hardly eloquence, 
 in the strict sense of the term: it was pure reason. Now 
 and then for a sentence or two his eye flashed and his 
 voice swelled into a bolder note, as he uttered some em- 
 phatic thought, but he instantly fell back into the tone 
 of earnest conversation, which ran throughout the great 
 body of his speech. A single circumstance will show 
 the clearness and absorbing power of his argument. I 
 observed Judge Story sit, pen in hand, as if to take notes. 
 Hour after hour I saw him fixed in the same attitude; 
 but I could not discover that he made a single note. The 
 argument ended, Mr. Webster stood for some moments 
 silent before the court, while every eye was fixed intently 
 
 109
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 upon him. At length, addressing Chief Justice Marshall, 
 he said, 
 
 " This, sir, is my case. It is the case, not merely of 
 that humble institution, it is the case of every college in 
 our land. It is more. It is the case of every eleemosy- 
 nary institution throughout our country, of all those 
 great charities founded by the piety of our ancestors to 
 alleviate human misery, and scatter blessings along the 
 pathway of human life. It is more. It is, in some sense, 
 the case of every man who has property of which he may 
 be stripped, for the question is simply this: Shall our 
 State legislatures be allowed to take that which is not 
 their own, to turn it from its original use, and apply it to 
 such ends or purposes as they, in their discretion, shall 
 see fit? Sir, you may destroy this little institution; it 
 is weak; it is in your hands! I know it is one of the lesser 
 lights in the literary horizon of our country. You may 
 put it out; but if you do, you must carry through your 
 work! You must extinguish, one after another, all those 
 great lights of science which, for more than a century, 
 have thrown their radiance over the land! It is, sir, as 
 I have said, a small college, and yet there are those that 
 love it " 
 
 Here the feelings which he had thus far succeeded in 
 keeping down, broke forth. His lips quivered; his firm 
 cheeks trembled with emotion; his eyes were filled with 
 tears; his voice choked, and he seemed struggling to the 
 utmost, simply to gain the mastery over himself which 
 might save him from an unmanly burst of feeling. I will 
 not attempt to give you the few broken words of tender- 
 ness in which he went on to speak of his attachment to 
 the College. The whole seemed to be mingled with the 
 recollections of father, mother, brother, and all the 
 
 110
 
 THE GREAT "CASE" 
 
 privations through which he had made his way into life. 
 Every one saw that it was wholly unpremeditated, a 
 pressure on his heart which sought relief in words and 
 tears. 
 
 The court-room during these two or three minutes pre- 
 sented an extraordinary spectacle. Chief Justice Marshall, 
 with his tall, gaunt figure bent over as if to catch the 
 slightest whisper, the deep furrows of his cheek expanded 
 with emotion, and eyes suffused with tears; Mr. Justice 
 Washington at hi's side, with his small and emaciated 
 frame, and countenance more like marble than I ever 
 saw on any other human being, leaning forward with an 
 eager, troubled look; and the remainder of the court at 
 the two extremities, pressing, as it were, toward a single 
 point, while the audience below were wrapping themselves 
 round in closer folds beneath the bench to. catch each 
 look, and every movement of the speaker's face. . . . 
 There was not one among the strong-minded men of that 
 assembly who could think it unmanly to weep, when he 
 saw standing before him the man who had made such an 
 argument melted into the tenderness of a child. 
 
 Mr. Webster, having recovered his composure and 
 fixed his keen eye upon the Chief Justice, said, in that 
 deep tone with which he sometimes thrilled the heart of 
 an audience, 
 
 " Sir, I know not how others may feel " (glancing at 
 the opponents of the College before him, some of whom 
 were its graduates), " but, for myself, when I see my alma 
 mater surrounded, like Caesar in the senate house, by 
 those who are reiterating stab upon stab, I would not, 
 for this right hand, have her turn to me and say, Et tu 
 quoque, mi fili! And thou too, my son! " 
 
 He sat down; there was a deathlike stillness through- 
 Ill
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 out the room for some moments; every one seemed to be 
 slowly recovering himself and coming gradually back to 
 his ordinary range of thought and feeling. 
 
 After this tremendous emotional appeal, backed 
 by the keenest legal knowledge of the subject, the 
 arguments of Holmes for the university fell flat. 
 He stumbled into bad errors of judgment and showed 
 ignorance of the case. Webster was human enough 
 to gloat. " I had a malicious joy," he wrote to 
 Judge Smith, " in seeing Judge Bell sit by to hear 
 him, while everybody was grinning at the folly he 
 uttered. Bell could not stand it. He seized his hat 
 and went off." 
 
 Wirt ruined whatever effect he might have pro- 
 duced by the idiotic admission that he " had not 
 had time to study the case and had hardly thought of 
 it till it was called on." Hopkinson is said to have 
 made " a calm and able " closing for the college. 
 But it was the master mind and organ tones of 
 Webster that ruled the court alone and won the 
 decision for Dartmouth College and so many other 
 American colleges. 
 
 This case, stubbornly fought to its victorious end 
 by the poor and small institution at Hanover, 
 fought when compromise would have been easy 
 and pleasant, has been more often cited in our courts
 
 THE GREAT "CASE" 
 
 than any other. According to Chancellor Kent: 
 " The decision in that case did more than any other 
 single act proceeding from the authority of the 
 United States to throw an impregnable barrier 
 around all rights and franchises derived from the 
 grant of government; and to give solidity and in- 
 violability to the literary, charitable, religious, and 
 commercial institutions of our country." 
 
 In the opinion of Henry Cabot Lodge, the decision 
 was " in its effects more far-reaching and of more 
 general interest than perhaps any other ever made 
 in this country." 
 
 The verdict of the tribunal at Washington was 
 announced on February 2, 1818. Only one justice, 
 Duvall, dissented. It took a week for the news to 
 reach Hanover. Then " the expressions of joy were 
 excessive." Cannon boomed for two days, and it 
 is hinted by the local chroniclers that the celebration 
 was more spirituous than spiritual. The college 
 men seized all the buildings, and at the beginning 
 of the spring term, President Allen announced that 
 there would be no more instruction in the univer- 
 sity. He had received shabby treatment by the 
 Legislature in return for his loyal service. His 
 salary was supposed to be twelve hundred dollars 
 a year, but he was paid only $983 for his two years' 
 work, and the very body that had set him up in 
 
 113
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 the university refused to do anything more for him. 
 It is not difficult to guess what would have hap- 
 pened to Dartmouth had Daniel Webster failed her 
 at Washington. 
 
 When the decision that killed the university and 
 left it unwept, save by a lot of New Hampshire 
 politicians, was made public at Washington, Judge 
 Hopkinson wrote to President Brown: 'The 
 court goes all lengths with us, and whatever trouble 
 the gentlemen may give us in future, they cannot 
 shake those principles which must and will restore 
 Dartmouth College to its true and original owners. 
 I would have an inscription over the door of your 
 building, - ' Founded by Eleazar Wheelock, Re- 
 founded by Daniel Webster* ' 
 
 At the portals of Webster Hall, the dignified and 
 handsome memorial built by the alumni at the 
 northeast corner of the campus, the words sug- 
 gested by Hopkinson are written in enduring bronze. 
 
 114
 
 ' . '--. -" 
 
 Webster Hall
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 DANA AND TYLER 
 
 WHEN the great " Case " had ended, Dart- 
 mouth College was Dartmouth College still, 
 but it was like an exhausted army, victorious, yet 
 shot almost to pieces. It had its property again; 
 the Great Seal had been dragged out from the grain 
 bin, where the widow of Treasurer Woodward had 
 hidden it against theft or mutilation, and restored 
 to its owners; a jubilee had been made of the 
 Commencement of 1819, with Webster an idolized 
 figure, and the eminent counsel formally thanked 
 by the trustees and asked to sit for their portraits. 
 There was, of course, much cause for rejoicing. 
 
 But clouds of anxiety and even distress hung 
 over the institution. The university faction of the 
 press was bitter in its defeat. Isaac Hill declared 
 in the New Hampshire Register that " by this de- 
 cision it is to be understood that the people of New 
 Hampshire as a State have no longer an interest in 
 Dartmouth College." A movement to establish a 
 rival " public literary Institution " on the part of 
 the State actually made some headway in the 
 
 115
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 Legislature, and a little later a " Literary Fund " 
 was voted, to be raised by a stamp tax on bank 
 circulation, for the future endowment of a univer- 
 sity. 
 
 Some of the college people in the Legislature, 
 thinking that they might divert this financial aid 
 to Dartmouth by agreeing to the creation of a State 
 board of overseers " somewhat on the footing of 
 Cambridge ", consulted Webster on the matter. 
 He was thoroughly against it. 
 
 " I wish," he wrote, " I had more hope of good 
 than I have to the College from the Legislature. Of 
 course you know best the feeling on such subjects 
 at present existing, but for myself I do not believe 
 the College could get a dollar from the Gen. 
 Court." 
 
 Lack of money was again the besetting peril to 
 the college. During the fight with New Hampshire 
 it had lost its student rental for rooms and its in- 
 come from lands. The expenses of the suit were 
 about six thousand dollars, and to add to the 
 trouble the heirs of President John Wheelock 
 brought suit for the collection of $7,886 unpaid 
 salary and ten thousand dollars for " the work, 
 labor, care, and diligence " of the son of his father 
 as head of the college. A settlement was finally 
 made for $8,385, which kept the institution in debt 
 
 116
 
 DANA AND TYLER 
 
 for years. Besides, it owed its own officers nearly 
 five thousand dollars in unpaid salaries. The trus- 
 tees tried to get indemnity from the Legislature for 
 their losses incurred by the university fiasco; it 
 can readily be imagined that their plea was ex- 
 tinguished with ribald laughter in that still unre- 
 generate body. 
 
 A very real disaster following close upon the heels 
 of these troubles was the death, on July 27, 1820, 
 of President Brown. He had literally worn himself 
 out in the struggle, and he paid the penalty of his 
 devotion at thirty-six. His brief, but terribly diffi- 
 cult administration shows him to have been a rare 
 soul. " In person ", says Lord, " he was unusually 
 dignified and commanding, yet natural and graceful 
 in carriage. His large, full hazel eye, and genial, 
 beaming face invited confidence, but his expression 
 was so penetrating and sagacious as to forbid de- 
 ception, and repel familiarity. When the occasion 
 required he could be terribly severe, but this severity 
 had nothing of personal anger in it. To govern 
 young men was natural and easy to him. He rarely 
 used the language of command. A wish or re- 
 quest expressed in the mildest form was with the 
 students equivalent to a command, and was promptly 
 regarded. He was both honored and loved. The 
 discipline of the College was never more perfect than 
 
 117
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 during the years when the laws of the College were 
 stript of authority, when the students were under 
 the ban of the legislature and when each student 
 knew that his course might end without academic 
 honors. The main influence in holding the College 
 together was the personality of the President." 
 
 President Brown's successor was the Reverend 
 Doctor Daniel Dana, of Newburyport, Massachu- 
 setts; a successful preacher and a man of evident 
 common sense, which he reluctantly allowed to be 
 overruled by his Presbytery, to which was referred 
 the pressing call of the Dartmouth trustees. He has 
 the historic distinction of one of the briefest ad- 
 ministrations on record among the colleges. In- 
 augurated on October 3, 1820, he resigned within 
 six months, a prey to melancholia. His letter to 
 the trustees declaring his withdrawal reveals a man 
 who knew what a college president should be, even 
 if he could not himself be one. " The College needs 
 a President ", he wrote, " not only of powerful 
 talents, but of strong nerves and vigorous health; 
 one who can enterprise much and accomplish much; 
 one whom labors cannot easily exhaust nor difficul- 
 ties embarrass, nor trials depress. In reference to 
 all these particulars I have a painful consciousness, 
 I will not say of deficiency, but of contrast" 
 
 Then followed Reverend Bennett Tyler, a parson 
 118
 
 DANA AND TYLER 
 
 of South Britain, Connecticut, and a Yale man of 
 1804. He, too, hesitated over the offer, preferring 
 the life of a country clergyman. He, too, was per- 
 suaded by a religious body, the Congregational As- 
 sociation, that it was his duty to go to Hanover. 
 His inauguration, March 27, 1822, was well attended. 
 He delivered an address which was set down by the 
 chronicler of the event as " sound, luminous and 
 elegant ", and as a fitting accompaniment to such 
 luminosity, all the college buildings and dwelling- 
 houses were brilliantly lighted that evening. 
 
 President Tyler's first days in office were accom- 
 panied by the issuing of a new code of college laws, 
 which, printed and distributed, was known as the 
 " Freshman Bible." Even as late as 1822, life was 
 still Spartan at Hanover. Professor Alpheus Crosby, 
 in his " Memorial of College Life ", relates that the 
 hours of study, preceded by one recitation, prayers, 
 and breakfast, began at eight o'clock in summer, 
 and at other seasons at nine, and continued till 
 eleven. Beginning again at two, they held till 
 evening prayers, except Saturday afternoon. Morn- 
 ing prayers consisted of invocation and reading 
 from the Bible; and prayers came daily at five 
 o'clock, or, there being no provision for artificial 
 light in either chapel or recitation-rooms, as early 
 as the president could well see to read in the Bible. 
 
 119
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 On Sunday the students were required to attend 
 morning and evening prayers in the chapel and two 
 services in the college church. Students were re- 
 quired to be in their rooms during study hours and 
 after nine P. M. and " to abstain from all loud con- 
 versation, singing, playing on musical instruments, 
 and from all other noise which may tend to inter- 
 rupt ", and on the Sabbath every student was " to 
 remain in his chamber unless the duties of public 
 worship or acts of necessity or mercy " called him 
 elsewhere, and no one was to attend to any secular 
 business or diversion, or unnecessarily walk in the 
 fields or streets. 
 
 Keeping or playing with cards or dice was pun- 
 ishable with a fine of five dollars, and persistence in 
 either by rustication. Under similar penalties 
 students were forbidden to be present at a " treat " 
 or entertainment in which spirituous or fermented 
 liquors were used. The faculty was " particularly 
 and earnestly recommended to inform themselves 
 concerning each one's moral and literary charac- 
 ter ", and to this end was directed to make weekly 
 visits to the room of each student. 
 
 At this period it cost the Dartmouth student 
 about one hundred dollars a year for his college life. 
 Tuition was fixed at twenty-six dollars, room rent 
 averaged six dollars, and decent board could be had 
 
 120 

 
 DANA AND TYLER 
 
 for one dollar a week; the man who paid one dollar 
 and seventy-five cents was regarded as rather Lu- 
 cullan in his tastes. To these expenditures were 
 added, according to the individual's moral lapses, 
 the money collected by the faculty in the shape of 
 fines for infraction of the college laws. This species 
 of taxation was no less silly and futile than in other 
 American colleges of the day, but no more so. 
 
 Early in the Tyler regime, the requirements for 
 admission were stiffened somewhat. It was now 
 necessary that a prospective freshman be " well 
 versed in the Grammar of the English, Latin and 
 Greek Languages, in Virgil, Cicero's Select Orations, 
 Sallust, the Greek Testament, Dalzel's Collectanea 
 Graeca Minora, Latin and Greek Prosody, Arith- 
 metic, ancient and modern Geography, and that 
 he be able accurately to translate English into 
 Latin." 
 
 The college year was of thirty-seven and a half 
 weeks, with three vacations. The seniors were 
 given a special vacation of five weeks after the 
 final " exams ", this " to allow the members to go 
 home, get their new clothes (often homespun) and 
 make other preparations." Their year of study was 
 taken up with Locke, Edwards on the Will, Butler's 
 Analogy, Stewart's " Philosophy ", " Evidences of 
 Christianity ", and " Law and the Federalist " - a
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 sufficiently solemn preparation for the beginning of 
 the duties of life. 
 
 In this era the faculty, which for a number of 
 years had comprised only the president, Professors 
 Adams and Shurtleff, and a brace of tutors, was 
 much strengthened by the addition of William 
 Chamberlain as professor of Greek and Latin lan- 
 guages; Charles B. Haddock, a nephew of Daniel 
 Webster, as professor of rhetoric and oratory, and 
 Doctor Daniel Oliver as professor of intellectual 
 and moral philosophy. These were strong men, 
 Haddock in particular, who was one of the most 
 esteemed instructors of his time, and the first pro- 
 fessor of rhetoric in America. The fact that he was 
 eternally in debt did not militate against his popu- 
 larity. It is related that one irate creditor came to 
 Hanover determined to get his money from the 
 professor or proceed to the law. He was royally 
 entertained in Haddock's courtly way, and before 
 he left his debtor's residence, he had loaned the 
 reverend gentleman another goodly sum. 
 
 Innovations came thick and fast, as President 
 Tyler's administration waxed. The annual cata- 
 logue, long a mere hand-bill published by each 
 sophomore class and bearing only the names of the 
 students, became an octavo pamphlet of fifteen 
 pages, containing the regulations for admission, the 
 
 122
 
 DANA AND TYLER 
 
 curriculum, and the estimate of students' expenses, 
 though it was not published by the college until 
 1836. 
 
 Another change, which must have seemed mo- 
 mentous in those days, was the bricking up of all 
 the ancient fireplaces in the students' rooms of 
 Dartmouth Hall, and the installing of those new- 
 fangled heaters called stoves. Still another was the 
 abandoning of the scheme of compelling the stu- 
 dents to fit up their rooms for the holding of reci- 
 tations. These equipments were primitive and not 
 expensive, but the undergraduates rightly believed 
 that the college ought at least to pay for its class- 
 room furnishings. These were usually a plain table 
 and chair for the instructor, a small blackboard in 
 one corner, a stove, and on either side of the room 
 a double row of long, unpainted, pine benches, 
 hacked and battered with rough usage. Crosby 
 relates that his initial recitation as a freshman was 
 prepared at a table made by piling one trunk on 
 another, and by a light struck from flint and steel. 
 The college now took over a few rooms for regular 
 class-rooms and paid for their fittings, which event 
 was duly celebrated by appreciative verse in one of 
 the New Hampshire newspapers. 
 
 In 1825 the college uniform epidemic reached 
 Hanover and laid vigorous hold on the students. 
 
 123
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 Yale had adopted academic regalia five years before, 
 and Union soon after. So on March 15, 1825, the 
 Dartmouth men voted to adorn themselves after 
 the reigning fashion. Their dress was a single- 
 breasted black frock coat with rolling collar, having 
 on the left breast a sprigged diamond three and a 
 half inches long and three inches wide; and on the 
 left sleeve half a sprigged diamond for freshmen, 
 two halves placed one above the other for sopho- 
 mores, three for juniors and four for seniors; with 
 black or white pantaloons, stockings, vest, and 
 cravats. This outfit, which seems to have been 
 tasteful enough, met with general favor, but soon 
 palled and " survived no longer than the first suit 
 lasted." 
 
 A reform more enduringly appreciated was the 
 ukase that the first bell for chapel should never be 
 rung earlier than five o'clock in the morning! This 
 was regarded as considerable of a concession to 
 laziness, but even its clemency was often irksome. 
 
 " It was, indeed, barbarous," says Lord, " and 
 the occasion, no doubt, of much injury to health 
 in the more inclement seasons. It gave occasion 
 likewise for many laughable incidents. Attendance 
 was expected at prayers, even though, as sometimes 
 happened for certain classes, no recitation followed. 
 It was not unusual in such cases, and in summer
 
 DANA AND TYLER 
 
 weather, for students to rise from bed at the last 
 moment and, without giving themselves the trouble 
 to dress, to attend to their places, wrapped from 
 shoulder to feet in the long wide cloak then in 
 fashion, ready to return to bed till breakfast. There 
 is an authentic record of one who suffered the mis- 
 fortune, when thus habited, of becoming involved 
 in a rush, and being pitched headlong down the 
 chapel steps and out of his cloak." 
 
 The democracy of Dartmouth, which has been 
 traditional and is still sound, received its first vital 
 test in Tyler's administration. It was not a ques- 
 tion of poverty versus wealth, for none, or very few, 
 were wealthy, but a problem of the inclusion of white 
 skins and black in the same college. In the settle- 
 ment of it, the students showed themselves more 
 liberal than the trustees. 
 
 The incident arose over the application of Edward 
 Mitchell, a young man of African blood from the 
 island of Martinique, for admission to the freshman 
 class in 1824. He passed his examinations, but the 
 trustees declined to admit him on the ground that 
 the students might find him objectionable. Where- 
 upon the undergraduates held a mass-meeting, voted 
 that Mitchell ought to be admitted, and appointed 
 a committee to lay their decision before the govern- 
 ing body. The spokesman, C. D. Cleveland, 1827, 
 
 125
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 had an unusually dark skin, and he argued that if a 
 man's color were to keep him out of college, he him- 
 self had no business there. The trustees quickly 
 reversed their decision, and Mitchell became a 
 popular member of the class of 1828, graduating 
 with credit. From that day to this, no man has 
 ever been denied entrance to Dartmouth, or, once 
 inside, has been less respected, if worthy of respect, 
 because of his complexion or his race. 
 
 After six years of faithful and honorable, if not 
 brilliant service, President Tyler resigned. He had 
 never really loved his work; the call of the pulpit 
 and pastorate was ever strong within him. When 
 he was invited to the Second Congregational Church 
 at Portland, Maine, in May, 1828, the desire to be 
 once more a shepherd of souls exclusively was over- 
 mastering. In August, 1828, he left the presidency, 
 carrying with him the respect and liking of students 
 and townspeople for his deep sincerity, his ready 
 sympathy, and his accurate conception of justice. 
 He was not a strong personality, and it appears that 
 the trustees of his day ruled rather rigorously. But 
 results count, and his administration was one of 
 steady advance and increasing common sense. 
 
 President Tyler was succeeded by Nathan Lord, 
 a minister at Amherst, New Hampshire, and a 
 Bowdoin man of the class of 1809. 
 
 126
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 NATHAN LORD AND HIS " YOUNG GENTLEMEN " 
 
 WITH the coming of Nathan Lord to the presi- 
 dency of Dartmouth, there was established 
 the physical tie that binds the college of 1828 to 
 the college of to-day. Many of the alumni are still 
 living who sat beneath the mild gleam of his green 
 spectacles, who listened to his pungent remarks on 
 student disorder, who faced his rapier cross-ques- 
 tioning in the pleasant study whither they had been 
 summoned for mental and moral delinquencies. 
 In his long reign of thirty-five years, he so impressed 
 upon his " young gentlemen " - he always called 
 them that, at least his force of character, his 
 initiative, his self-reliance, his democratic ideas, 
 that it is truly said of him that " probably the dis- 
 tinguishing marks of the Dartmouth type of man 
 were received from him more than from any other 
 source." 
 
 When this rural teacher began his work at Han- 
 over, he was the youngest college president in the 
 country, and the youngest man, save one, who had 
 ever been elected as head of an American college. 
 
 127
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 But at thirty-six he had already given signs of 
 strength. He had been a trustee of Dartmouth for 
 two years, and an aggressive and influential one. 
 He knew what was to be done, and he had perfect 
 confidence that he knew how to do it. He plunged 
 into his labors with enthusiasm and vigor, backed by 
 a harmonious board of trustees and the good-will of 
 the alumni in general. 
 
 There was plenty for the young president to begin 
 upon. The college was in its chronic poverty-stricken 
 condition, although there was a little sunlight 
 through the clouds in the form of a partly com- 
 pleted subscription begun under President Tyler, 
 by which, at a meeting of Dartmouth men held in 
 the Exchange Coffee House at Boston, about 
 six thousand dollars had been raised. Thus early 
 the Boston alumni showed that splendid devotion 
 to their college that has marked them ever since, 
 and has made the capital of Massachusetts the 
 capital also of Dartmouth loyalty and endeavor in 
 the eyes of the sons of the institution. 
 
 President Lord, having been given the by no 
 means honorary office of financial agent of the trus- 
 tees, set himself on the money trail with the keen- 
 ness of a sleuth-hound. It was hoped to raise fifty 
 thousand dollars; but in order to make any sub- 
 scription binding, a minimum of thirty thousand dol- 
 
 128
 
 NATHAN LORD 
 
 lars must be raised. In spite of all Lord's arts of 
 pleading and cajolery, the last day of grace arrived, 
 and only $29,600 had been subscribed. The presi- 
 dent, being what might to-day be affectionately 
 termed at Hanover a " dead game sport ", extracted 
 the necessary four hundred dollars from his slender 
 pocketbook, although he had already given three 
 hundred dollars, and saved the day. 
 
 With this providential manna, the debt to the 
 John Wheelock estate was paid off, and for the first 
 time in its history the college owed nobody but 
 itself. It was like a boy with some pocket money 
 as a new experience. Dartmouth Hall was re- 
 modeled by tearing out rooms in the center and 
 creating " Old Chapel ", familiar to all Dartmouth 
 men now alive down to the class of 1908, and hal- 
 lowed by the memories of youth rather than by 
 any sanctity of holiness. A new bell and a clock 
 were added to the cupola, and two dozen two- 
 bushel baskets were bought for the salvage of the 
 library, in case of fire. The yard was graded, and 
 around it was placed " a sufficient fence." The 
 college was putting on style. 
 
 More important still, the two severe outriders that 
 now flank the new Dartmouth Hall were built and 
 named Wentworth and Thornton respectively, for 
 the generous royal governor and the hearty English 
 
 129
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 squire. They were the first additions to the build- 
 ings of the college proper since 1790. The old 
 wooden chapel was hauled away by the combined 
 motive-power of forty yoke of oxen and a score or 
 two of students. Refreshments were, of course, in- 
 evitable. The college treasurer had to pay for: 
 " I Bbl. cider, 17 soft Buisquet, 20 loaves of Bread, 
 100 Crackers, 21 Ibs. cheese, 6 tumblers, 3 gal. A 
 gin, 3 do. N. Rum, i/^ do molasses ", besides two 
 more quarts of gin and three of rum as extras. There 
 is no evidence that the bill was disputed. 
 
 One of the early trials of President Lord was 
 the matter of disciplining his young gentlemen. 
 Whether they had grown a trifle too boisterous under 
 the mild Tyler, or believed that they could impose 
 upon the new " Prexy's " youth, the fact was that 
 there was much disorder after his coming. But the 
 disturbers soon got a taste of Nathan Lord's force. 
 A few ringleaders having been punished, the rest of 
 the students declared a revolution. William H. 
 Duncan, 1830, thus describes what happened: 
 " Some will recollect the electric effect of a speech 
 of Dr. Lord's to the students who were moved to 
 rebel. They had threatened to leave college en 
 masse (as they often do if their wishes are not com- 
 plied with). One sentence from Dr. Lord went like 
 a loaded shell into their ranks. It was this: 'Go, 
 
 130
 
 
 
 sy. 
 
 Hanover Inn
 
 NATHAN LORD 
 
 young gentlemen, if you wish; we can bear to see 
 our seats vacated, but not our laws violated.' This 
 was said with such regal decision and dignity that 
 no man of those classes spoke of deserting the 
 college." 
 
 However, this was by no means the end of the 
 rough pranks and even outrages that the Dartmouth 
 students of that era seemed to find a berserker joy 
 in committing. Some of these performances were 
 mild, as the seizure by the freshmen of a smoky 
 stove in their recitation-room and the casting of it 
 into the river. Some were excusable, as the tearing 
 down of a house of bad reputation known as the 
 " Seven Nations " and the tarring and feathering 
 of a vile " townie ", who compelled his daughter to 
 dance unclad before some students. 
 
 Other exploits were less commendable. It was 
 thought humorous to smash freshmen's windows, 
 sprinkle their rooms with assafoetida, or worse, and 
 break their furniture. To install a flock of turkeys 
 in the chapel, and cows and horses in the upper 
 corridor of Dartmouth Hall, known for generations 
 as " Bed-bug Alley ", was regarded as meritorious, 
 while to conceal a skunk in an instructor's desk 
 against his lifting the lid in the morning was thought 
 a triumph of genius. Wild outbursts of gun-firing 
 were common, to the extent that special laws had 
 
 131
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 to be passed against the inflictions. There were 
 still worse offenses. A vote of the faculty expelling 
 one particularly heinous sinner is illuminating: 
 
 Whereas Sophomore Warren appears, from evidence, 
 to have been the leader of a party of students, in dis- 
 guise, who broke open a citizen's house, threatened the 
 inmates with death, and finally not proving successful 
 in gaining possession of the house, threw large stones 
 through the windows and doors to the manifest danger 
 of the lives of those within; whereas the said Warren 
 is said to have carried a loaded pistol on the night of the 
 above mentioned attack, and whereas the said Warren, 
 though put on strict probation for his misdemeanors, 
 still persisted in a course of dissipation and secret viola- 
 tion of college laws, such as frequent participation in 
 convivial entertainments at a public inn, the keeping of 
 ardent spirits in his room, and feasting upon stolen fowls 
 which students had fattened in the college building and 
 other violations too numerous to mention, therefore voted 
 that Sophomore Warren be and is hereby expelled from 
 college. 
 
 Sometimes mere noise took a ponderous and de- 
 structive form. A famed incident occurred in the 
 summer of 1836, and is thus embalmed in a letter 
 written home by Solomon Laws, of the class of 1836: 
 
 We have had rather squally times here this term. The 
 difficulties arose in and have been chiefly confined to the 
 Sophomore class. They were assembled at a student's 
 room and made some noise, and one of the Tutors went 
 
 132
 
 NATHAN LORD 
 
 in rather abruptly and imprudently ordered silence &c, 
 when some of them insulted him. For this two were 
 suspended for three months. At this some of the class 
 were much offended, and on the night following some 
 individuals took a large cannon from the gun house in 
 this village, drew it up near the college building about 
 under the offending tutor's window, and fired it with 
 such tremendous charge as to break about three hundred 
 and twenty squares of glass from the college buildings. 
 It jarred the houses in most distant parts of the village, 
 was heard several miles distant and supposed to be an 
 earthquake. The rogues soon returned but the Faculty 
 were on the alert immediately, went to the students' 
 rooms to see whose shoes were wet (for it had rained some) 
 and tried some into the tracks where they drew up and 
 fired the cannon, and found the boots of one to fit some of 
 the tracks. With this and some little other evidence 
 they [sic] faculty expelled him. They could not detect 
 any others. 
 
 The members of the faculty, it will be noted, were 
 expected to be and were detectives of no mean rank. 
 Many of them acted as police officers, and they 
 were, from the students' point of view, perniciously 
 active at night, skirmishing about the buildings, 
 sometimes in disguise, listening at doors for signs 
 of forbidden practices. Even President Lord him- 
 self was not averse to a merry chase after nocturnal 
 roisterers now and then, and it was told of him by a 
 member of the class of 1846, that in pursuit of said 
 member one night, the honored head of the institu- 
 
 133
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 tion fell sprawling into an open ditch, but retained 
 presence of mind enough to detect the identity of 
 the culprit by his laugh. The president would also 
 mix with a " rush ", and his " Desist, young gentle- 
 men, desist ", accompanied by the pounding of his 
 cane on the ground, was a famous slogan for years. 
 
 The concerted blowing of fish-horns enlivened 
 many an otherwise dull Hanover evening. The 
 origin of this custom is lost in obscurity. Lord 
 thinks that perhaps the sound of the conch shell, 
 with which the first president assembled his stu- 
 dents, or of the horn, that in his day and again on 
 the failure of the bell in 1820, called the college to 
 its duties, so caught the fancy of the students that 
 they were unwilling to let it pass away. At any 
 rate, faculty legislation was directed against it as 
 early as 1835, and J. W. Barstow, of 1846, says: 
 
 " Horn-blowing was in full vogue and blast from 
 1842 to 1845, but the origin of the vicious habit 
 antedated my own college days. I remember that 
 in 1843-44 the practice had become general in 
 college, so much so that the Faculty had magnified 
 the nuisance into a crime, until at length expulsion 
 was threatened to any student caught with a horn 
 in hand, or even found in his room." 
 
 The "Great Awakening" of July, 1851, is tra- 
 ditionally believed to have marked the high tide of 
 
 134
 
 NATHAN LORD 
 
 " horning." On the seventh of that month, a hun- 
 dred or more students had gone to a postponed 
 " Glorious Fourth " celebration at St. Johnsbury, 
 Vermont, to lend Professor Sanborn, who was to 
 give the oration, their moral support. It turned out' 
 to be immoral, for bottles of rum were carried along, 
 and the collegians, becoming somewhat uproarious, 
 rebelled at the poor service at the banquet and in- 
 terrupted the post-prandial speechmakers with cat- 
 calls. A member of Congress, one of the disturbed, 
 wrote violent letters \:o the press about it, and the 
 faculty had to notice the affair. On the night of 
 the twelfth the students, angered because the case 
 had been taken up for discipline, let loose what the 
 Oldest Inhabitant is wont to call the most hellish 
 three hours' pandemonium of horns, cow-bells, 
 devil's riddles, and other noise-producers that the 
 town had ever heard. For this eleven men were 
 " separated." 
 
 " Horning " survived in milder form a great many 
 years. In the middle eighties it became a testi- 
 monial of disapproval for professors or tutors who 
 had offended a class, or an insulting defiance from 
 freshmen to sophomores, who would quite often 
 respond with volleys of stones or coal from the 
 dormitory most frequented by " Sophs." In 1896, 
 the students voluntarily decided to give up the 
 
 135
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 practice. But in 1848 it was still considered neces- 
 sary by the faculty to pass such a resolution as: 
 " Voted, to require Sophomore Reed to deliver up 
 his trumpet wherewith he discpurseth most horrible 
 music to the college and furthermore to apologize 
 to Professor Chase for his insult to him, and in 
 default thereof, to be suspended from examination. 
 N. B: Reed is also to be admonished for blowing 
 his horn, during Professor Brown's recitations." 
 
 Such pranks as occasionally marked the activities 
 of Nathan Lord's " young gentlemen " would be 
 considered rather silly busin ;ss by Dartmouth men 
 of to-day and silly they would be, for very good 
 reasons, one of which is that there are now so many 
 other things to do. But it must be remembered 
 } that in the forties and fifties student effervescence 
 was rigidly corked by faculty and trustee law. 
 Theatricals were banned; cards were rigidly pro- 
 hibited; dancing was in such bad odor that on one 
 occasion thirty-one students were fined two dollars 
 each for going to a school of instruction in the 
 wicked art; even bowling was frowned upon. The 
 military company called the " Dartmouth Pha- 
 lanx ", by means of which some youthful excess 
 steam had been legitimately let off, was abolished 
 in 1845, because it was deemed too devoted to 
 spirits. Most of the things that were prescribed were 
 
 136
 
 NATHAN LORD 
 
 dull, while most of the things that were amusing 
 were proscribed. 
 
 However, the purchase in 1848 of a fine new eight 
 hundred dollar hand-tub, most appropriately named 
 Phoenix, brought much joy and opportunity for 
 useful activity, for in term time the students manned 
 its long pump-sweeps and hose with a will. It was 
 often suspected that old barns and other worthless 
 buildings were set on fire by the boys, in order to 
 furnish the sheer delight of fighting the flames. 
 President Lord used now and then to come out and 
 direct, in his courtly way, the fire company's en- 
 deavors. He never forgot his suave and cultivated 
 manner of speech on such occasions. Once, as the) 
 youthful firemen were playing upon a burning 
 store on Main Street and directing the stream too 
 constantly at one spot, the president mounted a 
 stone block in front of the Dartmouth Hotel, com- 
 manded silence for a moment, and then, sweeping 
 his right arm back and forth in an expressive semi- 
 circle, cried in his clear and penetrating voice: \ 
 " Gentlemen of the machine more scope; more , 
 scope! " They supplied the scope, and the building ' 
 was saved. 
 
 Doctor Lord's keenness at reading the interior 
 of students' minds was proverbial. " The President 
 with eyes of green ", wrote J. W. Barstow, of '46, 
 
 137
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 " was Dr. Lord, for he wore the same green specs in 
 my day, and on to the end, worn (it was evident to 
 every student) not so much as a protection from the 
 sun's glare, but as they furnished a secure fence, 
 behind which the dear old Shepherd could glare at 
 his sheep without detection and watch every pos- 
 sible thing that happened to be going on in his 
 vicinity, whether in chapel or recitation room or 
 even in the solemn personal interviews with luckless 
 students in the dreaded ' Prexy's Study.' I have 
 seen him in chapel open the Bible, repeat a psalm 
 (apparently reading it) and his restless eyes mean- 
 while over the edge of his glasses, searching every 
 / face in every seat and every corner. No wonder 
 [ that he was credited with semi-omniscience." 
 
 The death of Daniel Webster in 1852 furnished 
 the most solemn observance of the times at Han- 
 over. The college buildings were draped in black, 
 flags were put at half-staff, college exercises were 
 omitted for a day, and a meeting was held in the 
 chapel, at which it was decided to ask Rufus Choate 
 to deliver a commemorative oration at the next 
 Commencement. That historic address was given 
 in the old church before the most distinguished 
 audience it has ever held, while as many more 
 clamored for admission outside and even tried to 
 storm the doors. 
 
 138
 
 NATHAN LORD 
 
 The eulogy is said to have made an extraordinary 
 impression. " For almost two hours and a quarter," 
 says Lord, " Mr. Choate held the dense and eager 
 assembly in almost breathless silence." This Com- 
 mencement was long in ill favor in other respects, 
 for the hotel men raised their rates to exorbitant 
 figures and, according to one of the New Hampshire 
 papers, there was " an usual amount of fighting, 
 drinking, and general rowdyism in and about certain 
 underground liquor dens, one of which was con- 
 nected with the principal hotel in the village." 
 
 Despite occasional excesses of this kind, more 
 on the part of visitors and " townies " than of 
 students, life in Hanover had been gradually im- 
 proving. For example, the Family Visitor of May 
 15, 1844, informed the college world that "Mr. 
 Kinsman has constructed a neat and convenient 
 bathing house, which will be open in a few days." 
 The little building stood on the south side of Whee- 
 lock Street, nearly opposite the site of the present 
 Episcopal Church. For a number of years it enjoyed 
 considerable patronage. Among others who made 
 use of it were the young ladies of Mrs. Peabody's 
 school, which was kept in a house where Webster 
 Hall now stands, who were required to form a 
 weekly procession thither with soap and towels. 1 The 
 1 " History of Dartmouth College," Vol. II. 
 139
 
 common was fenced to keep out the villagers' cows. 
 The " Hanover Ornamental Tree Association " was 
 formed, and to its blessed labors the Dartmouth of 
 to-day owes many of its beautiful trees. 
 
 The railroad reached the near-by Lebanon in 
 November, 1847, and the old, picturesque, but 
 inconvenient days of the stage-coaches from Con- 
 cord, from Brattleboro, from Burlington, and from 
 Haverhill, laden with jolly students, their boxes 
 and trunks strapped in mountainous piles behind, 
 were gone forever. There are Dartmouth men still 
 living who recall the coaching days with delight. 
 And they could not have been so very slow. From 
 Boston, the trip to Hanover could be made in a day 
 and a half; it takes practically one day now. Rates 
 were six cents a mile, and there were no rebates for 
 " coach sickness ", nor for damage resulting from 
 capsizes, which were not wholly unknown. 
 
 Before the advent of the locomotive, the college, 
 under Lord, had begun to crowd the stage-coach 
 tops more and more. There was a rapid growth 
 from 1835 to 1842. From an average of one hundred 
 and fifty students, there was an increase to two 
 hundred in 1836 and to three hundred and forty in 
 1840. In 1842 there were graduated eighty-five 
 men. Yale that year sent forth one hundred and 
 five, Harvard fifty-five, and Princeton forty-five. 
 
 140
 
 NATHAN LORD 
 
 Again Dartmouth had, comparatively, passed the 
 " small college " phase of Webster's plea. 
 
 Pressure for room began to be felt seriously. 
 " Bed-bug Alley ", Wentworth, and Thornton were 
 over-populous. A new building was imperative, and 
 the will of Honorable William Reed, of Marblehead, 
 Massachusetts, bequeathing seven thousand dollars 
 at once, ten thousand dollars more after the passing 
 of another of the legatees, and twelve thousand five 
 hundred dollars at the pleasure of the widow, seemed 
 to point a providential way. The old Wheelock 
 mansion, southwest of Thornton, was moved away 
 (to become the Howe Library of the present day) 
 and on the site, Reed Hall was built, a plain 
 structure, but of beautiful proportions and destined 
 in later years to be considered a place of residence 
 for Sybarites, because it was long the only dormitory 
 heated by steam. 
 
 In 1842 came a sudden shock to the pleasant plans 
 for a growing college. Due mainly to the financial 
 distress of the country just before that time, the 
 entering class numbered only forty-three and gradu- 
 ated but thirty. In 1845 there were but one hundred 
 and seventy-nine academic students in the whole 
 college, as against three hundred and forty-one in 
 1840. A sorry hole was made in the receipts from 
 tuition, while expenses ran on as usual. To make a 
 
 141
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 bad matter worse, the Reed legacy hung fire, and 
 Reed Hall had to be paid for. 
 
 There was but one thing to do: start another 
 subscription; and Nathan Lord went at that thing 
 with his characteristic energy. The sum of fifty 
 thousand dollars was asked for, on the condition that 
 thirty thousand dollars be raised before August I, 
 1843. The effort failed, and would have died utterly 
 but for the generosity of Samuel Appleton, of Bos- 
 ton, who refused to take back his thousand-dollar 
 check and advised another subscription. This was 
 attempted, with another time limit set at August I, 
 1845. Again the amount lacked completion, this 
 time by four thousand dollars, and again rare old 
 " Sam " Appleton came forward with a check, giving 
 nine thousand dollars, and raising himself to de- 
 served canonization in the annals of Dartmouth. 
 
 A few years later came a bequest that proved 
 more easily collectible than that of William Reed. 
 This was of fifty thousand dollars from Abiel 
 Chandler, of Walpole, New Hampshire, for " the 
 establishment and support of a permanent depart- 
 ment or school of instruction in the practical and 
 useful arts of life." With this money was founded 
 the Chandler Scientific School, afterward called 
 the Chandler Scientific Department, and in 1893 
 completely merged with the college. 
 
 142
 
 NATHAN LORD 
 
 In the Lord era, the Dartmouth students, as those 
 of other colleges, took their politics pretty seriously. 
 In 1856 a Republican Club was organized, and an 
 amusing account is preserved of a debate in the 
 chapel between Edward F. Noyes, later a Union 
 general and governor of Ohio, and the Democratic/ 
 postmaster of Hanover, Reverend Daniel F. Richard- I 
 son. The club raised a splendid 120-foot flagpole 
 in the middle of the campus, made by two Maine 
 students who had previously been shipwrights. This 
 pole lasted till 1869, though its political origin was 
 often overlooked for the more attractive fact that 
 its crosstree furnished an admirable display-point 
 for utensils and figures that the students deemed 
 proper for exposition. 
 
 Scales, in his history of the class of 1863, relates 
 that on one occasion the effigy of a New Hampshire 
 judge, who had made himself obnoxious to the 
 students, was thus suspended from the pole. An 
 investigation followed, in which a student was 
 asked if he had any part in raising to the crosstree 
 the man who had there fixed the efRgy, and he 
 promptly replied: " I did not," and was dismissed. 
 After graduation, he met Professor Aiken, and, 
 recalling the circumstance, asked him if he remem- 
 bered his reply. " Yes," said Professor Aiken, " but 
 I always felt that you were not telling the truth." 
 
 143
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 " I did," he replied, " for I was the man who was 
 pulled up." Another man, noted for his untidy 
 person and slovenly dress, on being called before 
 the faculty, admitted that he was disguised. On 
 being questioned as to the nature of his disguise, 
 he hesitated and stammeringly said: " Well I - 
 I had on a clean shirt." 
 
 The epoch of Nathan Lord was necessarily one of 
 change, experiment, and development. Much can 
 and does happen to any college in thirty-five years. 
 Several of the innovations pleased the president's 
 " young gentlemen " greatly. They liked the 
 abolition of college honors and the giving of Com- 
 mencement parts to everybody, though the faithful 
 audiences of parents, friends, and sweethearts must 
 have suffered torments when, as sometimes hap- 
 pened, they had to sit through the forensic efforts 
 of fifty " Commencers." This terror was afterward 
 abated by the adoption of a system of drawing lots 
 for Commencement parts, a scheme President Lord 
 stubbornly refused to change, even against the 
 almost unanimous request of the faculty and an ap- 
 peal from the Boston alumni. His answer was that 
 honors were " unchristian and immoral as making an 
 appeal to wrong motives and hurtful ambition." The 
 trustees stood by him in this view of the matter. 
 To the students it seemed a great gospel of peace. 
 
 144
 
 NATHAN LORD 
 
 Equally popular was the final extinction of the 
 chapel exercise in the dawn and its removal to the 
 after-breakfast hour, though the young gentlemen 
 were a bit saddened by the rearrangement of the 
 chapel seats, by which it was made impossible for 
 the sophomores to " rush " the freshmen out through 
 the doors and down the granite steps. But again 
 came compensation: the evening prayers were 
 abolished in 1860; only a few of the old New 
 Hampshire Puritans were known to take this as 
 evidence that Satan's black wings were spreading 
 over the Hanover plain. 
 
 The question of slavery, that touched many an- 
 other American college in the middle of the nine- 
 teenth century, came to Dartmouth with peculiar 
 intimacy and finally forced its great president into 
 retirement. Nathan Lord in his earlier days had 
 been a stout abolitionist. His conversion to pro- 
 slavery was almost as sudden and startling as was 
 Paul's to Christianity. In 1847 he read a pamphlet 
 by one B. F. French, of Lowell, arguing that the. 
 bondage of the black man was divinely ordained. 
 From that moment he appears to have believed 
 likewise. He wrote public letters, using all his arts 
 of logic to persuade the world that slavery was 
 defensible, " not as it existed in this country or as 
 it ever existed anywhere on the whole ", but per se y 
 
 145
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 apart from its abuses, as an institution of God 
 according to natural and revealed religion, that, 
 like war or pestilence, was designed by God as a 
 penalty for sin; and he called it a divine institution, 
 not because it was blessed, but because he believed 
 that it was divinely ordered. 1 
 
 This was a bit too subtle for the average Northern 
 conscience, and although the president was kindly 
 disposed toward the negro, actually helping fugitive 
 slaves from his private purse and admitting colored 
 students refused from other New England colleges, 
 his peculiar views aroused great hostility toward the 
 man and toward the college itself. In the college 
 no one was particularly disturbed; the students 
 excused the president's opinions on slave-holding 
 as one with his " peculiarities." 
 
 With the coming of the Civil War, however, this 
 peculiarity became the centering-point of violent 
 attacks, natural enough under the changed circum- 
 stances. The good old doctor was accused of being 
 a traitor, whose words were giving aid and comfort 
 to the enemy. One of his letters to the Boston 
 Courier (November 22, 1862) was reprinted, in 
 garbled form, by the Connecticut Democrats as a 
 campaign document, which did not improve the 
 situation. The president published this as a pam- 
 1 " History of Dartmouth College," Vol. II. 
 
 146
 
 NATHAN LORD 
 
 phlet in which he held that the true responsibility for 
 the great conflict was upon abolition, as an attempt 
 to subvert the moral government of God. This 
 was the last straw. The church of the North was 
 up in arms at once. Resolutions were passed by the 
 Merrimack County Conference of Congregational- 
 ists calling upon the trustees to inquire whether the 
 interests of the college did not demand a change in 
 the presidency. 
 
 The trustees could no longer blink the ugly situa- 
 tion. When they met on July 21, 1863, the storm 
 lowered. A motion being made to confer the degree 
 of Doctor of Laws upon Abraham Lincoln alone, that 
 year, President Lord voted against it, making a 
 tie. His foes in the board then presented the Mer- 
 rimack County resolutions. The majority refused 
 to endorse them; they would not ask the resigna- 
 tion of Doctor Lord, but they went on record as 
 declaring that they did not " coincide with the 
 President of the College in the views which he has 
 published, touching slavery and the war ", also 
 hoping that " American slavery with all its sin and 
 shame . . . may find its merited doom in the conse- 
 quence of the war which it has evoked." 
 
 Upon hearing this, stout old Nathan Lord seized 
 his cane, walked out of the trustee-room, and re- 
 turned in half an hour with his letter of resignation. 
 
 147
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 He would quit before he would trim, though quitting 
 took away his livelihood. He could not agree to any 
 " test " of opinion, and also he would not " submit 
 to any censure, nor consent to any conditions such 
 as are implied in the aforesaid action of the board." 
 He held also that it was " inconsistent with Chris- 
 tian charity and propriety to carry on my adminis- 
 tration, while holding and expressing opinions in- 
 jurious, as they imagine, to the interests of the 
 College, and offensive to that party which they here 
 professedly represent." 
 
 Such a resignation, tendered in such a style, ad- 
 mitted of nothing but acceptance, and the trustees 
 at once did the obvious thing, doubtless much re- 
 lieved that the stalwart old fighter, who regarded 
 his convictions as more valuable than his position, 
 had taken a great burden from their shoulders. 
 
 Nathan Lord in the retirement of his study he 
 lived out the remaining seven years of his life in 
 Hanover could justly reflect that he had done a 
 man's work in his long presidency. He found the 
 college groping; he left it walking erect and firmly. 
 The faculty had increased from ten to seventeen. 
 The shabby old college buildings and unkempt 
 grounds had been transformed, and three new halls 
 and an observatory had been erected. The assets 
 of the institution had grown from eighty-five thou- 
 
 148
 
 NATHAN LORD 
 
 sand dollars to two hundred and one thousand dol- 
 lars. And the president had sent 2,675 young 
 citizens into the world, most of whom were doing 
 something that the world wanted done. 
 
 To-day Nathan Lord's belief in the divine origin 
 of slavery becomes trivial. What he did for Dart- 
 mouth and the essential Dartmouth man is not 
 forgotten. 
 
 149
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE " DARTMOUTH ROLL Ol 
 
 DARTMOUTH COLLEGE gave 652 of her sons 
 to the service of the military forces that kept 
 the Union whole. Some were old men; most were 
 in their early vigor, and some again were mere boys 
 who, when they had fought out the fight, returned 
 to college or came for the first time. Classes were 
 represented from 1822 to 1884. With these 652, 
 Dartmouth furnished a larger proportional number 
 of soldiers for the Civil War than did any other 
 college of the North. On every battlefield, in every 
 hospital, in every camp, on the march and in the 
 bivouac, the men of Dartmouth were to be found 
 doing their duty, dying bravely or living honorably 
 as the god of battle decreed. 
 
 Dartmouth has as yet no noble hall for a Valhalla 
 to her soldier heroes; but she has two bronze tablets 
 in " Webster ", and she has a little green book with 
 the Great Seal stamped in gold on its cover. This 
 book is the " Dartmouth Roll of Honor ", and 
 within its 137 pages is enfolded the story of the 
 
 150
 
 THE "DARTMOUTH ROLL OF HONOR" 
 
 devotion of one New England college to its gov- 
 ernment and its flag. 
 
 In this memorial we find that 204 men were com- 
 missioned as surgeons or assistant surgeons, thirty 
 as second lieutenants, forty-seven as first lieuten- 
 ants, sixty-seven as captains, sixteen as majors, 
 twenty-one as lieutenant-colonels, twenty-four as 
 colonels, and four as brigadier-generals, and some of 
 these received additional honors " for meritorious 
 conduct " in special engagements or for the war, 
 three having the brevet rank of captain, one of 
 major, three of lieutenant-colonel, nine of briga- 
 dier-general and three of major-general. 
 
 When the news of the firing upon Sumter reached 
 Hanover, the few students from the South, whom 
 President Lord's pro-slavery views had attracted 
 to Dartmouth, went home in a hurry. A military 
 company of sophomores was immediately formed 
 and called the " Dartmouth Zouaves." It was 
 well drilled, but performed no actual service. On 
 May 8, Charles Lee Douglas, of the class of '62, 
 enlisted in the First New Hampshire, and, it is 
 believed, was the first college undergraduate to 
 join the Union Army. Others dropped out of 
 college from time to time, but it was not until May, 
 1862, that any general exodus of student-warriors 
 was threatened. What then happened caused the 
 
 151
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 faculty some anxiety. A high-spirited, brilliant 
 young junior, Sanford S. Burr, of Foxboro, Massa- 
 chusetts, a magnificent horseman, " talked war day 
 and night " and induced a hundred students to 
 promise to organize with him a company of cavalry. 
 New Hampshire, Maine, and Massachusetts de- 
 clined to accept the troop, but Rhode Island agreed 
 to stand sponsor for it, if it could be raised imme- 
 diately. 
 
 The students were greatly excited; Mars was the 
 only classical hero worth mention. President and 
 faculty advised the young men to stick to their 
 books, but made no attempt to coerce them. Finally 
 only thirty-five men left Dartmouth, and other 
 institutions were drawn upon to make up the 
 eighty-five known as " The College Cavaliers." 
 These youthful horse reached Washington, June 30. 
 On the way, " elegant handkerchiefs arid fans were 
 forced upon the acceptance of the students " by 
 Philadelphia ladies. It must have needed force, 
 indeed, to impose " elegant fans " on Dartmouth 
 cavalrymen. 
 
 The squadron did good service at Harper's Ferry, 
 and in September captured a supply train of eighty- 
 five of Longstreet's wagons. It was mustered out in 
 October, and most of the Dartmouth men returned 
 to Hanover, where they were piqued to find that, 
 
 152
 
 THE "DARTMOUTH ROLL OF HONOR" 
 
 patriotism or no patriotism, they would have to 
 pass the examinations that had been held during 
 their military pilgrimage. They threatened to 
 secede to Brown in a body, whereupon the Dart- 
 mouth faculty promptly surrendered to the youth- 
 ful veterans, who all resumed their places in the 
 college. 
 
 It was not only those fired by young blood who 
 entered the service of their country. Many men 
 far past the military age limit, mostly, of course, 
 as surgeons and chaplains, joined army or navy. 
 The oldest of whom there is record was Henry 
 Wood, of the class of 1822, who was sixty-five when 
 the war broke out. He was a chaplain in the United 
 States Navy, but not a war recruit, for he had served 
 since 1856. Ebenezer Hunt, 1822 (Medical), was 
 sixty-four when commissioned assistant surgeon of 
 the Eighth Massachusetts Volunteers. Nathaniel 
 Gould Ladd, another surgeon, had reached sixty- 
 three at the time of his brief, but honorable service. 
 
 One of the noted Dartmouth " Medics " who 
 ministered to the wounded, and himself died of 
 illness incurred in the line of duty, was Luther V. 
 Bell, of the class of 1826. Doctor Bell was commis- 
 sioned surgeon of the Eleventh Massachusetts on 
 June 13, 1861. In September, so splendid had been 
 his work, he was appointed brigade surgeon of 
 
 153
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 Hooker's Brigade, and then promoted to be medical 
 director of Hooker's division. The horrors of war 
 impressed him at once. Following the first great 
 disaster at Bull Run he wrote to a friend: 
 
 The whole volume of military surgery was opened 
 before me on Sunday afternoon (July 21, 1861) with 
 illustrations horrid and sanguinary. Sudley Church with 
 its hundred wounded victims will form a picture in my 
 sick dreams so long as I live. I have never spent one 
 night out of camp since I came into it, and a bed and 
 myself have been strangers, practically, for months; 
 yet I have never had one beginning of a regret at my 
 decision to devote what may be left of life and ability 
 to the great cause. I have, as you know, four young 
 motherless children. Painful as it is to leave such a 
 charge, I have forced myself into reconciliation by the 
 reflection that the great issue under the stern arbitra- 
 ment of arms is, whether or not our children are to have 
 a country. 
 
 Stirring was the career of Rufus Gilpatrick, of 
 the medical class of 1834. Going to Kansas in 1854, 
 he plunged with all his soul into the wild turmoil 
 that surrounded the making of that territory into a 
 free State. He became an intimate and ardent 
 friend of John Brown and with that noble fanatic 
 engineered the " underground railway " for th 
 escape of fugitive slaves. He was a leader in the 
 fiery politics of the period; was president of the 
 
 154
 
 THE "DARTMOUTH ROLL OF HONOR" 
 
 first State Congressional Convention and presi- 
 dential elector in 1850. When the war broke out, he 
 became surgeon of a brigade organized by General 
 James H. Lane. His service with the Army of the 
 Frontier was notable, both as a field surgeon and 
 as secret agent of the United States. At the battle 
 of Webber's Falls, in the Indian Territory, he 
 bravely remained behind his command, to minister 
 to a wounded soldier, and was shot dead, while in 
 this act of mercy, by a company of Confederate 
 soldiers. 
 
 To these Dartmouth men and to the two hundred 
 more who, either as surgeons or assistant sur- 
 geons, gave the best there was in them to their 
 allotted work, the country owes loving remem- 
 brance. 
 
 Dartmouth's army chaplains were many and of 
 honorable fame. Perhaps the best known to the 
 men of the college, because of his long service as 
 Latin professor, ~was Henry Elijah Parker, the be- 
 loved " Picker " of later days in the classroom. He 
 was commissioned chaplain of the Second New 
 Hampshire in June, 1861. Chaplain Parker was 
 closely and continually associated with the regiment 
 all of the time of his service. The men of the regi- 
 ment always had a very friendly and kindly feeling 
 for him. He was in the battles of First Bull Run 
 
 155
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 and Williamsburg, and others in which the regiment 
 was engaged. He always succored the wounded 
 without heeding whether he was under fire or not. 
 
 A militant man of God was Daniel Foster, '41, 
 chaplain of the Thirty-third Massachusetts. At 
 Chancellorsville, seizing a musket from a fellow 
 soldier, he rushed into the ranks as a self-made 
 recruit. From that time on he was, of course, known 
 as the " fighting chaplain ", and in November, 
 1863, was transferred to the Thirty-seventh United 
 States Colored Volunteers, with the rank of cap- 
 tain. Like so many other officers, he led his dusky 
 troops with great bravery, fighting at the Wilder- 
 ness, Spottsylvania, North Anna, Cold Harbor, and 
 the siege of Petersburg. Like so many others, too, 
 he mingled his life's blood with that of the negro, 
 being killed at the head of his regiment at Chapin's 
 Farm, September 30, 1864. 
 
 Another alumnus who was not too proud to cast 
 his lot with colored troops was Royal Parkinson, 
 '42, chaplain of the Twenty-third United States 
 Regiment, which was one of the first to enter Rich- 
 mond. He was not content with preaching and 
 praying, but taught the men arithmetic, geography, 
 and history in quieter times in camp. 
 
 Alonzo Hall Quint, '46, of the Second Massachu- 
 setts, was one of the famous chaplains of the war. 
 
 156
 
 THE "DARTMOUTH ROLL OF HONOR" 
 
 His bravery in action, his devotion to the men, his 
 wide and tender sympathies, made him a notable 
 figure in any division in which the Second was in- 
 cluded. It is related of him that after a great battle 
 he found one of his regiment dying upon the field. 
 He knew that the man was a Catholic. Breaking a 
 couple of twigs from a bush, he tied them in the 
 form of a cross and held the emblem before the sol- 
 dier's fast glazing eyes. " The smile of joy upon the 
 poor fellow's face ", said the chaplain long after- 
 ward, " assured me that I had performed something 
 of the work of the Master, and I was glad." Parton, 
 the historian, called Mr. Quint " one of the bravest 
 chaplains of the war '', and Colonel Cogswell's report 
 to the Second Massachusetts, said of him: " It is 
 not improper to speak of this officer as having al- 
 ways (and especially in time of action) been of the 
 greatest value to the regiment. His energy and per- 
 severance were of the highest order." Chaplain 
 Quint wrote letters from the field to the Congre- 
 gationalist during his three years of service, and 
 after the war published a history of his regiment. 
 He was one of the organizers of the Grand Army of 
 the Republic, and suggested the motto on the badge 
 of the order. 
 
 Another noted figure who wore the insignia of a 
 chaplain was John Eaton, '54, for many years after 
 
 157
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 the war United States Commissioner of Education. 
 Beginning as chaplain of the Twenty-seventh Ohio, 
 he ended his service as colonel of the Sixty-third 
 United States colored Infantry, and retired with 
 the brevet rank of brigadier-general. In the inter- 
 vening years his career was varied and exciting. 
 Twice he was a prisoner within the Confederate 
 lines, once being requisitioned to preach to the 
 enemy's soldiers. In 1862 he was appointed by 
 Grant superintendent of the negroes, who in multi- 
 tudes were pilgrims into the great commander's 
 lines in Alabama, Tennessee, and Mississippi. He 
 proved a marvelous organizer of the black folk's 
 efforts to be of use. 
 
 George Webb Dodge, '50, was one of the few army 
 chaplains who knew the bitterness and horror of 
 long captivity in Confederate prisons. He was 
 commissioned, April 20, 1861 one of the very 
 first chaplains to join the army after Sumter in 
 the Eleventh New York Volunteers, the famous 
 Ellsworth's Zouaves. At Alexandria he climbed the 
 fatal stairs of the Marshall House with his colonel 
 to help haul down the rebel flag, and stood beside 
 him when the enraged innkeeper fired the shot that 
 was to keep Ellsworth's memory bright forever. 
 At the first battle of Bull Run, Chaplain Dodge was 
 taken prisoner. Then began a weary year of shift- 
 
 158
 
 THE "DARTMOUTH ROLL OF HONOR" 
 
 ing from one prison to another. At first came 
 Libby, not so very appalling at that early day; then 
 Castle Pinckney, South Carolina, where the chap- 
 lain nearly died from yellow fever; then Charleston 
 jail; then the dreadful Salisbury, North Carolina, 
 with its miasma, its stenches, its boiling sun, and 
 its human cruelties; then Libby again, now filthy, 
 vermin-haunted, and heart-breaking. But the chap- 
 lain preached and prayed and cheered his comrades 
 until he was exchanged in July, 1862. The twelve- 
 month, however, had done its work, and with broken 
 health he resigned from the army. 
 
 Arthur Little, '60, was the youngest of the Dart- 
 mouth chaplains of whom there is record. He was 
 twenty-seven when commissioned in the Eleventh 
 Vermont in March, 1863. He saw the horrors of the 
 Wilderness and Cold Harbor and was active in 
 caring for the wounded. At Charleston, Virginia, a 
 classmate, Colonel George E. Chamberlain, was mor- 
 tally wounded and died in his arms. In that gallant 
 soldier's unfinished letter to his wife were these 
 words: "We are in God's hands; and his will is 
 better than our will; we will love him and trust him 
 and be satisfied." He also saw his brother-in-law, 
 Captain E. B. Frost, '58, expire of a terrible wound, 
 received at Cold Harbor, " happy to die for my 
 country and for my God." Chaplain Little's mag- 
 
 159
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 netic preaching was long remembered by the men 
 who went through the dreary winter before Peters- 
 burg. 
 
 On nearly every great battlefield a Confederate 
 bullet struck a Dartmouth heart. Some of the killed 
 were but lads, who had left the college for the camp. 
 A splendid type of these young patriots was Dennis 
 Duhigg, who would have graduated in 1863, but 
 enlisted in the Fifteenth Vermont in September, 
 1862, as a private. In two months he was pro- 
 moted to sergeant-major for gallantry. He became 
 first lieutenant of the Eleventh Vermont and was 
 made a captain just before the battle of Winchester. 
 In that engagement, when the order came to charge 
 the enemy, he shouted as he took his place: " Come 
 on, boys; I have never driven you, but I will lead 
 you." In a few moments he fell, mortally wounded. 
 " My last prayer is offered. I die happy," he mur- 
 mured, as he was " mustered out." 
 
 Arthur Edwin Hutchins, '57, first lieutenant in 
 the Eleventh New Hampshire, fought with con- 
 spicuous gallantry at Fredericksburg in the Mc- 
 Clellan campaign and before Vicksburg. At the 
 battle of the Wilderness, serving on the staff of 
 Brigadier-General Griffin, he was given an order to 
 carry to another commander. " Make all speed ", 
 was his instruction, " for on your celerity depend 
 
 160
 
 THE "DARTMOUTH ROLL OF HONOR" 
 
 the lives of ten thousand men." Spurring his horse, 
 he dashed across an open field, unmasking the 
 enemy's position as he rode. " But ", says the 
 " Roll of Honor " with simple eloquence, " neither 
 horse nor rider ever stirred again." 
 
 Oliver Tucker Cushman, '63, enlisted in his junior 
 year in the First Vermont Cavalry. From sergeant to 
 second lieutenant, to first lieutenant, to captain, 
 he made his way. Terribly wounded in the face 
 while charging with General Farnsworth at Gettys- 
 burg, he returned to Hanover, but could not rest 
 content. He rejoined his regiment in October and 
 then, its term of enlistment having expired, he 
 re-enlisted and kept on fighting. His hour of fate 
 came at Hawes' Shop near Richmond, June 3, 1864, 
 just as he was about to receive his commission as 
 major. Of him said General William Wells: " He 
 was not only one of our bravest, but also one of 
 our best men, and had he lived would have ob- 
 tained a high rank in the army. His company 
 was devotedly attached to him, and his superi- 
 ors in command, as well as all his associates, bear 
 witness to his high character as a soldier and a 
 man." 
 
 Another undergraduate who earned his special 
 place in the " Roll of Honor " was Richard Bailey 
 Crandall, '63, who left college in the autumn of 
 
 161
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 1861 as adjutant of the Sixth Vermont. In less than 
 a year he was its major. To an extraordinary degree 
 the joy of battle was for him a high emotion. " To 
 have lived a minute then was worth a thousand 
 years ", he said of the gallant but fruitless charge 
 up the heights of Fredericksburg. The college and 
 the army were the poorer when a Confederate bullet 
 ended his life during the gigantic sharpshooters' 
 contest along the entrenchments at Cold Harbor. 
 
 Some men of the great conflict preferred death, 
 or the risk of it, to the torture of Libby, or Ander- 
 sonville, or Salisbury prisons. William Carter 
 Tracy, '58, was of that stamp. As first lieutenant 
 in the Fourth Vermont, he was in every battle fought 
 by the Army of the Potomac from McClellan's ill- 
 starred peninsula campaign to the awful slaughter 
 of the Wilderness. Twice wounded in that titanic 
 struggle, he refused to leave the head of his com- 
 pany. Recovering, he was with his regiment on 
 June 23, 1864, when it was placed in the Weldon 
 railroad near Petersburg. All at once Confederates 
 sprang up before them as if some magician of war 
 had tapped the earth. The Vermonters were out- 
 numbered five to one. Only the line of railroad iron 
 toward the Union lines was open. " Surrender ", 
 yelled an officer of the " Johnnies." Most of the 
 regiment threw down their arms. " Cut for it ", 
 
 162
 
 THE "DARTMOUTH ROLL OF HONOR" 
 
 shouted Lieutenant Tracy, running down the track. 
 A few of his men followed him; but so did a Con- 
 federate bullet, passing through his head. 
 
 William Lawrence Baker, a Chandler Depart- 
 ment man of '58, was a dashing lieutenant of ar- 
 tillery in the Fourth United States. At Winchester, 
 though but comparatively new to the service, " his 
 bearing was that of a veteran." Sighting and firing 
 his guns himself, he cut to pieces an attack intended 
 to capture his battery. For his heroic conduct here 
 and at Port Republic he won warm official praise. 
 He deserved better of fate than to die alone, with no 
 man to take a farewell message from his lips. When 
 the awful field of Antietam was searched, after the 
 conflict there, Lieutenant Baker was found lying by 
 one of his guns. A smile was on his face, though a 
 bullet had pierced his heart. 
 
 Dartmouth was compelled to claim one deserter. 
 Yet his name is included in the " Roll of Honor ", 
 and rightly. Franklin James Burnham, '69, rose 
 from a private to first lieutenant in the Ninth New 
 Hampshire, and saw South Mountain, Antietam, 
 Fredericksburg, Vicksburg, Jackson, Wilderness, 
 Spottsylvania, Cold Harbor, and Petersburg on the 
 way. In the Mississippi swamps chills and fever 
 nearly finished him. After recovery in a Kentucky 
 hospital, he was sent to the Veteran Reserve Corps, 
 
 163
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 an honorable enough but totally stagnant assign- 
 ment. It did not suit at all this Dartmouth man, 
 who had been a brilliant leader in college activities. 
 He deliberately deserted and, with some difficulty 
 and some privations, made his lonely way to his 
 regiment and reported for duty to his astounded 
 superiors. He received promotion instead of a 
 court-martial, and there is a tradition that Lincoln 
 sent him a quaint and characteristic letter, endorsing 
 that kind of a deserter and wishing there were more 
 like him in the army. 
 
 Thus could the little green book be drawn upon 
 for story added to story of the valor and devotion 
 and faith of the men of Dartmouth in the four 
 years' appeal to arms. Those who survived flowed 
 back to their homes in a great tide of usefulness. 
 Empty sleeves and crutches became but the com- 
 monplaces of a new life in the community. The 
 embedded bullet could not stop a career. In the 
 halls of Congress; in the capitols of States; in the 
 classrooms of great universities; in famous pulpits; 
 in powerful banks; in vast manufactories; in foreign 
 legations; in pioneering on the seven seas, the 
 Dartmouth veterans made themselves felt, and many 
 of them are still, fifty years after " Appomattox and 
 its famous apple-tree ", virile and active in every 
 line of human endeavor. 
 
 164
 
 THE "DARTMOUTH ROLL OF HONOR" 
 
 For those who did not survive, it is one of Dart- 
 mouth's great hopes that soon it will be true, in 
 deed as well as in word, that 
 
 The granite of New Hampshire 
 Keeps the record of their fame. 
 
 165
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE FIRST CITY PRESIDENT 
 
 WITHIN three weeks of the day when Nathan 
 Lord stamped out of the trustee room and 
 the presidency, a new head of Dartmouth College 
 had been chosen, and within two months more he 
 had been inaugurated in a raging storm and to the 
 harrowing music of a neighboring village's " Cornet 
 Band." As late as 1863, rural simplicity governed 
 inaugurations at Hanover. In fact, " pomp and cir- 
 cumstance " never did appear at such events until 
 the installation of Ernest Fox Nichols in 1909, when 
 the college had ceased to be " small " and had ac- 
 quired sophistication. 
 
 The new president was Reverend Asa Dodge 
 Smith, D. D., of the class of 1830, the distinguished 
 pastor of the Fourteenth Street Presbyterian Church, 
 New York. There was for some time to be no 
 change in the custom of choosing a president from 
 the clergy, a custom previously broken only in the 
 case of John Wheelock. Doctor Smith was dis- 
 tinctly urban in style, in manner, and in looks, 
 though one might, perhaps, have rated his infantile, 
 
 166
 
 7, 
 
 ,1k/* 
 
 North Massachusetts Hall
 
 THE FIRST CITY PRESIDENT 
 
 cherubic face as a little more indicative of guileless- 
 ness than was the fact. He was of fine height and 
 bearing, and he always appeared in public in a well- 
 tailored dress coat, immaculate shirt front adorned 
 by two large gold studs, and a high collar of the 
 stock variety, about which was wound the finest 
 black satin cravat that money could buy. Doctor 
 Smith, it will be understood, brought a whiff of 
 metropolitan air to the country college, and it was 
 undoubtedly a beneficial element. The first genu- 
 inely city man to occupy the president's chair at 
 Dartmouth, he gave to it a certain distinction that 
 proved very useful later on. 
 
 No sooner was President Smith fairly seated than 
 some of Nathan Lord's policies were either badly 
 maimed or killed outright. But if it hurt the re- 
 tired old warrior to see the slaughter, he gave no 
 sign, even when his cherished scheme of assigning 
 Commencement parts by lot was abolished and 
 scholarship again made the test, or when prizes, 
 considered by him as immoral, were instituted, and 
 prize speaking contests at Commencement between 
 juniors and sophomores were revived. 
 
 The ancient Quarter Days, occasions of vast out- 
 pourings of oratory, debates, poems, and music, 
 were also resurrected in a vain attempt to restore 
 the former vitality to the old societies, the United 
 
 167
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 Fraternity and the Social Friends, which had now 
 become mere custodians of libraries and divisions 
 of the students in general football exercise on the 
 campus. The " Junior Exhibition " was established 
 in the spring term, orations being expected from 
 fifteen or more men on the basis of their scholastic 
 ranking. 
 
 For a while the new order aroused genuine inter- 
 est, but it soon became irksome, and the exhibitions 
 went out of existence. The last to die was that of 
 the juniors, which survived until 1878. For several 
 years these exercises were made the butt of a mock 
 programme gotten out by the sophomores in a style 
 sometimes witty and always more or less scurrilous. 
 As a composite of several efforts, with the worst 
 features omitted and family names changed, the 
 following may be submitted: 
 
 LOGICAL DISQUISITION 
 
 " Some pumpkins are green; 
 I am green; 
 Therefore, I am some pumpkins." 
 
 G-assy W-indbag Howard. 
 
 ORATION 
 
 How I made the spondoolix fly or 
 My twenty-five cent bust. 
 
 Little Charlie Birrell. 
 
 168
 
 THE FIRST CITY PRESIDENT 
 
 ETHICAL ORATION 
 
 "Aint I a hard boy?" 
 
 F-oolish W-itless Jaynes. 
 
 Before this promising youth concludes his happy effort 
 the audience will be fully convinced that in his case 
 " truth is stranger than fiction." 
 
 SCIENTIFIC DISSERTATION 
 
 The Darwinian theory reversed, or the monkey de- 
 scended from (a) man. 
 
 A-wful L-ibel Rumsey. 
 
 TIGHT ROPE PERFORMANCE 
 
 W-ild A-pe Lloyd. 
 C-lass M-onkey Cray. 
 Lloyd doing the tight and Cray the rope. 
 
 SYRIAC ORATION 
 
 Zlpoknxquevwatvpolecat." 
 
 J-ackass S. Converse. 
 
 MUSIC 
 
 Hark from the tombs a doleful sound." 
 
 To be sung by the audience. 
 
 During the exercises W-illing C-atspaw Woodside, the 
 class fag, will circulate a slop-pail for the convenience of 
 those sick at the stomach. 
 
 169
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 With demoniac howls the class repair for the denoue- 
 ment to Bed Bug Bar Room, where they close the exer- 
 cises of the day with a 
 
 GRAND FINE ALE. 
 
 While it was never confessed, the probability is 
 that the " Junior Exhibitions " were abandoned by 
 the faculty for the sake of putting an end to the 
 accompanying outbreaks of Rabelaisian humor. 
 The " Social " and " Fraters " divisions of the 
 whole college went on in a perfunctory fashion, most 
 men neither knowing nor caring to which society 
 they had been assigned by the faculty, until June, 
 1904, when the traditional fragments of the organi- 
 zations voted to give up their respective ghosts and 
 convey their libraries to the college. 
 
 No college president is without a money problem; 
 none ever can be. President Smith met his with 
 supreme tact and energy. It was not for nothing 
 that he had come from a rich congregation and was 
 well known in New York. When he passed the 
 academic hat in that town, goodly checks fluttered 
 into it. The trustees encouraged him to set a one 
 hundred thousand dollar goal as the limit of his 
 money-raising endeavors. Within three years, thirty 
 thousand dollars was obtained, and the president 
 further secured during his administration additions 
 
 170
 
 THE FIRST CITY PRESIDENT 
 
 of seventy thousand dollars to the scholarship funds 
 
 of the college. ly 
 
 Some reasonably handsome bequests came along in 
 Doctor Smith's time, among them one of one hun- 
 dred thousand dollars from Judge Richard Fletcher, 
 of Boston, ten thousand dollars of which was re- 
 served as a fund for a biennial prize for an essay 
 " to counteract the worldly influences that draw 
 professed Christians into fatal conformity to the 
 world ", which ponderous theme proved so unat- 
 tractive a magnet that it was afterward deemed 
 advisable to ask the courts to permit some other 
 use of the money. Judge Joel Parker, of Cambridge, 
 left one hundred and forty thousand dollars for the 
 benefit of a library and for the purpose of founding 
 a law school. This also was impracticable, and the 
 fund was used to establish a professorship of law 
 and political science. Another bequest, a splendid 
 gift, of a quarter of a million dollars, came from 
 Tappan Wentworth, of Lowell, with instructions 
 that it be allowed to accumulate until it had reached 
 half a million. 1 The gifts to all departments of the 
 college during Doctor Smith's administration 
 amounted to ^960,5^0. 
 
 But much of this money was not immediately 
 
 1 In 1896 this fund reached the desired mark and the income began, 
 to be of use to the college. 
 
 171
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 available, and straitened financial conditions went 
 on as usual. The trustees had begun to realize 
 that the faculty was miserably underpaid. A 
 full professor got only eleven hundred dollars and 
 the president eighteen hundred dollars. In 1865, 
 these sums were increased to thirteen hundred 
 dollars and two thousand dollars; in 1866 to fifteen 
 hundred dollars and two thousand dollars, and 
 in 1869 to two thousand dollars and three thousand 
 dollars, at which notches they stuck persistently 
 for a score of years more. 
 
 The students were made to assist in this laudable 
 work to some degree. The annual tuition fee was 
 raised from fifty-one dollars to sixty dollars in 1867; 
 to seventy dollars in 1872, and to ninety dollars in 
 1876. The " graduation fee ", politely supposed to 
 be expended for diploma costs, was set at eight dol- 
 lars, and it is there yet. 
 
 Happily, the chronic poverty of a college never 
 makes it misanthropic or morose. When 1869 
 reached the scene, it found that great preparation 
 had been made for a joyous Centennial celebration 
 at Dartmouth. This was held on Wednesday of 
 Commencement week. Realizing that the church 
 could not hold a quarter of the people who would 
 come to Hanover, and the hotels not a tenth part, 
 a huge tent, two hundred and five feet long and 
 
 172
 
 THE FIRST CITY PRESIDENT 
 
 eighty-five feet wide, with a seating capacity of 
 five thousand, was borrowed from Yale. This was 
 set up at the western side of the Common, while 
 over on the eastern edge was erected a great board 
 barracks, three hundred feet long and forty feet 
 wide, for a dining-hall. A photograph of the Com- 
 mon thus decorated shows that the college grounds 
 must have looked as if a cross between a " Greatest 
 Show on Earth " and a military encampment were 
 in progress, the latter resemblance being increased 
 by the presence of two good-sized tents, where 
 Rollins Chapel now stands, for the classes of 1867 
 and 1868, and a hundred army wall tents back of 
 Dartmouth, used as bachelor quarters for the 
 general alumni. 
 
 The food for this occasion is said to have been 
 historically bad, though furnished by an able hotel 
 man, Asa T. Barren. " There was, perhaps in- 
 evitably ", says Doctor W. T. Smith in his " Han- 
 over Forty Years Ago ", " considerable complaint 
 in regard to the catering in general and the dinner 
 in particular, so that when, after Commencement, 
 Mr. Barron invited several members of the faculty 
 to take a trip among the mountains as his guests, 
 a local wit, Ira B. Allen, remarked that he did this 
 ' to take the cuss off the dinner.' ' 
 
 The morning exercises went very well. There 
 173
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 was a procession, and as it passed the house of ex- 
 President Lord, hundreds of his " young gentle- 
 men " of other days uncovered, as the face of the 
 veteran was seen at his chamber window: Salmon 
 P. Chase, then Chief Justice of the United States 
 and President of the Alumni, was master of cere- 
 monies in the tent. Suave President Smith made a 
 speech of welcome " in his happiest vein ", and there 
 was a historical address by President Brown, of 
 Hamilton College, son of Dartmouth's third presi- 
 dent. 
 
 But in the afternoon there came an unbidden guest 
 who made things very disagreeable for the festal 
 throng under canvas. He did not register, but it 
 was proven beyond doubt that his name was J. 
 Pluvius. He had rarely been in better form. 
 
 Professor John K. Lord, who was present on that 
 direful afternoon, gives us a lively picture of what 
 happened. " Judge Chase ", he says, " began the 
 exercises with a pleasing extempore address. Three 
 of the assigned addresses were then given, when, to 
 break the succession, a poem written for the occa- 
 sion by George Kent of the class of 18 14 was read by 
 Judge Barrett of Vermont. As he was reading, 
 there came the interruption for which there had been 
 no provision. A shower, announced by heavy 
 thunder, burst upon the tent as if the very windows 
 
 174
 
 THE FIRST CITY PRESIDENT 
 
 of heaven had been opened, and the audience made 
 the appalling discovery that the tent was not water- 
 proof. Judge Barrett, who was of stuff too stern 
 to yield to wind and rain, held his post and only 
 read the louder. But it was of no use; at first in 
 vapory thinness, then in sheets and streams, the 
 water poured through the canvas of the tent. A 
 few had umbrellas, some held settees as a roof above 
 their heads, others, including the Chief Justice and 
 most of the dignitaries from the stage, sought be- 
 neath the platform a refuge from the flood, but they 
 had forgotten the cracks between the boards, and 
 as the water poured through them in concentrated 
 fury, the disappointed victims found that their last 
 estate was wetter than their first. 
 
 ' The shower was as brief as it was fierce, and as 
 it passed away, the audience took heart with the 
 returning sun and though clothes were soaked, 
 toilettes disarranged and finery ruined, it resumed 
 its place with numbers almost undiminished. Judge 
 Barrett who had left the stage with slouched hat 
 and dripping garments came back and finished 
 reading the poem. Senator Patterson delivered 
 his address, which Mr. Duncan says ' was by no 
 means a dry one,' and received the compliment of 
 * the undivided attention of the audience which 
 had been thrown into confusion by the storm, and 
 
 175
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 which was not only wet, but soaked and thor- 
 oughly uncomfortable.' ' 
 
 The bedraggled orators and auditors could stand 
 no more, and the rest of the speech-making was 
 put over until the following afternoon. But the 
 students obligingly gave their naive gymnastic 
 exercises in front of the tent, to the great delectation 
 of the crowd, which, in that archaic era, had not 
 learned the fiercer joys of the Commencement base- 
 ball contests. Could the Dartmouth students of 
 to-day be induced to perform in a body with staves, 
 dumb-bells, and Indian clubs for the delight of the 
 admiring friends of Class Day Week? Could those 
 of any college, for that matter? 
 
 After the Commencement feast in the long shed 
 next day, the " main top " was again crowded. 
 Governor Stearns assured the college of the State's 
 distinguished consideration, though he did not 
 promise any money. General William T. Sherman, 
 who had been given the LL. D. degree in 1866, 
 made a neat speech after the inevitable and, to him, 
 finally dreadful " Marching Through Georgia " 
 from the Boston band in attendance. Great joy 
 was afforded by " Long John " Wentworth, the 
 famous millionaire pioneer of Chicago, who remarked, 
 apropos the professions of great embarrassment on 
 the part of several who Had preceded him: " Per- 
 
 176
 
 THE FIRST CITY PRESIDENT 
 
 haps you think I'm embarrassed, but I ain't." 
 This, as he deliberately hoisted his colossal bulk of 
 six feet and ten inches above the heads of the 
 audience and glowered about him, nearly brought 
 down the tent. An evening promenade concert 
 under the huge canvas, overpoweringly illuminated 
 by the glare of half a dozen locomotive headlights, 
 brought the Centennial festivities to a brilliant 
 close. 
 
 The life of the Dartmouth undergraduate in 
 " Prexy " Smith's day was simple. For many, 
 teaching in the winter months was a regular routine, 
 and all over northern New England the boys and 
 girls of the " Little Red Schoolhouse " felt the in- 
 fluence of Dartmouth training, which often included 
 thrashing the boys and making love to the girls. 
 A long vacation of six weeks just after Thanksgiving 
 made matters fairly easy for the young pedagogues. 
 Even after changing the terms and shortening the 
 winter recess, the custom continued in a measure 
 and was not unknown in the late eighties. 
 
 Returning teachers brought back with them the 
 money which enabled them to meet their college 
 expenses and also experiences that were both valu- 
 able and interesting. Most of them taught in 
 schools where " K aiding round " was the regular 
 practice, and the teacher went from family to family, 
 
 177
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 according to a definite system determined by the 
 number of children going to school. As each family 
 usually delayed the annual killing of the pig till the 
 coming of the teacher, his customary meat diet 
 through the term was fresh pork and sausage. It 
 was no uncommon thing for a student to break his 
 own road through the snowdrifts to the schoolhouse 
 and to build the fires. The conditions of his work 
 were primitive, and the subjects which he taught 
 were not advanced, but he widened his acquaintance, 
 learned adaptation and self-dependence, and brought 
 back to college the confidence born of success. 1 
 
 The Aegis for July, 1861, contains a statement as 
 to the students engaged in teaching during the year 
 1860-1861, from which it appears that out of the 
 275 members of college, excluding the students of 
 the Medical and the newly-organized Chandler 
 Schools, 173 taught during the year. The aggre- 
 gate length of their schools was 2,278 weeks; the 
 total amount earned was $23,089.75, and the total 
 net amount brought back to college, after deducting 
 payments for board and other expenses, was $14,- 
 I ^5-75? a sum that would have paid the expenses of 
 all who taught, for tuition, board, room-rent, fuel, 
 lights, and washing, reckoned at the maximum rate 
 of $174.50 given in the catalogue of that year. At 
 1 " History of Dartmouth College," Vol. II. 
 178
 
 THE FIRST CITY PRESIDENT 
 
 the minimum rate of $124.50, the proportion of ex- 
 penses met would have been much larger. Of the 
 173 who taught, there were thirty-five seniors out of 
 a class of fifty-seven, forty juniors out of sixty-five, 
 fifty-two sophomores out of seventy-two, and thirty- 
 seven freshmen out of eighty-one. Of the schools 
 sixty-four were in Massachusetts, seventy-six in 
 New Hampshire, twenty-five in Vermont, and three 
 in Maine. 
 
 Slowly came liberalizing in rule and event for the 
 students of this era. A reading-room was opened 
 on the ground floor of Dartmouth Hall, the trustees 
 contributing forty dollars a year for its upkeep, 
 and the undergraduates contributing the money for 
 papers and magazines. The library, which had 
 hitherto been a chaos of poorly catalogued and gen- 
 erally unobtainable books, was made respectably 
 workable and attractive. . The college church, 
 known to its reluctant Sabbath devotees as the 
 " barn ", was painted and had its seats widened and 
 provided with cushions, " so that one could go to 
 sleep upon them without danger of falling off." 
 Money for this work of mercy was raised by the 
 entertainments in the Dartmouth Hotel, where 
 charades, wax-works, and imitations formed the 
 staple of amusement. In 1872 the afternoon church 
 service was abolished, and a brief chapel exercise 
 
 179
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 took its place, " as a police regulation " to discourage 
 // afternoon pilgrimages from town. 
 
 The building of the Bissell Gymnasium in 1866 
 gave a new point for undergraduate interest. This 
 structure, considered something of a marvel in its 
 day, the best in the country, was made possible 
 through the gift of George H. Bissell, of 1845, a 
 New York lawyer. It was ninety feet long and 
 forty-seven wide, was well equipped and actually 
 contained bowling alleys, which had been anathema 
 in the college but a few years previous. Militarism 
 also took its place as an outlet for temperamental 
 exuberance, and two companies, " A " and " B ", 
 of the " Dartmouth Cadets of New Hampshire " 
 were formed in 1873, with uniforms and muskets 
 furnished by the State. These academic militia- 
 men were known as the " Dartmouth Belligerents " 
 and for a time they were impressive. 
 
 " Three days in the week ", said the Dartmouth, 
 " at a certain hour the two companies of Dartmouth 
 Cadets may be seen parading on the common or in 
 the park. They make a fine display in their neat 
 uniforms of blue, and the instruction in the tactics 
 progresses rapidly." A later issue announced that: 
 " The Cadets, who have attained wonderful pro- 
 ficiency in military evolutions, are also obliged to 
 suspend operations and go into winter quarters." 
 
 180
 
 THE FIRST CITY PRESIDENT 
 
 " Not all were equally alert ", says Lord, " and 
 one man marched so lazily that Professor Young, 
 who was one day watching the drill, exclaimed: 
 * He ought to have a bee in the seat of his trousers.' ' 
 In a year or two the " Belligerents " tired of their 
 toys and the companies perished of inertia. 
 
 The relations between sophomores and freshmen 
 had not, in President Smith's time, reached their 
 present state of urbanity. " Rushes " of strenuous 
 character were frequent. Chapel seats were daubed 
 with grease, or paint, or molasses. The climax of 
 such performances was reached when the body of 
 Evans, a murderer, was stolen from the Medical 
 School and placed on one of the freshmen benches, 
 past which the sophomores solemnly filed, as the 
 organist played a particularly gloomy dirge. In- 
 dividual hazing was not unknown, and there is a 
 tradition that one especially obnoxious " fresh " 
 freshman was boxed in a packing-case, which was 
 set upon the rear platform of the southern night 
 express, with the result that the unhappy individ- 
 ual's plight was not discovered until the train was 
 far down in Connecticut. Against such practices 
 the faculty thundered and demanded pledges of 
 abstention, but not very successfully. Time, with 
 its civilizing influences and its changed notions of 
 class amenities, was required for the complete re- 
 
 181
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 form. Occasionally, however, the majesty of the 
 law stepped in, as when nine undergraduates were 
 arrested for cleaning out the store of an unpopular 
 bookseller named Parker and were haled to the 
 Plymouth court, by which they were eventually 
 fined $350. 
 
 President Smith resigned on December 22, 1877, 
 by reason of ill health, and finally retired on March 
 I, 1878. During his thirteen years' tenure, the 
 college advanced steadily. The faculty increased in 
 numbers from seventeen to twenty-nine, and the 
 student body reached its largest figure up to that 
 time. Under him the Agricultural College and the 
 Thayer School of Civil Engineering were established, 
 three new buildings were erected, the elective sys- 
 tem was begun " in a limited and cautious use ", 
 as the trustees half-affrightedly put it but still 
 begun. A system of alumni nominations for trustees 
 was inaugurated, thus paving the way for that in- 
 timate relation between Dartmouth men and the 
 government of their college which is excelled in the 
 case of no other institution. 
 
 182
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE MAN OF IRON 
 
 THE successor to President Smith was Reverend 
 Samuel Colcord Bartlett, D. D., of the class 
 of 1836. At the time of his election in January, 
 1877, he was one of the leading professors in the 
 Chicago Theological Seminary, orthodox to the 
 core. Had the trustees searched the world for a 
 more absolute opposite to Doctor Smith, they 
 could not have found the man. Short in stature, 
 swift in motion, incisive in speech, imperious in 
 will, brilliant in intellect, courageous in convictions, 
 he presented a contrast to his urbane, tactful, pacific 
 predecessor that was soon to startle the little college 
 world to which he came. 
 
 Had the slang been invented in his day, Doctor 
 Bartlett would doubtless have been called a " live 
 wire." He was charged with the electricity of per- 
 sonality that attracted seme and repelled others. 
 At times it was unpleasant to handle him without 
 insulation. But his dearest enemy would not have 
 accused him of lacking brains or force, and few 
 to-day would deny that he believed in Dartmouth, 
 
 183
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 as he believed in himself, and was sincerely devoted 
 to her interests as he saw them. 
 
 In the mellowing process of the years, the con- 
 troversy that raged about him is now seen to have 
 been of much less importance in principle than it 
 seemed to the spectators of the drama in the " eight- 
 ies." It was a thunder-storm that cleared the air, 
 dispelled the perfervid heat, and brought the rain- 
 bow of promise for the immediate years to come. 
 But it naturally seemed very tragic while it lasted. 
 
 The mutterings preliminary to the tempest began 
 to be heard soon after President Bartlett entered 
 upon his term of office. Curiously enough, the 
 small and then comparatively unimportant scientific 
 .school, founded with old Abiel Chandler's fifty thou- 
 sand dollars in 1851, was the storm-cloud. Presi- 
 dent Bartlett, a severe classicist, was temperamen- 
 tally incapable of feeling any liking for this depart- 
 ment. He believed that it was living beyond its 
 means, that it was getting too " hifalutin " in its 
 curriculum and that it was " sapping " the college 
 by hiring the latter's instructors for extra work at 
 small pay. He was doubtless jealous of its fine ap- 
 pearance on paper, for, with the names of the special 
 instructors from the college added to its own, the 
 list in the annual catalogue was more imposing than 
 that of the college itself. 
 
 184
 
 THE MAN OF IRON 
 
 Promptly the new president took action. He had 
 the members of the academic faculty withdrawn 
 from their " extras " in the Chandler School they 
 received two dollars an hour for the work and a 
 long and bitter contest was instituted as to the 
 Chandler curriculum. The men of the latter in- 
 stitution arose in arms at once; they thought the 
 president was set upon degrading them and their 
 school. The college faculty was split into two 
 camps, one by far the larger disliking Doctor 
 Bartlett for his uncompromising style and his per- 
 emptory way of cutting off their means of increasing 
 their slender earnings, the other intensely loyal to 
 him because of that magnetism that attracted some 
 of his support. 
 
 Bitter speeches, unjust charges, fiery literature, 
 and pungent pictures soon made Hanover a some- 
 what too exciting seat for a college. Naturally, the 
 students were uneasy, fractious and ill-behaved. 
 For the Aegis, the junior illustrated annual, the 
 class of '84 obtained the services of Puck's greatest 
 artist and printed a full-page colored cartoon of a 
 dog-fight, with President Bartlett as the central 
 figure, flanked by one or two faculty supporters, 
 frightfully mauling his adversaries and being bitten 
 by them in turn. It was characteristic of the presi- 
 dent, who had a sardonic brand of humor, that he 
 
 185
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 was not at all outraged by this masterpiece, pri- 
 vately declaring that he could not complain very 
 much, since he was depicted as the winning dog, 
 par excellence. 
 
 Naturally, the trustees were distressed at this 
 quarrel, which was fast outgrowing the bounds of 
 the college. But, though they employed their ablest 
 and most generally successful pacificator, Reverend 
 Alonzo H. Quint, D. D., to try and bring peace 
 to the hostiles, they were for some time unsuc- 
 cessful. 
 
 The alumni now began to assail the president 
 violently, and on April 7, 1881, the association at 
 New York voted to ask the trustees to investigate 
 the civil warfare. On April 29, sixteen of the twenty- 
 three resident members of the faculty signed a paper 
 demanding Doctor Bartlett's resignation. They 
 declined, however, to make any specific charges 
 against him, although given opportunity by the 
 trustees. The New York alumni were not so cir- 
 cumspect. They formulated, in a style that is now 
 seen to have been coarse and needlessly insulting, 
 the following accusations: 
 
 First. That said Bartlett by his habitually insolent, 
 discourteous and dictatorial manner in official intercourse 
 with his associate members of the Faculty has stifled all 
 free and independent discussion of college matters and 
 
 186
 
 THE MAN OF IRON 
 
 that he has illegally ignored and usurped the functions 
 of the Faculties of various departments of the College. 
 
 Second. That said Bartlett has deliberately and in- 
 tentionally imperiled the influence of the Faculty with 
 the students and has improperly endeavored to bring 
 certain members into disgrace in the eyes of the students 
 and the public. 
 
 Third. That said Bartlett has persistently and sys- 
 tematically exerted his official influence to impair and 
 diminish the prosperity of the different Departments of 
 the College. 
 
 Fourth. That in his public official relations to the 
 students said Bartlett has used such language as to neces- 
 sarily humiliate and disgrace them and graduate them as 
 enemies instead of friends of the College. 
 
 Fifth. That said Bartlett has so far lost the con- 
 fidence of his associate members of the Faculty that out 
 of a total membership of twenty-three residents sixteen 
 openly express the belief that the best interests of the 
 College require his resignation. 
 
 The president's trial for it was almost that in 
 character, and was conducted against him by Judge 
 William Fullerton, of New York, for the alumni, in 
 the manner of a case against a common pickpocket, 
 until the eminent criminal lawyer was savagely 
 rebuked by the great New Hampshire barrister, 
 Harry Bingham, for the president was held in' 
 Hanover on June 17 and on July 12. Doctor Bart- 
 lett won decisively. " While the charges ", said the 
 committee in its report to the trustees, " were 
 
 187
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 serious, the specifications were inadequate, many of 
 them trivial, nearly half of them were withdrawn, 
 and as a whole unsupported by adequate proof of 
 any important error. . . . The committee do not 
 think that the formal investigation has disclosed 
 any results which sustain, so far as acts and words 
 go, a claim that there should be a change of office." 
 At this rebuff, fifteen hostiles of the faculty ten- 
 dered their resignations. The trustees refused to 
 accept them. There was no secession. Still the 
 outside world believed that the president was under 
 pressure from the trustees to retire, so that in April, 
 1882, the latter thought it wise to announce the 
 following: 
 
 To put at rest the disquieting rumors that have been 
 circulated, to the effect that the Trustees desire the 
 resignation of President Bartlett, 
 
 Resolved. That we put on record the expression of our 
 continued confidence in him as an able, efficient adminis- 
 trator, and an admirable instructor and we believe that 
 the best interests of the College require that he should 
 continue in his present position. 
 
 Resolved. That we believe that the best interests of 
 the College require that the members of the Faculty 
 should continue in their present positions and cordially 
 co-operate in advancing the true interests of the College. 
 
 The acute stage of the quarrel gradually passed 
 away, and the stalwart old president ruled with 
 
 188
 
 . 
 
 The Tower
 
 THE MAX OF IRON 
 
 more modified power for ten years longer. In spite 
 of the battle against him, in spite of his unpopu- 
 larity at the time of the fiercest tilts, his adminis- 
 tration was fruitful. He obtained the gift of a new 
 chapel from Edward Ashton Rollins, of Philadel- 
 phia, and was instrumental in raising considerable 
 money for new professorships. The Wilson Library 
 was built during his reign, and to his genius for 
 rugged effect is due the fine stone tower at the top 
 of Observatory Hill, to the building of which stu- 
 dents from '85 to '95 actually contributed a deal of 
 back-breaking toil. He was prime mover in the 
 improvement of the enchanting park near by, con- 
 vincing the undergraduates that labor donated to 
 road and path making on Wednesday and Saturday 
 half-holidays would be amply repaid in the days to 
 come as it has been. He devised the method of 
 moving the sixty thousand books of the library from 
 their perilous quarters in Reed Hall to the new 
 building a long procession of hand-barrows with 
 a student at the end of each one, by means of which 
 the entire literary load was transferred in four days, 
 every man in college having a finger in the business. 
 As has been observed, " Prexy " Bartlett had a 
 caustic wit. Some sophomores once conceived and 
 put into execution the brilliant coup of installing a 
 donkey at his desk just before some exercises in " Old 
 
 189
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 Chapel." Upon ascending the steps of the platform 
 and finding the visitor tied to his chair, the president 
 was expected to show some confusion. But confu- 
 sion and he were never intimate. Piercing the rows 
 of " Sophs " with his penetrating glance, he ob- 
 served icily: " Young gentlemen, when you have 
 removed your brother from the platform, the exer- 
 cises will proceed." 
 
 Such a man was naturally his own dean, proctor, 
 and private detective. He believed in the argu- 
 mentum ad hominem that consisted of mingling 
 valiantly in a " rush " and extracting men from the 
 same by their coat collars. He was an intimate 
 president, who had the habit of occasionally materi- 
 alizing in a student's room to catch him in some 
 particularly obnoxious devilry. A man of iron in an 
 iron age. A man who fitted absolutely the aca- 
 demic landscape of his time. It was he who began 
 the early foundations of the new Dartmouth, and 
 though his faults of temperament and style be 
 admitted, the fair-minded of to-day recognize the 
 value of his work. 
 
 Looking backward, it is clear to see that the Dart- 
 mouth student of these roaring " eighties " imbibed 
 something of the rugged nature of his environment. 
 He was a more self-assertive gentleman than is his 
 descendant and champion of college honor to-day. 
 
 190
 
 THE MAX OF IRON 
 
 He realized, by some subtle instinct, that he was the 
 ultimate product of the fast disappearing Iron Age 
 of Hanover. His swagger was more genuine, his 
 contempt for the niceties of the sartorial science 
 more profound and consistent. An ulster, concealing 
 who may now say what lack of apparel under its 
 garishly sheltering folds, was not merely a help to 
 morning devotions it also typified a superb in- 
 difference to small conventions in the way of dress. 
 A celluloid collar was not only an embodied economy 
 - it was also a shining defiance to laundries, their 
 uses and 'abuses. 
 
 Whether this inherent opposition to the finer 
 things of life was a disadvantage, or not, it is dim- 
 cult to say. We now know that it was but tempo- 
 rary, and most Dartmouth men of that period are 
 so satisfied to have been a part of those glorious days 
 that not for the great gift of another youth would 
 they lose their memories to become merged in the 
 golden epoch of the present Dartmouth. And they 
 like to think that the irori has not passed away, but 
 that it still stands, a firm and imperishable basis 
 for the ornamentation of the gold. 
 
 It is curious to note that in this seemingly un- 
 promising epoch blossomed a literary garden such 
 as had not been previously known in the College. 
 More men began to write, and write better, than 
 
 191
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 ever before. Some of their work was, naturally, 
 imitative; some was strongly original; but all of 
 it was an honest and refreshing departure from the 
 ponderous, pseudo-classical bombast of preceding 
 years. 
 
 Several elements, apart from the natural bent of 
 men who happened to come to Dartmouth at that 
 time, were responsible for this awakening. The 
 influence of Arthur Sherburne Hardy, then pro- 
 fessor of mathematics, who had just leaped into 
 fame with his " But Yet A Woman ", was potent. 
 The inspiring work of the lamented Charles F. 
 Richardson, professor of English literature, was 
 becoming more and more fruitful. The Dartmouth 
 Literary Monthly came into being and furnished a 
 sympathetic outlet for the product of aspiring 
 authors. The whole atmosphere seemed suddenly 
 charged with the impulse to write. 
 
 Perhaps the genius of Richard Hovey, who wove 
 his spell about the ancient halls and the more ancient 
 hills and dales of Hanover in the early " eighties ", 
 was the most powerful incentive to serious literary 
 attempts by many of his confreres. His personality 
 had an amazing appeal. The writer of this " Story " 
 thus set down his recollections of the poet as a 
 student for the Dartmouth Magazine of June, 1905 : - 
 
 " It was on a beautiful and balmy evening in 
 192
 
 THE MAN OF IRON 
 
 early September on the campus of Dartmouth Col- 
 lege that I first knew I saw Richard Hovey. I say 
 ' knew ' because, as I look back upon those days of 
 romance and the flush of youth, it seems to me that 
 it must have been impossible not to have noticed 
 in the old chapel or out under the elms that sturdy 
 figure and that dark and handsome face that no 
 man could look at and pass unheeding by. I must 
 have been attracted by the great, liquid eyes; the 
 black, curling beard, common enough with young 
 collegians in the roaring ' eighties ', and the mag- 
 nificent, leonine head set on the shoulders in the 
 manner of a piece of classic statuary. Spite of my 
 Freshman woes, my settled conviction that I had 
 sunk lower than ever mortal man had sunk before, 
 I am sure that the wonderful personality of Richard 
 Hovey must have been a part of my picture of the 
 new and academic world. 
 
 " But on the evening of which I speak my impres- 
 sions of Hove}" were positive and never to be effaced. 
 The dreadful Sophomores had, a little after supper, 
 gathered on the big green and were shouting coarse 
 and unmannerly invitations to us, the still un- 
 swaddled class of '87, to come forth with our rubber 
 football. We came, we saw, we fought. By no 
 means a doughty warrior myself, I was at last flung 
 off the periphery of the struggling human wheel and 
 
 193
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 deposited not over-gently on the turf. As I paused 
 for a moment to reconnoitre, I heard in a most 
 melodious and eloquent voice this adjuration: 
 
 " ' Up, boy, and at them! ' 
 
 " Such a command, a sort of cross between the 
 genial request of old Horace for more Falernian and 
 the order of a French marshal to his troops, was in- 
 teresting. The man who made it was more so. To 
 my young fancy he seemed Alcibiades turned cowboy. 
 He wore a dark blue flannel shirt, fastened at the 
 neck with a great, black bow, and his remarkably 
 handsome head and face were set off by a grey felt 
 hat with a flaring, bandit-like brim. Tweed trou- 
 sers were tucked into long riding boots, immacu- 
 lately polished. Surely the ' groves of the academy ', 
 as President Lord used to delight to call Dartmouth, 
 had never seen such a figure before, I thought. But 
 I was wrong. They had seen Richard Hovey fcr 
 two years, and he was now a Junior, urging unin- 
 spired Freshmen into the fray. 
 
 '" We soon came to know that Hovey was a man 
 like no other. He was eccentric, bizarre perhaps, 
 but he stood for the beginning of the literary re- 
 naissance at Dartmouth, that was to make the 
 period from '83 to '93, approximately, somewhat 
 noteworthy in the history of the College. As he 
 became in after years by far the greatest poet that 
 
 194
 
 Dartmouth has produced, so was he in his Hanover 
 days by far the most essentially poetic and fasci- 
 nating personality that ever dreamed away the 
 spring-time under the old trees. There were those 
 who believed him mildly insane; sage townsmen, 
 from behind the safe ramparts of their prosaic 
 counters, would tap their foreheads after he had 
 left their stores with a jest they could not under- 
 stand and a bit of the blossoming of a thought that 
 must have seemed to them miles away in the skies. 
 Afterward they came to know the truth and were, 
 to a man, proud of their acquaintance with ' Sir 
 Richard.' 
 
 ' The College love that always thrilled the warm 
 heart and the great brain of the man was a notable 
 emotion of his student days. First of all, I think, 
 came the beauty of the region that encircles our 
 Dartmouth. Four years of intimate acquaintance 
 with the hills and valleys, the forests and ledges 
 roundabout implanted within him a passionate 
 affection that never cooled. He was an inveterate 
 wanderer, and his wooing of nature did not always 
 please that jealous mistress, the College corporate. 
 But in the end it did more .to reflect glory upon 
 Dartmouth than anything of perfection he could 
 have attained in any of his classrooms." 
 
 In the Bartlett period, the long-continued pres- 
 195
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 sure from the alumni for genuine representation 
 in the board of trustees came to a focus and won a 
 great victory. The sons of the college were dis- 
 satisfied with the compromise of 1876 by which the 
 trustees had agreed that the next three vacancies 
 in the board were to be filled by alumni nomination, 
 and that from the first four names certified by the 
 alumni the trustees " ordinarily and, in all proba- 
 bility, invariably " would elect a man. This plan 
 did not provide for continued and intimate repre- 
 sentation, as the three were elected for life. The 
 alumni insisted upon short terms for men elected 
 absolutely by their own votes. 
 
 There was some notion of obtaining an increase 
 in the number of trustees by act of legislature, but 
 the spectre of the great " Case " was still too dis- 
 couraging for that experiment, since the charter 
 said in English that could hardly be mistaken: 
 " The whole number of said Trustees consisting 
 and hereafter forever to consist of Twelve and no 
 more." An act enlarging the board to seventeen 
 members was, indeed, passed, but conditioned on 
 its acceptance by the trustees, which was never 
 voted. 
 
 After a lively campaign of debates, addresses, 
 resolutions, and letters, the alumni at the Com- 
 mencement of 1891 came to an agreement with the 
 
 196
 
 THE MAN OF IRON 
 
 trustees by which they were empowered to nominate 
 " a suitable person " for each of the five trusteeships 
 next becoming vacant and the successors to those 
 offices. Thus there have ever since been five alumni 
 trustees in the board, each holding his place for 
 five years (usually re-elected) and one resigning each 
 year. The plan has worked with the smoothness of 
 fine machinery; the personnel of the board has been 
 broadened and strengthened, and the interest and 
 loyalty of the sons of Dartmouth have been enor- 
 mously increased. Feeling that they are helping 
 to run their own college, the alumni have tided the 
 institution over many a crisis, giving generously of 
 time, money, and moral support. 
 
 In February, 1892, President Bartlett resigned. 
 He was no longer under fire, and he wanted to do 
 " certain special literary work." The trustees, in 
 agreeing to his retirement, paid tribute to " his 
 unsurpassed energy in administration, his untiring 
 and incessant labors, and his undoubted love and 
 devotion to the College." " During his presi- 
 dency ", they said, " the tone and standard of 
 scholarship has been raised; the range and choice 
 of studies has been broadened and extended. The 
 number -of professors in the College and various de- 
 partments has been increased from twenty-one to 
 thirty-four; new college buildings have been erected; 
 
 197
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 the library has been enlarged from 54,000 to 72,000 
 volumes; and the friends of the College have con- 
 tributed to its funds including that given for 
 lands and buildings over $700,000; and during 
 this period all the funds of the College have been 
 scrupulously kept to the purposes for which they 
 were given." 
 
 The alert, sinewy figure of the rugged old man was 
 familiar in Hanover for six years more. Often it 
 was mounted on a bicycle, which the ex-president 
 rode gallantly and well up to his eightieth year. 
 Occasionally it was seen in the lecture-room, where 
 the keen intellect, unclouded always, revelled in 
 presenting to the students its orthodox conceptions 
 of the relation of the Bible to science and history. 
 Even in the mellower sunshine of the New Dart- 
 mouth this strong character was found fighting to 
 the end with the ancient sword of Gideon for a faith 
 that was wearing away. 
 
 198
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE GREAT AWAKENING 
 
 THERE have been three " Great Awakenings " 
 having to do with Dartmouth College. The 
 first, pre-natal, but with strong influence upon the 
 academic child, was the " Great Awakening " that 
 George Whitefield's revivalistic fireworks brought 
 to the arousing of men's consciences in the New 
 England colonies of the middle of the eighteenth 
 century. In this work Whitefield and Eleazar 
 Wheelock came together; without it Occom and 
 Whitaker might never have been sent to England, 
 and certainly could not so successfully have reached 
 the seats and pockets of the mighty, had they gone 
 at all. 
 
 The "Great Awakening" of July, 1851, already 
 referred to as the most dreadful concatenation of 
 ear-piercing and nerve-racking sounds from instru- 
 ments of torture ever known in Hanover, was a 
 manifestation of youthful wrath at what was con- 
 ceived to be faculty tyranny, and is worth this 
 paragraph only because of the grim jocosity of its 
 significant name. 
 
 199
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 The third " Great Awakening " for the college 
 was the administration of President Tucker. It 
 came without pomp of declaration, without sound 
 of trumpets, without hint of fire and sword. But 
 in and out of the college, men soon knew that it had 
 arrived. 
 
 When President Bartlett gave the trustees the 
 opportunity of saying complimentary things about 
 him and with sincerity he also gave them the 
 way, as it seemed, to name the one who was even 
 then most in Dartmouth men's hearts as he who 
 should come to the succession. Reverend William 
 Jewett Tucker, '61, had been a wise, far-seeing, 
 brilliant trustee since 1878. He had won fame as a 
 sound, forceful, fascinating preacher. He, too, was 
 urban, as all the presidents since Nathan Lord have 
 now been. As professor of sacred rhetoric at the 
 Andover Theological Seminary, he was leading the 
 fight on the famous old " Hill " for the " Andover 
 movement ", finding time also to establish Andover 
 House, now South End House, one of the early 
 social settlements in the city of Boston. The charm 
 of his personality, the prophetic quality of his 
 wisdom, and the intensity of his interest in and 
 knowledge of Dartmouth made him the candidate, 
 
 200
 
 THE GREAT AWAKENING 
 
 not only of logic but of sentiment, for the presi- 
 dency. He was elected with complete unanimity. 
 
 But he was unwilling to leave his Andover brother 
 knights in the heat of their tourney against mediae- 
 valism, and he declined. So did Reverend Francis 
 Brown, of Union Theological Seminary, grandson of 
 Dartmouth's third president. For the interim until 
 a permanent head of the college should be found, 
 Professor John K. Lord was made acting-president. 
 He administered the office with marked ability and 
 tact for the complete college year ensuing. 
 
 During this period of seeking a president, the 
 Tucker feeling, rebuffed by the very man who em- 
 bodied it, grew constantly stronger and at last 
 overwhelmed the genuine reluctance of the com- 
 manding figure at Andover to yield to it. Trustees, 
 faculty, alumni, and friends of the college every- 
 where urged upon Doctor Tucker what they be- 
 lieved was his path of duty. A less well-poised man 
 would have had his head turned by this universal 
 demand; one of less visioning intellect would have 
 feared that so much sunshine was ominous of some 
 later storm. It takes a peculiarly strong man to 
 enter upon a new career and do it justice amid the 
 salvos of universal acclaim. If there is any flaw in 
 his armor, the average man tightens it, if thrusts are 
 expected, but he leaves it unmended when all is 
 
 201
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 serene. Doctor Tucker never made this mistake; 
 he throve under good-will, but by constantly stri- 
 ving to be more worthy of it, not content to 
 bask in its genial comfort, as he might have done 
 indefinitely, so uncommon was the power of his 
 personality. 
 
 It was but a little while after the inauguration of 
 President Tucker, which was happily on June 28, 
 1893, that the " Great Awakening " began. Im- 
 mediately, as if by some widespread instinct that a 
 new force was about to transform the college, the 
 size of the entering classes increased. Freshmen 
 outbulked and out-cheered sophomores in quick 
 succession. In 1893 the sheepskin-takers numbered 
 sixty-nine. In September of the same year one 
 hundred and twenty men entered college. In four 
 years the senior output was ninety-three men, and 
 in ten years one hundred and thirty-five. Students 
 poured into Hanover in a fashion that amazed the 
 ancients and put the trustees at their wits' end to 
 find lodgments for the newcomers. Dormitories 
 were a prime necessity, and, as the president and 
 trustees were set against any private exploitation of 
 dwelling-places for students, with power to conduct 
 them taken out of their hands, the college had to 
 build them. This it began to do, not as a philan- 
 thropy but as a business-like investment of funds in 
 
 202
 
 THE GREAT AWAKENING 
 
 hand a policy that has continued to govern and 
 has proven highly satisfactory. 
 
 As a preliminary step, the old dormitories, which 
 in 1893 could accommodate about two hundred 
 students in excessively Spartan fashion, were made 
 a little more habitable. A magnificent water supply 
 system, by which water was brought from a little 
 artificial lake high among the hills to the east, put 
 the archaic pumps out of commission l and made 
 bathrooms and running water possible in the build- 
 ings. Then came the remodelling of " Bully " 
 Sanborn's house, giving rooms to fifty, and soon 
 after that of Doctor Dixie Crosby, providing for 
 fifty-five more. 
 
 Still the increasing numbers hammered at the 
 gates. Richardson Hall, the pioneer of the fine 
 modern dormitories, was the answer, and again 
 fifty-five students were given quarters. Not enough. 
 Then followed, about yearly, the Fayerweather Row, 
 back of Dartmouth, giving rooms for eighty-five; 
 Wheeler, beautifully situated a little north of the 
 chapel, accommodating ninety-eight; Hubbard, 
 holding forty-eight; Massachusetts, with quarters 
 
 1 These appliances probably had their own advantages. A Dart- 
 mouth man who afterward did great things as an amateur oarsman 
 always maintained that his devotion to water and the necessity of 
 getting it from the campus pump for four years was responsible for his 
 muscular development. 
 
 203
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 for eighty-eight, and New Hampshire, housing one 
 hundred and seven. 
 
 Thus in fourteen years sprang up fourteen dormi- 
 tories, mostly of handsome brick construction and 
 adding to the capacity of Dartmouth places for 
 seven hundred students. In all this extraordinary 
 development, the seer-like wisdom of President 
 Tucker showed unmistakably. He advised and 
 the trustees unhesitatingly decreed that even in 
 the finest dormitories small and inexpensive rooms 
 should be interspersed with luxurious suites, so that 
 rich and poor should be forever housed together. 
 Dartmouth has no " Gold Coast "; she never will 
 have one. She furnishes fine quarters for fine birds, 
 if they care to pay for them, but she insists that their 
 next door neighbors be of plainer feather. For 
 kindred reasons, classes are not permitted to hold 
 any particular dormitories en masse. 
 
 Another pleasant adjunct to democracy, though it 
 is said to have lost something of its centralizing 
 power of late, was College Hall, built at a cost of 
 one hundred and twenty thousand dollars in 1900. 
 This was, and still is, the house of the college com- 
 mons, and in the fine, oak-raftered dining-hall some 
 four hundred students stow away their provender 
 two or three times daily with more or less speed and 
 with perhaps more than less of the traditional and 
 
 204
 
 .
 
 THE GREAT AWAKENING 
 
 inevitable grumbling at college fare. A la carte now 
 rules, after unsatisfactory trials of a fixed price per 
 week and of a mingling of both systems. In the 
 basement a " grill " caters to the more irregular 
 eaters and thrives on some men's indisposition to 
 quit their beds in time for the commons' breakfast. 
 
 A huge room in this building was fitted up in 
 club style, while the broad, bricked veranda in 
 front, dominating the most conspicuous corner in 
 Hanover, was immediately made popular as an out- 
 of-door " lounge." It has parted with much of this 
 distinction by reason of the great increase in well- 
 equipped fraternity houses of late; but it is still a 
 valuable asset to the college and to the men in it. 
 
 A few troublesome legacies came down from the 
 Bartlett era to engage President Tucker. One was 
 the prime casus belli of the preceding administra- 
 tion, the relation of the Chandler School to the col- 
 lege. Instead of warring with the school, President 
 Tucker simply had it absorbed by the college it- 
 self, and all cause for rivalry and hard feeling at 
 once disappeared. The two faculties were united, 
 and the student body henceforth appeared as one. 
 
 Another question to be settled was the kind of 
 financial policy that should be pursued. The col- 
 lege was heavily in debt when President Tucker 
 arrived and was clearly drifting, financially. Doctor 
 
 205
 
 STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 Tucker remade it in that respect. Gifts and be- 
 quests he did not despise magnificent ones were 
 made during his administration, largely because of 
 him but he held that the business side of the 
 college must be modern and effective. 
 
 " Reconstruction with a view to expansion " was 
 the president's idea of the making of the new Dart- 
 mouth. He held that in no better way could the 
 funds of the college be invested than in the things 
 the college needed. From that principle arose the 
 great dormitories, the splendid water-supply sys- 
 tem; an enormous central heating plant that sends 
 steam through nearly two miles of underground 
 pipes to all the buildings around the campus, in the 
 park, and to the gymnasium; an electric-lighting 
 plant that illuminates all the buildings, and a com- 
 prehensive sewerage system that takes the place of 
 the ancient unsanitary and dangerous appliances 
 that can- be spoken of, even now, only in whispers. 
 All these things cost money, but as they also saved 
 money, they were productive investments. Some 
 of them actually brought in a profit revenue. When 
 President Tucker wanted a thing, the wherewithal 
 to get that thing was always forthcoming. 
 
 The spirit of the alumni toward this extraordinary 
 administration was one of admirable loyalty and 
 generosity. More than once was the latter quality 
 
 206
 
 THE GREAT AWAKENING 
 
 tested. In the midst of a campaign for funds to 
 build Webster Hall, the stately auditorium in 
 memory of " Black Dan ", the telegraph at Han- 
 over village flashed the sorrowful news that Old 
 Dartmouth Hall, the one link to antiquity, the 
 whole " College " for so many years, was on fire and 
 going to its destruction. 
 
 Before the venerable and loved building was con- 
 sumed, President Tucker had called a meeting of the 
 trustees to deal with the problem of its loss; as the 
 sacred ashes still glowed, Melvin O. Adams, the 
 trustee living in Boston, sent to every son of Dart- 
 mouth in his region a card upon which was the now 
 historic: "This is not an invitation, but a sum- 
 mons ", calling for a meeting that same morning 
 in Lorimer Hall, Tremont Temple. Four hundred 
 alumni crowded the place on this brief notice, and, 
 with a mighty shout, resolved that Dartmouth Hall 
 must be replaced immediately. At once a subscrip- 
 tion was started; the corner-stone of the new build- 
 ing was laid in October, and the completed hall was 
 dedicated on February 17, 1906. In the two years 
 two hundred and fifty thousand dollars had been 
 given by Dartmouth men of all grades of financial 
 ability, and this sum paid for Webster Hall also. 
 
 Once more the alumni gave that most convincing 
 evidence of their interest in the college the pocket- 
 
 207
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 book proof. For a long time the Bissell Gymnasium 
 had been but a poor apology for a " gym ", the 
 deserved butt of sarcasm from Hanoverians and the 
 outside philistines alike. It was seen that Dart- 
 mouth, with all its growth, could not take her place 
 in many branches of athletics, handicapped by such 
 a travesty of an indoor plant. From Professor John 
 W. Bowler, physical director and trainer, came the 
 suggestion that the " Men of Dartmouth " be asked 
 to give a new " gym." A committee of alumni went 
 to work with characteristic Dartmouth vigor, and in 
 1909 work was begun on what is at this time the 
 largest and finest gymnasium in the world, built at 
 a cost of one hundred and ninety thousand dollars. 
 Some handsome individual gifts also made this 
 fruitful era of " The Great Awakening " still more 
 notable. Doctor Ralph Butterfield, '39, of Kansas 
 City, left one hundred and forty-one thousand dol- 
 lars to the college, most of which was spent in erect- 
 ing Butterfield Hall as a museum of natural history, 
 archaeology and ethnology. In 1897 ^ r - C. T. 
 Wilder, of Olcott, Vermont, gave one hundred and 
 nine thousand dollars, which resulted in the physical 
 laboratory named Wilder Hall. Later this gentle- 
 man gave seventy-five thousand dollars more. The 
 Fayerweather bequest resulted, after long litigation, 
 in $223,381 for the college. 
 
 208
 
 THE GREAT AWAKENING 
 
 The largest benefactions of this, or of all times, for 
 Dartmouth, came from Edward Tuck, of the class 
 of 1862, a millionaire banker long resident in Paris. 
 In 1899 he told President Tucker that he wished to 
 establish some memorial of his father, Amos Tuck, 
 '35, and that he had securities then worth some 
 three hundred thousand dollars with him as a foun- 
 dation. In making this gift Mr. Tuck told Doctor 
 Tucker that it was " my expectation that the pres- 
 ent and future Trustees will apply a portion of the 
 income to the increase of existing salaries whenever 
 the best interests of the College demand it, and a 
 portion of the salaries of additional professorships 
 which may in the future be established in the College 
 proper or in post-graduate departments, should such 
 be added at any time to the regular college course." 
 
 In a few years the securities so grew in value that 
 they were worth half a million dollars. Professors' 
 salaries were increased by two hundred dollars and 
 some money was spent on the library, but still the 
 greater part of the income was unexpended. In the 
 year of the gift, President Tucker formulated a plan 
 for a graduate school of preparation for the careers 
 of business, banking, and foreign commerce. This 
 he would call the Amos Tuck School of Administra- 
 tion and Finance. He sent details of the proposition 
 to Paris and asked Mr. Tuck's permission for this 
 
 209
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 use of the fund. So delighted was the banker that 
 he employed the cable to carry back to Hanover his 
 swift " amen." A little later he gave one hundred 
 and thirty-five thousand dollars for a building as the 
 home of the institution. Thus arose the Tuck 
 School, first of its kind among the American col- 
 leges and remarkably successful in fitting men for 
 life outside the ancient professions. What it pur- 
 poses to do in its two-year course is thus officially 
 set forth: 
 
 The Tuck School aims to meet both the increasing 
 demand of business men for more efficient service 
 and the increasing demand of young men about to 
 enter business for training that will enable them to 
 realize more rapid advancement. It aims to accom- 
 plish this by making it possible for young men to begin 
 business careers with the advantages that accompany a 
 disciplined and well-informed mind, a general knowledge 
 of business conditions and methods, and a special knowl- 
 edge of certain branches of business which have become 
 specialized. 
 
 The School does not presume to create the genius for 
 business; it aims in this respect to assist the young man 
 to discover for himself and combine into an effective work- 
 ing force such elements of business ability as he may 
 possess. It does not presume to make of its students men 
 of mature business judgment; in this respect it aims to 
 equip its graduates with those powers of analysis and 
 interpretation necessary to the development of sound 
 judgment in business experience. It does not presume 
 
 210
 
 
 
 
 Tuck Hall
 
 THE GREAT AWAKENING 
 
 to create experts in any particular line of business; it 
 does aim, however, for many branches of business, to 
 acquaint its students with those rudiments of expert 
 knowledge familiarity with which makes the further 
 acquisition of expert knowledge relatively easy. 
 
 The School does not expend its energy teaching those 
 details of business which can be learned most quickly 
 and effectively in later experience; it is the purpose, 
 however, to develop for the business world an exceptional 
 grade of raw material possessing the ability to recognize 
 the significance of routine details in their relation to the 
 organization and administration of a business institu- 
 tion. 
 
 But Mr. Tuck's munificence did not stop at that 
 point. In 1910 he gave five hundred thousand dol- 
 lars more to the college, the income to be used for 
 the laudable and much-needed purpose of increasing 
 the salaries of the faculty. He has recently supplied 
 the money for the building of the beautiful new road 
 through the glens and woods of the Hitchcock estate 
 to a point near the old wooden bridge over the 
 Connecticut. He has given to other needs as occa- 
 sion has arisen, so that his total contributions to the 
 advancement of his college have been more than 
 one million two hundred thousand dollars. 
 
 Another gift of large importance in this golden 
 era was the beautiful and commodious administra- 
 tion building, Parkhurst Hall, presented by Lewis 
 Parkhurst, '78, and Mrs. Parkhurst as a memorial 
 
 211
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 to their son, Wilder Lewis Parkhurst, who died at 
 the beginning of his sophomore year in Dartmouth. 
 In this fine structure are rooms for the president 
 and the trustees, and offices for the treasurer, the 
 business director, the dean, the registrar, the medi- 
 cal director, the superintendent of buildings, and 
 the auditor. A rear extension provides a most ar- 
 tistic faculty room in mediaeval, raftered style and 
 with opposing rows of benches that suggest a small 
 parliament and that would have been used, no 
 doubt, as government and opposition seats, had it 
 existed in President Bartlett's time. Such forensic 
 tilts as now occur there are warranted sound and 
 kind. 
 
 Two festal occasions in Doctor Tucker's time 
 brought the " old Grads " back to Hanover in 
 unusual numbers and in especially jovial mood. 
 The first, in September, 1901, was the centennial 
 of the graduation of Daniel Webster, at which time, 
 the corner-stone of Webster Hall was laid by Lewis 
 Addison Armistead, of Boston, a great-grandson of 
 the statesman. In the college church a remarkably 
 penetrating and thoughtful oration was delivered 
 by Samuel W. McCall, '74, of Massachusetts, and 
 at the formal banquet which closed the celebration 
 and opened the new dining-hall in " College ", 
 after-dinner speeches were made by such masters 
 
 212
 
 THE GREAT AWAKENING 
 
 in the art as Edward Webster Sanborn, Doctor 
 Francis Brown, Judge David Cross even then 
 venerable, but as high-spirited as a colt William 
 Everett, Edward Everett Hale, Senator George 
 Frisbie Hoar, and Chief-Justice Melville W. Fuller. 
 But the part of this anniversary in which every- 
 body took most delight was the pictorial, the night 
 parade of September 24. Among the great elms, 
 the largest of which were banded: " We were here 
 with Dan ", marched a picturesque procession, 
 headed by a group of alumni horsemen of more or 
 less certain seat. Then followed in order the faculty 
 in black gowns and mortar-board caps; the stu- 
 dents in caps and gowns of white, blue, scarlet, and 
 yellow, according to classes; then the large body of 
 alumni, every man togged out in a blue dress-coat, 
 buff waistcoat, stock, dicky, and Websterian tall 
 hat. There were floats bearing Webster's carriage, 
 his large Marshfield plow, a reproduction of his room 
 showing his old hat, chair, and table, and a minia- 
 ture facsimile of the first college building. Up and 
 down the ranks howled a band of students dressed 
 as Indians. The college buildings were ablaze with 
 electric lights, not so common for exterior decoration 
 then as now. And if groups of " Grads " concluded 
 the festivities later on with mild alcoholic accesso- 
 ries, it was not so very inappropriate to the occasion, 
 
 213
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 and there were no excesses, as there would have been, 
 as a matter of course, a generation before. 
 
 By far the most interesting of all Dartmouth's 
 special occasions was the celebration incident to the 
 laying of the corner-stone of the new Dartmouth 
 Hall in October, 1904. For this event the college 
 was peculiarly fortunate, as a matter of sentiment, 
 in the presence of the Earl of Dartmouth, sixth of 
 the title and great-great-grandson of the nobleman 
 who befriended Samson Occom and Nathaniel 
 Whitaker to such financial advantage in 1766. The 
 Earl, the Countess and their daughter, Lady Doro- 
 thy Legge, were given a reception by the students 
 that astonished and delighted them. The old 
 " Wah-Hoo-Wah " cheer was roared forth for their 
 delectation upon every possible occasion, with or 
 without excuse. Their keen amusement at this es- 
 sentially American bit of academic enthusiasm was 
 apparent. 
 
 On the night of the first day a series of tableaux 
 illustrating various events in the history of the col- 
 lege was given on a large stage before the grand- 
 stand of Alumni Oval. Here again sentiment was 
 admirably wedded to art, for the Samson Occom of 
 the living pictures was Charles A. Eastman, the 
 Indian alumnus of 1887. The scenes in detail 
 were: 
 
 214
 
 (i) Wheelock receiving Samson Occom at Lebanon, 
 Connecticut, December 6, 1743; (2) Occom preaching 
 in Whitefield's Tabernacle, London; (3) First meeting 
 of Trustees at Wyman Tavern, Keene, New Hampshire, 
 October 12, 1770; (4) Wheelock and his family at Han- 
 over, (a) ten little Indians, (b) prayers in the forest; 
 (5) The first Commencement at Dartmouth, (a) tub 
 scene, " 500 gallons of New England rum," (b) Governor 
 Wentworth's visit; (6) Return of Captain John Whee- 
 lock and his company after Burgoyne's surrender; (7) 
 Defence of the libraries against the university professors; 
 (8) Daniel Webster pleading the college case at Washing- 
 ton. 
 
 On the morning of the twenty-sixth a great crowd 
 in the church heard a brilliant historical address, 
 " The Origins of Dartmouth College ", by Reverend 
 Francis Bjown, D. D., and saw Lord Dartmouth 
 receive the honorary degree of LL. D. In the after- 
 noon, which was stormy, a portion of the exercises 
 was again held in the church, where Charles F. 
 Mathewson, '82, gave a brief, but pungent address, 
 and Lord Dartmouth made a perfectly expressed 
 little speech of appreciation for the reception of 
 himself and his family. The procession then moved 
 to Eleazar Wheelock's grave, and over that plain 
 old box of stone President Tucker spoke a few words 
 in his always inspiring manner. A few moments 
 later at the gaunt and ruined foundations of the 
 old Dartmouth Hall, the earl with a silver trowel 
 
 215
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 pressed the mortar in place on the corner-stone of 
 the new. " And now, in the name of the Father, 
 Son and Holy Ghost, I declare this corner-stone well 
 and duly laid. Floreat ei haec nostra domus esto 
 perpetua ", he said. A gallant peal from the chapel 
 bells mercifully drowned out the mutterings of the 
 assemblage's endeavors to turn the strange language 
 into working English. 
 
 At the inevitable dinner, held in College Hall, 
 there was an unusual amount of good talk. Hon- 
 orable Elihu Root, President Eliot of Harvard, Presi- 
 dent Tyler of William and Mary, Honorable Charles 
 T. Gallagher, Governor Bachelder, Doctor Charles 
 A. Eastman and Lord Dartmouth were the speakers. 
 President Tucker was at his best as master of the 
 toasts. The earl, to those who had not known his 
 English reputation, was a blithesome surprise as a 
 wit on this occasion. 
 
 In all the marvelous material advance of Presi- 
 dent Tucker's administration, the problem of effi- 
 ciency in scholarship was not neglected. For one 
 thing, the loose system of electives that had let 
 men browse around in totally disconnected fields 
 was tightened very considerably. A so-called 
 " group " system was adopted in 1902, both as to 
 requirements for entrance to the college and as to 
 subject matter to be studied, once within it. For 
 
 21G
 
 THE GREAT AWAKENING 
 
 the curriculum, the student was compelled to con- 
 tinue in freshman year the subjects he presented for 
 admission; after that year, he was required to 
 arrange his electives among three groups, so that 
 one subject known as a " major " should be pur- 
 sued for three years in one group, and so that one 
 subject called a " minor " should be pursued for 
 two years in each of the other two groups. This 
 made prescribed subjects and those restricted by 
 groups about forty per cent, of the whole course. 
 It also brought every man's selected subjects into 
 some kind of harmonious whole. It gave him a 
 fairly free choice in the kind of education he wanted, 
 but made him stick to his choice. 
 
 Along with these changes came the abandonment 
 of Greek as a requirement for admission or for the 
 degree of A. B. The literature of the Hellenes was 
 decapitated calmly and with no resulting outcry. 
 Since Lord's or even Bartlett's time, the college 
 way, as the ways of all other colleges, had traveled 
 far from the Acropolis. Greek remains, but it is 
 rapidly approaching practical oblivion. There are 
 those who mourn the decline of the noble tongue 
 and letters at Dartmouth; but even a strong col- 
 lege cannot make the scholastic fashions of its 
 day. 
 
 The " Great Awakening " was a superb realization 
 217
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 of the possibilities of Dartmouth and of the hopes 
 of all her sons, but it brought its penalties to the 
 man from whose brain and heart it had proceeded. 
 In 1907 President Tucker found that his physical 
 condition made rest imperative. He had labored 
 without stint and almost single-handed upon aca- 
 demic, financial, and administrative problems. He 
 had traveled the country over many times, the in- 
 spiring evangel of Dartmouth's message to the 
 world. He had transformed Dartmouth from a 
 small New Hampshire institution to a national col- 
 lege. He had seen the number of undergraduate 
 students rise from 315 to 1,107, anc ^ tne total college 
 enrolment from 431 to 1,233. He had increased the 
 resident faculty from twenty-seven to eighty-four, 
 and the whole number of college officers from forty- 
 two to one hundred and seven. He had enlarged 
 the plant from fifteen buildings to thirty-five, ex- 
 clusive of many houses in the village built or bought 
 for faculty residences. 
 
 He had beautified and improved the college settle- 
 ment to an astonishing degree. He had enlarged 
 the invested funds by nearly two million dollars and 
 the value of the plant by nearly a million and a half. 
 And he had created among the alumni, always no- 
 tably loyal, a new spirit of unification, of sacrifice, 
 of intense devotion to and pride in the college that 
 
 218
 
 THE GREAT AWAKENING 
 
 Dartmouth men believe has no counterpart any- 
 where. 
 
 But the price of this great service was loss of 
 health, and in March, 1907, Doctor Tucker pre- 
 sented his resignation to the trustees, consenting, 
 however, to remain, with lessened duties, until a 
 successor could be found. No one available appear- 
 ing within two years, the president was imperative 
 that his resignation be accepted. 
 
 In June, 1909, the trustees chose Ernest Fox 
 Nichols, a distinguished investigator in experimental 
 physics, whose work was known to both hemi- 
 spheres, as president. Doctor Nichols was then a 
 professor in Columbia, but he knew Dartmouth 
 well, having occupied the chair of physics in the 
 college from 1898 to 1903. 
 
 Doctor Nichols was inducted into office October 
 10, 1909, in Webster Hall, and for the first time a 
 Dartmouth inauguration became an event of na- 
 tional academic importance. Delegates from ninety- 
 five universities, colleges, and other institutions of 
 learning, saw the new president receive the ancient 
 charter, once held so firmly in Eleazar Wheelock's 
 grasp, and the Governor John Wentworth silver 
 punch-bowl of fragrant memory, but departed 
 glory. Never had the old town even dreamed of 
 such a riot of color, such a human kaleidoscope, as 
 
 219
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 wound and swayed across the campus with the 
 procession of learned gentlemen wearing their 
 doctors' caps, gowns, and hoods. To the small boys 
 of Hanover, it was a revelation of the utmost glories 
 to which finite beings might attain; to the men of 
 Dartmouth, it was a testimony of the new rank to 
 which the " Great Awakening " had brought their 
 college, the world's " growing conception ", as 
 Woodrow Wilson put it in speaking of Doctor 
 Tucker, " of what the character and power of a 
 single man can do." 
 
 On this occasion, Presidents Schurman, of Cor- 
 nell; Van Hise, of the University of Wisconsin; 
 Finley, of the College of the City of New York; 
 Hyde, of Bowdoin; Buckham, of the University of 
 Vermont; Faunce, of Brown; Butler, of Columbia; 
 Wilson, of Princeton; Hadley, of Yale; Lowell, of 
 Harvard, and Eliot, emeritus; Angell, ex-President 
 of Michigan; Doctor Tucker and Governor Quinby 
 were made Doctors of Law. Rarely had any plat- 
 form borne so distinguished a company of men. It 
 is interesting to recall now the words of Doctor 
 Nichols in presenting one of the degrees : " Woodrow 
 Wilson, lawyer, historian, student of politics, man 
 of great strength of purpose." 
 
 The years are slipping away since that day, also 
 made notable by the laying of the corner-stone of 
 
 220
 
 THE GREAT AWAKENING 
 
 the new gymnasium. The college, with President 
 Nichols as its able and sympathetic head, is still 
 gaining prestige and strength. More men are com- 
 ing to it; new buildings are arising for it; its re- 
 sources are increasing. It has a plant valued in 
 1913 at $2,472,532, and total assets of $5,450,281. 
 Its annual cost of administration is only $36,605, 
 which, reckoned as a percentage of the total busi- 
 ness carried on, is smaller than that of any other 
 prominent college in the country. That this means 
 economy with no loss of efficiency, any intelligent 
 survey of the condition of things at Hanover proves 
 beyond question. The ancient strength is unabated; 
 the modern note is but its finer and larger expres- 
 sion. 
 
 221
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 Men of Dartmouth, set a watch 
 Lest the old traditions fail! 
 
 SO wrote the laureate of the college out of the in- 
 spiration of his great love for Dartmouth. We 
 know and he knew that some of the old traditions 
 ought to have failed; as they have. But his mean- 
 ing no Dartmouth man misses. 
 
 All colleges have their peculiar traditions; even 
 the younger are rapidly making them from customs 
 that, because of the constantly shifting population 
 of students, seem ancient in a few years. It is very 
 noticeable that what a class begins to do often 
 seems to have been done always; and, conversely, 
 that it not seldom believes it has originated some 
 custom that really is hoary with age. It is, therefore, 
 difficult to place a college tradition, to give it accu- 
 rate age or even any dignity. 
 
 But Dartmouth has a varied and interesting store- 
 house of traditions, which deserve the name because 
 
 222
 
 'THE OLD TRADITIONS" 
 
 of their very disappearance into obscurity. Such 
 is the tradition of the Old Pine. It was a pleasant 
 tale that came down from the past how the red- 
 skin graduates of the days when the " whole curricu- 
 lum was five hundred gallons of New England rum " 
 were accustomed, at Commencement, to smoke their 
 peace pipes or dance around the lordly trunk of the 
 tree that dominated the hill behind the college for 
 so many years. The tradition was fit enough to be 
 true, and perhaps it was. Doctor J. W. Barstow, / 
 '46, says of the Old Pine that " its worship did not \ 
 begin until 1848 or '49." The first recorded exercise 
 around the tree was at Class Day in 1854, when the 
 graduates, sitting about the base, heard an oration 
 and a poem. From that day until the fall of th( 
 splendid old monarch in 1895, graduating classes 
 smoked the final pipe around the tree, dashing theif 
 clays against its trunk as a parting tribute. The 
 custom is continued at its stump, which is carefully 
 preserved. 
 
 Fagging is a tradition that has had the curious 
 fate at Hanover of having long existed, of having 
 died, and then of having a resurrection. This form 
 of servitude was regularly recognized in the old 
 code of college rules of 1799, freshmen being ordered 
 to fetch and carry " for all the Senior classes who 
 have themselves served a freshmanship." But the 
 
 223
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 freshmen made their services obnoxious by the 
 easy means of doing everything with an assumed 
 density, such as, when ordered to go to a shop 
 with a dollar for pipes and tobacco, returning 
 with ninety-nine pipes and a cent's worth of 
 tobacco. In 1796 a new set of college rules ordered 
 that freshmen be excused from going on errands if 
 they wished. 
 
 For years thereafter fagging was never heard of. 
 It has recently returned in a genial sort of style, and 
 freshmen to-day beat the rugs and set up the furni- 
 ture of sophomores in good-natured acceptance of a 
 system that they realize will work to their advan- 
 tage a year later. Still, it is interesting to conjecture 
 what would have happened in the roaring " eight- 
 ies " had a " Soph " ordered a " Freshie " to beat 
 his carpet. A fight would have been needed to en- 
 force the ultimatum. Nor would there have been 
 any peaceable submission, as there seems to be to- 
 day, to the edict that freshmen must wear a dis- 
 tinctive cap as " his badge of servitude and his 
 emblem of meekness." 
 
 Manifestly the relations between the two lower 
 classes have lost the ferocity of more ancient times. 
 And there is no doubt that one of the prime reasons 
 for this is the disappearance of the cane-rush, which 
 died as a genuine function in the middle " eighties." 
 
 224
 
 'THE OLD TRADITIONS" 
 
 This rush reached its most glorious estate in the fall 
 of 1883, when it was prepared for in thoroughly 
 scientific fashion. Every man of both classes was 
 stripped to the waist, and the freshmen were deluged 
 with olive oil at the hands of the juniors in the 
 " gym." A minute after this ministration, the 
 freshman band had formed a solid circle in the 
 street, which was lined with the equipages of the 
 country folk come in to see the fight, the men of the 
 two upper classes, and most of the townspeople. 
 In the center were three giants holding the hickory 
 cane. The situation grew tense, when suddenly, 
 with a terrifying yell, the cohorts of '86 dashed out 
 from Reed Hall and, in wedge form, hit the round 
 mass of '87 with a bone-crushing bang. 
 
 Up and down the street in the choking, rasping 
 dust and the fierce September heat the oily contest 
 raged for two mortal hours. Men fell out uncon- 
 scious, only to be revived by buckets of cold water 
 lavished upon them by the solicitous juniors. Trou- 
 sers were torn to shreds, making necessary the 
 retirement of the feminine spectators. Slowly the 
 surging, writhing mass of greasy humanity some- 
 how gravitated toward Reed Hall, until, with one 
 final burst of power, the strong men of '86 shook off 
 the freshmen and forced the cane through the door- 
 way. The " Sophs " had won, as they always did 
 
 225
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 in those days. Discipline and the solidarity of a 
 year's acquaintance proved too much for untrained 
 strength. Fn less than fifteen minutes, however, 
 the freshmen, revived, bathed and clothed, were 
 strutting across the campus, each sporting some 
 sort of cane. The right to carry one had been 
 strenuously earned. 
 
 Gone with the cane-rush is " Freshmen beer ", 
 and gone for the good of the college. This tradi- 
 tional entertainment was supposed to be the joyous 
 compliment of the just-entered class to the others 
 above it a tribute to the powers that were for 
 allowing freshmen to exist. The malt refreshment 
 was usually brought up from " down river " in a 
 couple of huge barrels and in some way hoisted into 
 " Bed-bug Alley ", the longitudinal hallway on the 
 third floor of old Dartmouth. There, a barrel horsed 
 up at either end, the bibulous portion of the college 
 would make a night of it, swilling the dreadful brew 
 until nature rebelled, faithfully believing that the 
 occasion was an enjoyable one and that freshman 
 honor had been gallantly maintained. Greater 
 discretion finally caused the abandonment of the 
 orgy; if beer is not wholly unknown at Hanover 
 to-day, it is certainly more sensibly distributed. 
 
 The college cheer the resounding " Wah-Hoo- 
 Wah; Wah-Hoo-Wah; Da-di-di-Dartmouth, Wah- 
 
 226
 
 'THE OLD TRADITIONS" 
 
 HooWah, Tige-r-r-r " is to-day traditional; 
 yet it is not ancient, unless one may believe that 
 Eleazar's aborigines approximated to it in- moments 
 of fire-watered enthusiasm. Colder history records 
 that it was the invention of Daniel A. Rollins, of 
 the class of 1879. He was a genius for uniting the 
 Indian flavor of a yell with sonorous power. No 
 college has anything like it in fitness of sentiment as 
 applied to origins. Unfortunately, of late years the 
 cheer has been all but ruined and certainly made 
 unintelligible by an over-increased speed in giving 
 it. It has lost its swing, its power, and its meaning, 
 and has become a mere jumble of barks. We may 
 hope, however, that the spirit of artistic fitness of 
 things, which is now coming upon the new Dart- 
 mouth, may yet summon back the Indian ghost of 
 old " Wah-Hoo-Wah ", and return him to his place 
 at the head of all college cheers. 
 
 Another supremely picturesque feature of Dart- 
 mouth student life of thirty years ago, whose pass- 
 ing is recalled with regret, was the ceremony of 
 obsequies over mathematics. In its first form this 
 was a burial, and its general nature may best be 
 learned from a programme of 1872, issued by the 
 sophomore class, whose function it was to inter the 
 hated books at the end of their enforced acquaint- 
 ance with them. 
 
 227
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 IN HISTORIAM 
 
 FUNERAL OBSEQUIES 
 
 OF 
 MATTHEW - MATICS. 
 
 This precious child was launched upon a 
 frowning and unappreciative humanity Septem- 
 ber 1st A. D. 1870, and after a brief but brilliant 
 career came to an untimely end May 6th, A. D. 
 1872. ^__^ 
 
 " SlT TIBI TERRA LEVIS " 
 
 The procession will form in front of the 
 Chapel at IO p. M. and under the supervision of 
 the Marshal will accompany the remains to their 
 final resting-place in the following order: 
 
 I. Band. 
 II. Guard of Honor. 
 
 III. Pall Bearers supporting the bier. 
 
 IV. Near relatives. 
 
 ORDER OF EXERCISES 
 
 MUSIC. 
 Oration Theme X = oo Samuel L. Powers. 
 
 MUSIC. 
 Poem The functions of 
 
 Mathematics Henry F. Chase. 
 
 228
 
 'THE OLD TRADITIONS" 
 
 MUSIC. 
 
 Funeral Ode Henry H. Hart. 
 
 During the singing of the Ode, the rituals will 
 be performed. At the close of which a salute 
 will be fired into the grave, and amid salvos of 
 musketry and the wailing of the bereaved friends, 
 each member of the class will pay his last tribute 
 of affection and esteem to the memory of the 
 departed. 
 
 At the close of these exercises, the class in in- 
 dividual procession, as components of a great 
 mathematical force, will seek solace in the limits 
 of space. Quod Erat Demonstrandum. 
 
 When this travesty on burial was finally for- 
 bidden by the faculty, the change was made 
 with the ease and ingenuity of college boys to 
 cremation, a very much finer spectacle. The last 
 ceremony of burning was held in the spring of 
 1884. It was weirdly attractive. Preceded by a 
 band groaning out a solemn dirge, eight students 
 dressed as Roman priests carried the books on a 
 bier. The class followed, bearing torches, each 
 man wearing a long black robe over the head with 
 holes cut for eyes, nose, and mouth. A number of 
 imps, clad in red, disported themselves about the 
 cortege as it marched around the campus and thence 
 to a huge funeral pyre inside the fence. As fire 
 was touched to the wood, the books were hurled 
 
 229
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 into the flames with yells of exultation, and a wild 
 hand-in-hand dance celebrated their final con- 
 sumption. This wonderfully picturesque custom 
 has its modern counterpart in the cremation of 
 freshman caps at the close of a first class year in 
 college; but it lacks the decorative features of the 
 older function. 
 
 One of the most pleasing of the ancient Hano- 
 verian customs, because it reveals sentiment of a 
 rare and compelling kind, is that of " Singing out 
 the Seniors " the week before Commencement. 
 For this parting God-speed to the men about to go 
 into the world, the whole college gathers in chapel 
 for the last exercise for the year in that place. The 
 simplicity of it all is most impressive. There is a 
 scripture reading, a prayer, an anthem by the 
 choir and then the singing by the seniors of the 
 time-honored hymn, beginning: 
 
 Come let us anew our journey pursue; 
 
 Roll 'round with the year, 
 And never stand still till the Master appear. 
 
 The age of this solemn observance is unknown. 
 A member of the class of 1846 says that it was 
 in vogue in 1843, as long established and recog- 
 nized. 
 
 Of less antiquity, but now a genuine tradition, is 
 230
 
 'THE OLD TRADITIONS" 
 
 the senior " Wet-Down ", which takes the form of 
 a great barrel of lemonade set up on the campus 
 after the " Sing-Out." Of this harmless concoction, 
 which custom rigidly requires to be without a 
 " stick ", the seniors and juniors are given to drink, 
 while the sophomores and freshmen struggle to 
 tip the barrel over in derision of its mildness. All 
 this may seem rather childish and unsophisticated 
 to the " clubman " of the city college, but at Dart- 
 mouth the " old traditions " give vitality and 
 virility to many a naive custom, because it is still 
 remembered that " there were mighty men of old " 
 who were not ashamed to love and perpetuate 
 them. 
 
 Commencements as a whole, however, have 
 vastly improved in decorum and taste in fifty 
 years, mainly because the " circusing " of the annual 
 event for the outside world has long ceased. " It 
 is now almost Commencement ", wrote a student 
 to his brother in 1824. " Three days more will 
 bring us to that day, when the devil reigns pre- 
 dominant." Lord observes that " in the height 
 of its glory, and within the memory of the older 
 alumni, this occasion combined with the genuine 
 and refined pleasures of a great literary gathering 
 all the external attractions appropriate to a fair or 
 a general muster of the olden time. The din of 
 
 231
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 preparation for these began with the break of day 
 on Monday by the construction of booths in choice 
 spots about the southwestern corner of the Green. 
 During that day and the next every public con- 
 veyance brought its contribution till all the houses 
 of the village, both public and private, were filled 
 with guests. 
 
 " On the morning of Wednesday all approaches 
 to the village were crowded with vehicles of every 
 description, and numerous foot passengers as well, 
 all hurrying in to see the fun. By this time every 
 available spot along the southern extremity of the 
 square would be occupied with a booth of a trader, 
 and, as the day passed, travelling adventurers 
 swarmed in with their carts and bivouacked on the 
 spot. The night that followed was enlivened with 
 their lamps and the buzz of preparation, and some- 
 times with the persuasions of the students, who, 
 not relishing their presence, attempted to induce 
 them to depart. The surrounding country was 
 emptied into Hanover. Instances are not wanting 
 of persons who have attended fifty consecutive 
 Commencements. 
 
 " The peddlers, the auctioneers, the jugglers and 
 the shows with their attendant throngs would 
 spread far up toward the meeting house, and with 
 the cider, the strong beer openly sold, and the 
 
 232
 
 'THE OLD TRADITIONS" 
 
 stronger drink scarcely concealed, toward evening 
 the crowds would wax ruder and the turmoil more 
 furious, until it not seldom resulted in a brawl, so 
 that all orderly people breathed freer if the usual 
 thunder-shower dispersed the noisy and profane 
 rabble." 
 
 As late as 1845, Commencement was more or less 
 attended by a raree-show. One of the Hanover 
 residents relates in his diary for that year: " July 
 3 1st. The annual Commencement this day and a 
 fine fair day too. The smallest literary procession 
 that I have noticed for several years but an un- 
 common rush of all kinds of people from the cir- 
 cumstance that there was uncommon attractions 
 for them. A somewhat extensive Menagerie of wild 
 animals (in most miserable plight however). The 
 Boston Brass band of musicians, and the famous 
 foreign Violin player named Ole Bull, and 4 Albinoes 
 or white negroes. Every thing to pick away money 
 and lead the mind of people from the great concerns 
 of eternity and their duties of charity to their needy 
 fellow citizens and the perishing heathen. Even 
 clergymen were so enraptured that they could not 
 resist the invitation to hand out their half dollar 
 to hear him scrape his catgut and another quarter 
 to hear the brass band perform." 
 
 The senior spreads of that day were bountiful, if 
 233
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 not esthetic. A visitor to the same Commencement 
 wrote: " At nine o'clock in the evening we went 
 up to the assembly rooms in the new College (Reed 
 Hall) where the graduating class held their select 
 Levee. It was very tastefully decorated and the 
 table most magnificently spread. We had peaches, 
 apricots, grapes, oranges, raisins, figs, nuts of all 
 kinds, pickled fish, water melons a foot and a half 
 or two feet long, cakes, ice-cream, tea, coffee and 
 lemonade. The students gave this instead of a ball. 
 Kendall's band played, and all went off well." 
 
 Traditional " characters " have always abounded 
 at Dartmouth, as with every college set in a small 
 village where the all in all is the institution itself. 
 Most of these worthies have left no history, no 
 memories, even. Others, still haunting the thoughts 
 of Dartmouth men yet living, will again visualize 
 themselves at the touch of suggestion. There was 
 " Hod " Frary, for instance, the keeper of the old 
 Dartmouth Hotel, one of whose cherished habits it 
 was to carve the roasts on a table in the corner of 
 the dining-room and every now and then, in full 
 sight of the guests, wipe his enormous knife across 
 a vest encrusted with the grease and blood of ages. 
 The students had a theory that " Hod " did this to 
 discourage appetite on the part of his boarders, and 
 thus make his table d'hote the more profitable. 
 
 234
 
 'THE OLD TRADITIONS" 
 
 There was the quaint old " Professor of Dust 
 and Ashes ", whose loved and pompous duty it was 
 to clear the ancient recitation rooms of the litter 
 strewn about by the students, and to build the fires 
 in the big box stoves that heated these abodes of 
 the muses. His name was Haskell, and he lived 
 across the way from the old Rood House, where 
 was located, in his day, the " elegant " young 
 ladies' boarding school kept by the Argus-eyed 
 Misses Sherman, and known as the " Sherman 
 Nunnery." The good " Professor " has long been 
 dust and ashes himself, but his memory is still 
 cherished among the older alumni. 
 
 There was " Old Dud ", who, with his flotilla of 
 ancient stage-coaches swung on leather springs and 
 drawn up in gallant array at the station, " Nawich 
 'nd 'Anover " was the official welcomer of return- 
 ing Dartmouth men for a period of nearly forty 
 years. " Old Dud ", the magnate of all stage 
 drivers, the man who would in these days run grave 
 risk of being prosecuted by the Commerce Commis- 
 sion for restraint of interstate transportation. " Old 
 Dud ", the friend of everybody and everybody's 
 friend! 
 
 There was " Lil " Carter, the Delmonico of the 
 middle " eighties ", in Hanover. The maker of the 
 best oyster stews and ice-cream that ever tickled 
 
 235
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 the palates and depleted the pocketbooks of college 
 students in any town, big or little. A cheerful 
 truster, withal. There was no occasion to growl at 
 the high cost of living while " Lil " was in business. 
 At first he kept open house in the Tontine Block, 
 where several of the secret society halls were then 
 located, but when that was burned, he established 
 his restaurant in the second story of his stable. His 
 customers had to admit that the flavor of his food 
 suffered somewhat from the change. There was a 
 sort of ammonia tang to what one drank and a dis- 
 tinctly horsey aroma about what one ate. But 
 " Lil ", like a gentleman, made up for this by giving 
 bigger portions of everything and extending longer 
 credit all around. 
 
 There was " Kib ", proprietor of " Kibling's 
 Op'ry House," on College Street, 
 
 That thespian den 
 
 Where tragic ham-fats roared on 6 by 10, 
 Where dear Hank White retold his minstrel jest, 
 And Barnaby's " cork leg " led all the rest. 
 Where the " Alikado " burst upon the town, 
 And college fiddlers squeaked the chorus down. 
 
 " Kib's " temple of art was all too often the scene 
 of histrionic efforts that should never have been 
 made. But if a guilty company tarried a second 
 night, its doom was swift and certain. The sopho- 
 
 236
 
 "THE OLD TRADITIONS" 
 
 mores would gather to a man outside the hall, 
 promptly at eight, equipped with tin horns, cow- 
 bells and band instruments, and blare away until 
 the wretched actors inside would give up the struggle 
 to be heard and dismiss their audience. This was 
 not strictly gentlemanly, judged by the rules of 
 more polite society, but it was a protest at being 
 duped, the only effective one the boys knew, since 
 there were no other censors of the drama in Hanover 
 then. 
 
 " Kib " also maintained in one corner of his es- 
 tablishment a wretched little bar-room, where with 
 hardened soul he dispensed his terrible " ink " and 
 " resin " as, with malignant glee, he termed whisky 
 and beer. Later he faced a lifetime in jail on ac- 
 cumulated sentences for " selling ", but a too- 
 lenient law set him free after a brief period of servi- 
 tude. " Kib " was the last easily accessible and 
 defiant rumseller in Hanover. 
 
 And then there was the illustrious Daniel Pratt, 
 the " Great American Traveler ", property of other 
 colleges, also, because of his love for them all and 
 his peripatetic habits among them. The dear old 
 man was once made the hero of a great procession 
 at Hanover, being escorted from the Dartmouth 
 Hotel to the old chapel. There, with colossal grav- 
 ity, the students conferred upon him the honorary 
 
 237
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 degree of C. 0. D. Pratt then delivered himself 
 of a wonderful oration on the " Vocabulaboratory of 
 the World's History." It is related that after the 
 address was over, as he came out on the chapel 
 steps, some disturbance was caused, and, brave man 
 and chevalier though he was, he became frightened 
 and started across the campus like a deer with the 
 whole college in full cry after him. 
 
 EheUj fugaces! Times change, and men and 
 things change with them. The familiars of yester- 
 day are the traditions of to-day, and the traditions 
 of to-morrow are to-day in the making. Dart- 
 mouth, by reason of her very distinctive flavor, will 
 not soon cease to be a college of " the old tradi- 
 tions." Some will be born, will flourish, and will 
 die. Some will live always. Dartmouth's sons 
 have set a watch.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 " DARTMOUTH OUT - o' - DOORS " 
 
 DARTMOUTH is to-day preeminently the col- 
 lege of the " out-o'-doors." This distinction 
 has not come to it entirely by reason of its superb 
 location, where mountains, hills, and glades; forests 
 and streams; a lordly river at its feet and lovely 
 lakes within easy reach give it a setting incom- 
 parable for the casual stroll or the strenuous, long- 
 distance " hike." For more than a century these 
 prodigally beautiful gifts of nature encircled Dart- 
 mouth, yet there has not until recently been any 
 genuine or general use of them. 
 
 A generation ago the few men who " tramped " 
 in spring or autumn were rare and queer specimens 
 to the majority. The rigors of winter were for the 
 most part evaded by close adherence to stoves. A 
 cross-country trip over the snow would have been 
 regarded as an expedition of lunatics. Toboggans, 
 skis and snow-shoes were unknown; sleighing was 
 not popular; coasting languished, and skating was 
 generally impossible by reason of the heavy snow- 
 falls. The prevailing attitude toward winter was 
 accurately expressed in Richard Hovey's: 
 
 239
 
 For the wolf wind is whining in the doorways, 
 
 And the snow drifts deep along the road, 
 
 And the ice-gnomes are marching from their Norways, 
 
 And the great white cold walks abroad. 
 
 (Boo-oo-o! pass the bowl.) 
 
 For here by the fire 
 
 We defy frost and storm. 
 
 Ha, ha! we are warm 
 
 And we have our hearts' desire. 
 
 Today, thanks to the activities of the Dartmouth 
 Outing Club and to a new appreciation of the joys 
 of the open country, all seasons bring large numbers 
 of students into the " out-o'-doors " and the for- 
 midable old Hanover winter itself is now enlivened 
 by one of the finest and most popular celebrations 
 of the college year, the Winter Carnival. 
 
 The first exponent of " Dartmouth out-o'-doors " 
 was John Ledyard, that original genius and adven- 
 turous soul of the class of 1776, who roamed the 
 world in marvellous fashion for his day, and finally 
 died in Africa, as he was preparing to cross that 
 continent. Ledyard arrived in Hanover in a sulky, 
 which he had driven through the wilderness roads 
 from Hartford. That he and his equipage made a 
 sensation when they reached the college may be 
 taken for granted. " Both the horse and the sulky ", 
 says Sparks, " gave evident tokens of having known 
 better days, and the dress of their owner was pe- 
 
 240
 
 : ' 
 
 Wilson Hall (Library)
 
 "DARTMOUTH OUT - O' - DOORS " 
 
 culiar, bidding equal defiance to symmetry of pro- 
 portion and to the fashion of the times. In addition 
 to the traveller himself, this ancient vehicle was bur- 
 dened with a quantity of calico for curtains, and 
 other articles to assist in theatrical exhibitions, of 
 which he was very fond. . . . The stage was fitted 
 up, and plays were acted, in which Ledyard person- 
 ated the chief characters. ' Cato ' was among the 
 tragedies brought out upon the boards, and Led- 
 yard acted the part of old Syphax, wearing a long 
 gray beard and a dress suited to his notion of the 
 costume of a Numidian prince." 
 
 Whether Ledyard loved nature with an unusual 
 passion, or merely desired a lark in the open now 
 and then, we do not know. But it is recorded that 
 in the midwinter of 1772-1773, he, with Wheelock's 
 consent, persuaded several of the students to camp 
 out with him in the snow in the wilds of the " Velvet 
 Rocks ", two miles east of the college. The snow 
 was three feet deep, and drifted. The party went in 
 couples on snow-shoes, and reaching the summit 
 with some labor, built a fire, ate their supper, and 
 each couple prepared for the night by scraping away 
 the snow and laying a bed of evergreen boughs and 
 a blanket. One then lying down, 'his partner drew 
 over him a second blanket, buried him in snow, and 
 then crawled in by his side. They passed, they 
 
 241
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 said, quite a comfortable night, and were at home 
 in time for prayers by candle-light in the morn- 
 ing. 
 
 Chafing at last under old Eleazar's rigid discipline, 
 and objecting particularly to the compulsion of 
 blowing the conch horn in his turn to summon the 
 students to various exercises, Ledyard determined 
 to abscond. In May, 1773, while the president was 
 in the " down-country ", he cut a huge pine near the 
 banks of the river, and from it fashioned a dug-out 
 canoe fifty feet long and three feet wide. This 
 stalwart craft, rigged with a woven willow shelter 
 in the stern, was launched with the help of class- 
 mates, and in it Ledyard, with dried venison for 
 food and a bearskin for covering at night, paddled 
 down the Connecticut to Hartford, one hundred and 
 forty miles away, narrowly escaping with his life 
 at the thundering maelstrom of Bellows Falls. A 
 great stone, with bronze tablet, now marks the spot 
 where this first of Dartmouth's " gentleman ad- 
 venturers " cut the tree for his craft. 
 
 But although now and again men have loved the 
 silent places about the college town, where one can 
 be remote and almost in the wilderness in an hour's 
 walk, the great green and white " out-o'-doors " 
 waited a hundred and forty-one years for the form- 
 ing of an association that should at last bring a large 
 
 242
 
 '" DARTMOUTH OUT - O' - DOORS " 
 
 number of pioneers into the open with the bonds of 
 enthusiasm and energy. 
 
 It.was in January, 1910, that F. H. Harris, of the 
 class of 1911, "the lone ski-runner", was inspired, 
 on one of his expeditions over the snow, with the 
 idea that the old time Hanoverian conception of 
 winter was all wrong; that it was not a dread time 
 for the close embrace of the steam radiator, but a 
 glorious opportunity for the making of redder 
 blood, more powerful appetites, and sounder sleep. 
 He issued a call to the wild in the Dartmouth. Fifty 
 men replied. The Dartmouth Outing Club had its 
 birth forthwith. Skis, snow-shoes and toboggans 
 suddenly became profitable articles of merchandise. 
 From fifty, the membership of the club quickly 
 grew to hundreds. 
 
 Out of the new organization's fertile activities 
 came the Winter Carnival, which now attracts crowds 
 of visitors, including the inevitable, enthusiastic 
 girls, to enjoy the ski and snow-shoe dashes and 
 cross-country runs, the hockey games, and the ski- 
 jumps. " The great white cold walks abroad ", as 
 in Hovey's time, and often to the pace of twenty 
 degrees below zero, at these carnivals; but nobody 
 is daunted, nobody is frozen, and the feminine con- 
 tingent transfers itself from furs, mackinaws, sweat- 
 ers, and toques to the silks and satins of evening 
 
 243
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 dress for the Carnival Ball in the commons with as 
 good grace as if the dance were in Boston or New 
 York. 
 
 The chief glory of the Outing Club, however, and 
 a thing that is bound to make a race of Dartmouth 
 men still stauncher of body, cleaner of morals, and 
 more thoughtful of mind, is the trail and cabin sys- 
 tem that has come into being naturally and consist- 
 ently with the splendid theater nature has given the 
 college men for their " out-o'-door " performances. 
 
 The beginning of this unique course of education 
 in the semi-wilderness was the excellent cabin on the 
 side of Moose Mountain, a fine and dominating 
 eminence eight miles northeast of the campus. 
 Through the enthusiastic interest and labors of Mr. 
 Franklin P. Shuniway, of Boston, the alumni gave 
 the six hundred dollars necessary to erect the 
 shelter, which was dedicated by President Nichols 
 on May 30, 1913. Here, close to a cold and pic- 
 turesque mountain torrent, as many as thirty 
 students may gather about the roaring logs in the 
 big stone fireplace; may sleep in bunks lined with 
 fir-balsam; may prepare the good, honest " grub " 
 of the camper in the well-appointed kitchen, and 
 may look out over the beautiful world for a brief 
 interval between classrooms, into the setting sun or 
 the young moon, and be the better for doing it. 
 
 244
 
 " DARTMOUTH OUT - O' - DOORS " 
 
 Next in this chain is Cube Mountain, a still nobler 
 hill ten miles to the north of Moose. Here another 
 Dartmouth cabin has been erected, thanks again to 
 Mr. Shumway's persuasive ways with the alumni. 
 Further still will be a cabin in the Agassiz Basin, 
 near Moosilauke, land for which has been given by 
 Reverend J. E. Johnson, of the class of 1866, who 
 had presented the club, in 1913, with his hundred- 
 acre place, " Sky-Line Farm " in Littleton, including 
 a good house. This point completes the northern 
 trail for Dartmouth, since from Littleton or from 
 Agassiz Basin the " hiker " into the heart of the 
 White Mountains may find plenty of Appalachian 
 Club and other cabins ready for service. 
 
 The next developments are expected to be toward 
 the east, perhaps on Mount Cardigan, and to the 
 west into the foothills of the Green Mountains. 
 There is no limit to the magnificent range of outing 
 possibilities in every point of the compass. Health 
 and strength and manly love for the open beckon at 
 every turn of the year, and from the " groves of the 
 academy " Dartmouth men in constantly greater 
 numbers are going out into the groves of the Om- 
 nipotent for something no finite theorems or mental 
 gymnastics of the class or lecture-room can possibly 
 give them. 
 
 The " out-o'-door " activities that take the form 
 245
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 of organized athletics are, of course, older than the 
 present remarkable spirit of the trail; yet modern 
 enough, as compared with the life of the college. 
 The ancient worthies did not look with much favor 
 on useless and non-productive games. The first 
 code of college laws set forth its desires thus: 
 
 In order that the channel of their diversions may be 
 turned from that which is puerile, such as playing with 
 balls, bowls, and other ways of diversion, as have been 
 necessarily gone into by students in other places, for want 
 of an opportunity to exercise themselves in that which 
 is more useful, ... it is earnestly recommended to the 
 students . . . that they torn the course of their diver- 
 sions, and exercises for their health, to the practice of 
 some manual arts, or cultivation of gardens and other 
 lands at the proper hours of leisure. 
 
 Eleazar Wheelock was a thrifty soul who realized 
 the advantage of employing student energies to the 
 turning out of vegetables for the benefit of the 
 college. 
 
 But games persisted, in more or less fugitive 
 fashion. The Indians had sports of their own and 
 pursued them as long as they remained at Dart- 
 mouth. Wickets were in fashion in 1790, if we may 
 trust a naive engraving of the college grounds at 
 that period. Football of the " Old Division ", 
 free-for-all, " kick-as-kick-can " style flourished for 
 
 246
 
 '" DARTMOUTH OUT - O' - DOORS " 
 
 many years, and was played up to 1850 with an 
 inflated bladder inside a leather case. For the gym- 
 nastic enthusiasts a frame was set up in 1852 back 
 of the observatory. This contrivance, boasting only 
 two ropes with rings and a horizontal bar, was 
 known as the " Freshman Gallows ", by reason of 
 a tradition, which has an apocryphal flavor, that a 
 member of one lowly class brought himself to an 
 untimely end by too strenuous work upon it. 
 
 Of the athletic sports now existent at Hanover, 
 baseball is the oldest. The first college nine was 
 organized in 1866, " to supply a deficiency ", said 
 the Aegis of that time, " occasioned by the lack of 
 interest displayed in the football game. ... It is 
 our belief that football must cease to exist as a 
 college game. The time and advancing interests of 
 old Dartmouth demand it." 
 
 That nine beat Concord and Portsmouth, but was 
 defeated by Amherst, 40 to 10, on its own ground. 
 The first game with Harvard was played in 1869, 
 and Harvard's seasoned veterans won, 38 to o. 
 That old score has been paid off by Dartmouth 
 victories many times since then, but never in such 
 impressive numerical fashion, for the days of enor- 
 mous scores and appalling error figures soon passed. 
 Dartmouth's baseball record has always been hon- 
 orable and still is, though the old-time interest in 
 
 247
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 the game, which was overwhelmingly keen in the 
 " eighties ", is now at a much lower ebb among the 
 non-playing students. 
 
 Curiously enough, intercollegiate rowing, now and 
 for a long time extinct at Hanover, in spite of the 
 great river near by, ran baseball a close second in 
 point of age. It began with a spontaneous " craze ", 
 so the athletic records say, in the autumn of 1872. 
 Eaton, '75, and Paul, Lawrence, and Underbill, '73, 
 were the pioneers in the movement. In the winter 
 enough money was raised to build a boathouse, hire 
 a trainer, and buy a six-oared cedar shell from the 
 famous Elliott, of Greenpoint, Long Island. An 
 old professional " champ " named John Biglin was 
 the trainer. He selected a crew of " raw beef and 
 bloody bone giants ", who in spite of their crudity 
 as oarsmen, brought the Dartmouth shell in fourth 
 among nine at the Springfield regatta of '73. Next 
 year the crew finished fourth at Saratoga, being 
 beaten by Columbia, Wesleyan, and Harvard. In 
 1875 the Hanoverians were again fourth, five sec- 
 onds behind Harvard and beating Yale, with " Bob " 
 Cook at stroke oar. 
 
 From that moment of what was rightfully con- 
 sidered a good deal of a triumph, Dartmouth has 
 never put a Varsity shell into the water. A tre- 
 mendous snowfall in the winter of 1877 crushed in 
 
 248
 
 " DARTMOUTH OUT - O' - DOORS " 
 
 the boathouse and smashed the shell; seemingly it 
 crushed the heart out of rowing, in which the col- 
 legians had played so creditable a role. This form 
 of athletics appears to be dead at Hanover, and no 
 one can be found there who will venture to predict 
 its resurrection. 
 
 Modern football " Rugby ", as it was called in 
 its early days of evolution among the American 
 colleges was late in arriving at Hanover. Har- 
 vard, Princeton, and Yale had for some time been 
 at their triangular annual contests before Dartmouth 
 knew the pigskin well. When at various times the 
 matter was broached, the faculty, who tolerated the 
 fierce cane-rush, demurred on the ground that the 
 game was too " rough." Even a part of the students 
 frowned on it, though not for that reason, cer- 
 tainly. They feared that the pastime was too much 
 an aping of effete England and that it would tend 
 to produce a race of effeminates! They were soon 
 to see that notion exploded with loud reverberations 
 over the Hanover plain. 
 
 In spite of opposition, the football feeling gained 
 steadily. Clarence Howland, '84, did much to es- 
 tablish the new game. A magnificent player and a 
 man of means, he helped the cause physically and 
 financially. Exeter men began to come up to the 
 college with football training. In 1880 the elements 
 
 249
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 for the sport were strong enough to force the organ- 
 ization of the Dartmouth Rugby Football Associa- 
 tion, and an eleven was put on the field. There were 
 no intercollegiate games that year, but in 1881 two 
 contests were arranged with Amherst, Dartmouth 
 winning the first and tying the second. On Novem- 
 ber 9, 1882, came the first game with Harvard, and 
 the score of 53 to o showed the wearers of the green 
 that they knew very little of the game. But that 
 catastrophe, too, was amply avenged in 1903, when 
 the Dartmouth eleven, perhaps the most powerful 
 that ever swept over a gridiron, dedicated the 
 Stadium with a Harvard defeat, 1 1 to o. 
 
 After the first Harvard game, however, things 
 looked bad for football at Hanover. The Dart- 
 mouth, under the heading " Rugby Is Dead ", said 
 editorially: " It is our sad duty to conduct the 
 melancholy obsequies. . . . There was no doubt, 
 no mystery about its death, and an inquest is totally 
 unnecessary . . . and now if there is any other 
 game that Dartmouth can play better than football, 
 it would be well to encourage it." 
 
 But football did not die. It survived even the 
 ponderous trouncing administered by Yale on 
 Dartmouth's ground in 1884, when the score was 
 113 to o for the blue. It survived many another 
 defeat, victories coming along in due time. Under" 
 
 250
 
 " DARTMOUTH OUT - O' - DOORS " 
 
 the coaching of such men as McCornack, Folsom, 
 O'Connor, and Cavanaugh, the elevens of Dart- 
 mouth have been made formidable fighting aggre- 
 gations and have long since been reckoned with as 
 among the best in the college world every season. 
 From the humble beginnings at Harvard, when a 
 few of the. faithful sat along the side-lines to cheer 
 the eleven in its regular defeats, Dartmouth finally 
 arrived at the importance of being able to draw a 
 crowd of forty thousand spectators to the Stadium 
 to witness the annual battle between the crimson 
 and the green. 
 
 In field and track athletics, Dartmouth has not 
 until recently cut a very important figure among 
 the largest colleges. In her old-time class, however, 
 she has long been customarily victorious, winning 
 the New England Intercollegiate championship 
 (Harvard and Yale have never been members) for 
 the great majority of years in which the association 
 has existed. 
 
 The first local field meet was held in the fall of 
 1875, with such ancient exotics as the three-legged 
 race, the sack race, and the wheelbarrow race on the 
 list of events. The initial outside appearance of 
 her athletes was at Glen Mitchell, New York, in 
 July, 1876, when they won several events in a field 
 consisting of Princeton, Yale, Cornell, Columbia, 
 
 251
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 Williams, Wesleyan, and the University of the City 
 of New York. At Mott Haven, in 1877, a Dart- 
 mouth man won the half-mile and the quarter-mile. 
 Dartmouth won the first meet of the New England 
 Intercollegiate Athletic Association held at Charter 
 Oak Park, Hartford, May 27, 1887. 
 
 Of late years Dartmouth has been consistently 
 growing stronger in the " big " Intercollegiates, a 
 result due partly to the splendid new " gym ", with 
 its facilities for practising practically all of the 
 outdoor sports in the depth of winter, and partly 
 to the fine and inspiring labors of Harry Hillman, 
 the track and field coach. The alumni control of 
 athletics, established in 1892, has also been of great 
 value as an inspiration toward success in all branches, 
 as a financial ally, and as a wise guardian of what is 
 clean and honorable in amateur sport. Dartmouth 
 is to-day in the very first rank in her punctilious 
 regard for pure athletics. It is not a pose, but a 
 conviction. It governs the conduct of the sports 
 just mentioned, as well as of tennis, golf, hockey, 
 and basketball, in all of which good records have 
 been made. 
 
 One more asset of " Dartmouth out-o'-doors ", 
 unique and full of the most romantic possibilities, 
 is the " Dartmouth Grant ", the splendid domain 
 of twenty-six thousand acres of wild forest, moun- 
 
 252
 
 
 ,' ! ^ ; 
 
 The Alumni Gymnasium
 
 ' DARTMOUTH OUT - O' - DOORS " 
 
 tain, and stream up in the " North Country." This 
 great territory lies in the northeast corner of New 
 Hampshire, edging the State of Maine for eight 
 miles. No shrieks of locomotives disturb its quiet, 
 for the nearest railway station is thirty-two miles 
 away. In its wilderness are five mountains more 
 than two thousand feet high; two gloriously pic- 
 turesque rivers, Swift Diamond and Dead Diamond; 
 innumerable brooks, and all about the deep forest, 
 broken only by the hundred-acre clearings fcr 
 the " college farm " in the center of the tract and 
 the " Davis farm " at the southeastern entrance to 
 the property. On one of its rivers a canoe can float 
 for twenty miles. Everywhere wild life abounds, 
 but in peace, unharassed by gunpowder. Dart- 
 mouth protects her tenants under old Dame Nature's 
 lease. 
 
 The future uses of this forest principality delight 
 the imagination. What will the " Grant " see and 
 be in a hundred years? In five hundred? Wilder- 
 ness still, kept in virgin glory from the ravages of 
 an advancing civilization, or the sylvan seat of a 
 great department of the college? At present its 
 utility is the furnishing of lumber under a wise 
 system of modern forestry. It will never be 
 " stripped ", let us believe, to naked land and 
 savage rock. 
 
 253
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 What an opportunity is here for the school of 
 forestry that Dartmouth may one day establish. 
 What a realm of delight for the summer camp of 
 some Dartmouth Outing Club of the future, that 
 may " hike " in a body to the enchanted land of the 
 northern " out-o'-doors." Happy the college, and 
 happy the college men, who can still carry the 
 ancient seal into their own lands and there let its 
 legend speak again, and as appropriately as in the 
 days of the founding: " Fox Clamantis in Deserto." 
 
 254
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 WHAT MEN DO AT DARTMOUTH 
 
 DARTMOUTH is still a college. It adopts men 
 into the academic family on fairly easy terms, 
 but it compels them to prove their intellectual and 
 moral fitness to remain, or out they go without much 
 ceremony. Every year a sizable band of lazy or 
 over-confident freshmen is given its passports. 
 Sometimes this coterie contains the most promising 
 athletic material of a class, but that consideration 
 weighs not at all in the councils of the faculty. The 
 Governor John Wentworth charter is older than the 
 Alumni Gymnasium, and the charter has certain 
 things to say about the general intent of the college. 
 Those things are still respected. Men are still per- 
 sonally trained in classroom recitations as well as 
 in lectures and examinations. They are still held to 
 the performance of a definite excellence in mental 
 work as represented by professorial figures. If they 
 object to this as a form of ancient inquisition, they 
 are at liberty to resign, and often they are asked to. 
 As to what men do at Dartmouth, then, it may be 
 255
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 said that primarily they work at such varied forms 
 of the higher education as they may select out of a 
 liberal variety. But they work, or they know Han- 
 over but briefly. 
 
 Of student interests outside the regular curricu- 
 lum there is today a wide choice, suited for men of 
 all sorts of tastes, compared with the narrow range 
 of things to do a generation, or less, ago. There 
 is no doubt that the students of the present conduct 
 themselves more sensibly than in older times be- 
 cause there are so many congenial outlets for their 
 particular kinds of effervescence. Turkey-stealing, 
 rum-drinking and horning have gone into the dust- 
 bin of disused traditions in favor of Outing Club 
 trips, or dramatic performances or Social Service 
 or of half a dozen other activities of as much appeal, 
 but less potentiality for trouble. And if any " old 
 timer ", any product of the Iron Age at Hanover, 
 should chance to fear that the change in student 
 avocations and pleasures is in danger of producing 
 a race of prigs and weaklings, a visit to the old town 
 in Winter Carnival week would be sufficient to drive 
 that dismal notion entirely from his head. The 
 ancient and highly characteristic idea of Dartmouth 
 manhood seems as potent and as living as ever it 
 was. 
 
 Men have more luxuries, of course, than their 
 256
 
 WHAT MEN DO AT DARTMOUTH 
 
 fathers even dreamed of. They are no longer living 
 like a lot of anchorites, for the college has seen to 
 it that they are comfortably housed. The great 
 increase in handsome and well-equipped fraternity 
 houses in recent years has also changed the manner 
 of living to some extent, but not to the cliquey and 
 dangerous length seen at some other colleges, for 
 here again the wisdom of President Tucker was 
 wonderfully manifested when he persuaded the 
 trustees to rule that no fraternity house should 
 contain more than fourteen men and that none 
 should set a regular table. It has thus been made 
 impossible that any set of students exist within a 
 fraternity shell. Somewhere, three times a day, 
 they must all associate with other men. 
 
 If the problems of fraternity scholarship, which 
 is proven poorer than that of non-fraternity men 
 at Dartmouth, and the perennial nuisance of the 
 " chinning " season could be settled as adequately 
 and simply, the powers that be at Hanover would 
 be happier. However, the fraternity question is in 
 process of better regulation than ever before, partly 
 through frank and free conferences of society dele- 
 gates with President Nichols, and partly from a 
 feeling among the " frat " men that there may be 
 something in their honorable traditions of scholar- 
 ship and literature, after all. 
 
 257
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 There are now eighteen Greek letter societies in 
 the college proper, the oldest of which is Psi Upsilon, 
 founded at Dartmouth in 1842, and the youngest 
 Delta Sigma Rho, established in 1910. One, the 
 Kappa Kappa Kappa, is local only. 1 These chapters, 
 which include about sixty per cent, of the students, 
 have always maintained their connection with the 
 parent fraternities. None has deteriorated into an 
 expelled, independent club bearing a parody of the 
 old mother's name and active chiefly as a social 
 organization playing fool pranks in public. In that 
 respect the history and the present status of the 
 fraternities at Dartmouth is honorable. Men may 
 not take them very seriously as uplifts, but they do 
 not degrade them into mere accessories for eating 
 and drinking and the doing of idiotic " stunts." 
 
 Four senior societies make the sum total of Dart- 
 mouth's desires in this respect. The Sphinx, founded 
 in 1886, has an effective Eygptian mausoleum as a 
 meeting-place; the Casque and Gauntlet, one year 
 younger, owns and occupies a prim, but pleasant 
 
 1 The Greek letter societies in the order of their founding at Dart- 
 mouth are: Psi Upsilon, 1842; Kappa Kappa Kappa, 1842; Alpha 
 Delta Phi, 1846; Delta Kappa Epsilon, 1855; Theta Delta Chi, 1869; 
 iPhi Delta Theta, 1884; Beta Theta Pi, 1889; Sigma Chi, 1893; Phi 
 Kappa Psi, 1896; Phi Gamma Delta, 1901; Chi Phi, 1902; Phi Sigma 
 Kappa, 1905; Kappa Sigma, 1905; Sigma Phi Epsilon, 1909; Sigma Nu, 
 1507; Sigma Alpha Epsilon, 1908; and Delta Sigma Rho, 1910. 
 
 258
 
 WHAT MEN DO AT DARTMOUTH 
 
 old-fashioned dwelling-house, lately much improved, 
 on the busy and valuable corner opposite College 
 Hall. The Dragon, still younger, occupies the 
 ancient, square " Tri-Kappa " Hall. The Round 
 Robin is purely literary. Election to these organiza- 
 tions is a distinction highly prized by each junior 
 class, though there is nothing of sycophantish log- 
 rolling for " making " the senior societies that has 
 been condemned in some other colleges. 
 
 Palaeopitus is another Dartmouth, institution 
 that has won a very important place in the college 
 life. This is the student governing body of the 
 college. A board of eleven members of the senior 
 class, it is the Hague Conference of the under- 
 graduate body and the official intermediary between 
 the faculty administration and the students. Tra- 
 dition alone is responsible for raising the Palaeo- 
 pitus to its present high position, and upon the pres- 
 tige that it has attained it is wholly dependent for 
 its power. Election to. this body is probably the 
 most substantial recognition of ability and in- 
 tegrity that a class can confer on one of its mem- 
 bers. It may be safely said that petty politics and 
 fraternity rivalries rarely interfere with the election 
 of the best possible men from the successive classes 
 to this surprisingly influential group of men. The 
 relation of the Palaeopitus to the college is unique 
 
 259
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 among student councils. It has never received any 
 specific powers from the administration or the 
 student body. It has no definite duties to perform 
 except those developed by the usage of years. In 
 spite of this fact, the resolutions and suggestions of 
 the Palaeopitus have all the force of laws. It is 
 now an institution that neither undergraduates nor 
 faculty would like to see abandoned. 
 
 Phi Beta Kappa survives as a reward for the first 
 scholars in each senior class for all receiving a 
 rank of eighty-five, to be exact. The ancient dame 
 with the watch-key carne to Hanover in 1787, from 
 Cambridge. In those days she was a secretive soul, 
 with solemn oaths of initiation, a mystic cipher and 
 strange symbols. These attributes have long since 
 disappeared, as well as the term-time meetings of the 
 society. In its old-time state it was distinguished 
 every third year by a Phi Beta Kappa oration on 
 the day before Commencement, and some of the 
 greatest of American minds have had their say on 
 these occasions. 
 
 For men who feel the " furor scribendi " at 
 Hanover there are means of expression adequate 
 enough, if not over plentiful. The Dartmouth, the 
 triweekly college newspaper, annually calls forth 
 a good-sized crowd of freshman " leg-men," eager 
 to win a place on its staff. This venerable sheet, 
 
 260
 
 WHAT MEN DO AT DARTMOUTH 
 
 as such publications go, has had a continuous exist- 
 ence since 1867, when it was revived as a monthly 
 after a suspension of twenty-six years. In 1875 it 
 was made a weekly newspaper, and its character 
 has more and more tended to that of a chronicler of 
 and commentator on the college happenings to the 
 exclusion of everything else. The Dartmouth is 
 lively and enterprising, and occasionally prods the 
 college moguls a bit sharply; but the freedom of 
 the press is pretty well respected at Hanover, and 
 nothing happens in the way of editorial repression. 
 The Bema is the direct descendant of the Dart- 
 mouth Literary Monthly, established in 1887, and 
 later renamed the Dartmouth Magazine. It is 
 young and pretty, with excellent illustrations, in- 
 teresting departments and better than average 
 stories and poems. ' Jack 0' Lantern ", the hu- 
 morous monthly, gives the wits and the cartoonists 
 their chief opportunity nowadays at Hanover, since 
 the Aegis, the junior annual founded as a once-a- 
 term magazine in 1858, but having its present form 
 since 1871, has lost much of its former penchant for 
 biting and sometimes brutal " grinds " on students 
 and faculty. The Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, 
 now six years old, is a valuable publication, covering 
 the larger forms of college news very completely 
 and reflecting editorially and often briskly the 
 
 261
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 faculty attitude toward college events and student 
 behavior. 
 
 The men who lean toward " Music, heavenly 
 maid," are variously provided for. " The Handel 
 Society of Dartmouth College ", organized in 1807 
 " to improve and cultivate the taste, and promote 
 true and genuine music and discountenance trifling, 
 unfinished pieces ", and which for many years was 
 accounted one of the best choruses in New England, 
 is dead. The College Choir in some measure fills its 
 place. Those who yearn for the " trifling, un- 
 finished pieces " may find solace in the Glee Club, 
 with its guitar and mandolin attachments. Then 
 the freshman who can play any instrument reason- 
 ably well is sure of a warm welcome to the college 
 band and the orchestra. The annual musical come- 
 dies give many aspirants for vocal training and 
 honors a field of some value. 
 
 The most remarkable development of student 
 activities of recent years at Dartmouth is the rise 
 and success of the Dramatic Association. This 
 organization has broken entirely with the older 
 tradition that college players must devote them- 
 selves to the generally trivial stuff produced by 
 college writers. It presents, and produces with 
 adequate scenery and costumes, such plays as 
 Maeterlinck's " The Intruder ", Lady Gregory's 
 
 262
 
 WHAT MEN DO AT DARTMOUTH 
 
 " The Workhouse Ward "; Maurice Baring's " Kath- 
 erine Parr "; Witter Bynner's " The Little King "; 
 Carl Freybe's "On Leave of Absence"; W. F. 
 Locke's " The Climax " and Macdonald Hasting's 
 ' The New Sin." In the spring of 1914 the asso- 
 ciation moved upon New York and gave " The Mis- 
 leading Lady " for two matinees at the Fulton 
 Theatre, where the piece was running profession- 
 ally. The critics were unanimous in declaring this 
 to be the best college student performance ever 
 seen in New York. The usual feeling that college 
 boys were masquerading in the spirit of a lark 
 seemed to have been lost altogether in admiration 
 of the sincerity and real dramatic values of the 
 presentation. 
 
 That this new and extraordinary feeling for the 
 art of the stage well supported by the student 
 body is bound to have its effect in arousing a 
 love for the best of drama and an incentive to 
 serious play-writing at Dartmouth is not questioned 
 anywhere. Despite the time and energy such work 
 demands on the part of the men in college, the 
 faculty wisely approves the movement, as giving a 
 certain cultural bit of education that could be ob- 
 tained in no other way. 
 
 For those who feel the call to public pronounce- 
 ments minus stage accessories the Dartmouth 
 
 263
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 Forensic Union, with its annual triangular debating 
 league with Williams and Brown, is accessible to 
 men with highly developed platform ability. The 
 Lincoln-Douglas Debating Society offers a wider 
 field for the oratorically inclined, while " Le Cercle 
 Fran?ais ", " El Centra Espanol " and the " Deut- 
 scher Verein " fill their customary places acceptably. 
 
 On the more serious, but by no means sancti- 
 monious side of life at Hanover stands the Dart- 
 mouth Christian Association. This organization 
 has thirty years of earnest and loyal work to its 
 credit, and from its home in Bartlett Hall has gone 
 forth an inspiration to manly living and common- 
 sense Christianity. Many a great athlete, wearing 
 the precious " D " on his breast, might also, appro- 
 priately enough, have added " C. A." to his badge 
 of accomplishment. 
 
 The Christian Association men have of recent 
 years extended the movement far outside the old- 
 time bounds of Hanover. Good speakers, magnetic 
 fellows, have taken up social service in many of the 
 towns and villages and preparatory schools within 
 a radius of forty miles. This is called " deputation " 
 work. It is not too solemn. College songs, instru- 
 mental concerts and vaudeville " stunts " are often 
 given -at the meetings of young men in places out- 
 side Hanover. Then follows some simple, sincere 
 
 264
 
 Reed and Bartlett Halls
 
 WHAT MEN DO AT DARTMOUTH 
 
 talk on the advantages of high ideals, of fairness, 
 clearness and unselfishness, the religious appeal 
 coming last as the most impressioning feature of the 
 gatherings. Boy Scout work and a night school 
 for Poles at the mills of Wilder, just down the river, 
 are other features of " deputation " activity. The 
 Aegis says that up to March 31, 1913, more than 
 three hundred different undergraduates had par- 
 ticipated in one or more phases of the Association's 
 work. Thus is regard for the welfare of " the other 
 fellow " being inculcated in Dartmouth men, who 
 have long been considered as rather too sufficient 
 unto themselves. 
 
 For the manifold non-athletic interests in Dart- 
 mouth there is now a home unique among the col- 
 leges. This is Robinson Hall, the beautiful one 
 hundred thousand dollar structure just north of 
 College Hall. It was an inspiration of genius that 
 prompted Wallace F. Robinson, of Boston, to the 
 presentation of this most useful of buildings. In 
 making the gift he thus expressed his feeling in the 
 matter: 
 
 " Dartmouth's student organizations, with the 
 exception of athletics, are in need of adequate 
 quarters where their activities may be properly 
 concentrated and efficiently controlled. As a man 
 of affairs, with a long business experience, I believe 
 
 265
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 that, suitably housed and provided with the means 
 for the conduct of their business and for the social 
 intercourse incidental to the activities of young 
 men of similar tastes and abilities, these organiza- 
 tions would present a strong counterpoise to athleti- 
 cism on the one hand, and to social cliques on the 
 other. They would thus afford a just balance of 
 intellectual and artistic expression as against bodily 
 prowess and muscular skill. 
 
 " In order to insure the continued democracy of 
 the college, I have stipulated that no organizations 
 shall make use of the building except those in which 
 the qualifications for membership is proved ability 
 only." 
 
 In this clearing-house of the esthetic side of 
 Dartmouth's student life are many mansions. No 
 more do the college publications' staffs depend on 
 their studies or a dingy room over some store for 
 editorial quarters. Each has a large, handsome set 
 of rooms, beautifully furnished perhaps too beauti- 
 fully for embryo journalists, who must some day, if 
 they persist, have a rude awakening to the realities 
 of real newspaper offices. There are rooms for the 
 literary societies, for the band (cannily built at the 
 top of the building with sound-proof walls and doors) 
 and for the various other non-athletic organizations. 
 There are a couple of comfortable general assembly 
 
 266
 
 WHAT MEN DO AT DARTMOUTH 
 
 rooms and a daintily appointed ladies' room. And 
 in a rear extension is a lovely little theatre seating 
 four hundred and perfectly equipped for the re- 
 hearsals and trial performances of the Dramatic 
 Association. 
 
 Here, at Hanover, then, is the first collegiate 
 attempt to give to student activities not connected 
 with athletics proper recognition and encourage- 
 ment by means of adequate and dignified quarters. 
 It aims toward both the business and the social 
 development of these organizations. Its working 
 out will be worth the attention of all those institu- 
 tions of learning in which prowess on the gridiron, 
 or the track, or the diamond has created a species 
 of hero-worship not always healthful to the other 
 and certainly no less valuable activities of a student 
 body. 
 
 267
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 WHY MEN GO TO DARTMOUTH 
 
 WHY men go to any college is a question that 
 the alumni, trustees, and faculty of each 
 institution may best answer from their different 
 standpoints. Why men went to Dartmouth fifty 
 or even twenty-five years ago was no problem at 
 all. They went mainly because Dartmouth was 
 the only college in New Hampshire, or because 
 their fathers or other relatives had gone there before 
 them. None went because it was " the thing to 
 do ", and few go now for any such reason. Dart- 
 mouth has never become socially great. 
 
 But the question that was easy to answer in the 
 iron age of the college is not so easy in the golden 
 age. The old reasons amply accounted for an enter- 
 ing freshman class of sixty-five; they fail to explain 
 the motives that bring some four hundred new 
 candidates for entrance into the Hanoverian " groves 
 of the academy " each year, and bring them from 
 all parts of the United States. 
 
 Dartmouth's claim to the title of the national 
 268
 
 WHY MEN GO TO DARTMOUTH 
 
 college is well founded. She has more students 
 from outside New Hampshire than has Harvard 
 from outside Massachusetts. 1 Scores travel half- 
 way across the continent at least twice each year 
 for the sake of being Dartmouth men. There has 
 been nothing more astonishing in the forward march 
 of the college in the last twenty years than this 
 successful appeal to the country at large. What is 
 there in the bugle-call from the hills that is so potent 
 in rallying young men to the green banner? 
 
 One man, Professor F. A. Updyke, freshman class 
 officer for the college year 1912-1913, decided that 
 an illuminating answer to the question might come 
 from the freshmen themselves, and he instituted a 
 poll of the three hundred and eighty-one entrants 
 to the class of 1916. He found that of this number 
 but seventy-five had fathers who were college grad- 
 uates, and only twenty- two had fathers who had 
 been to Dartmouth. Of the whole number eighty- 
 three had professional men for fathers. The poll 
 of reasons for coming to Dartmouth turned out as 
 follows: influence of relatives in or out of college, 
 forty-two; influence of Dartmouth graduates and 
 undergraduates, one hundred and forty-one; loca- 
 tion of college, forty-six; size of the college, twelve; 
 plan of admission, eighteen; reputation and spirit 
 
 1 The college proper is meant in each instance. 
 
 269
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 of the college, eleven; lower expense of education 
 in Dartmouth, ten; athletics, five; Tuck School, 
 ten; Thayer School, thirteen. 
 
 So the great propulsive force that sends men to 
 Dartmouth is the proselyting work of Dartmouth 
 men, both in and out of college. Nobody who has 
 ever seen a body of Dartmouth alumni in action 
 can doubt it. Their enthusiastic zeal in persuading 
 boys and parents that the one place ordained by 
 an all-wise providence as a college seat is Hanover, 
 and that the one college worthy to occupy such a 
 situation is Dartmouth, produces results, as the 
 facts show. 
 
 Along these lines of endeavor the recently or- 
 ganized alumni council is expected to be still more 
 productive. This organization, founded in 1913, 
 is made up of twenty-five representatives from all 
 parts of the country, elected by general vote of the 
 alumni. It is to meet in conference at least once a 
 year. Perhaps its intended province can best be 
 expressed in the statement, that it is expected to 
 be " a clearing-house for alumni sentiment " and 
 a court for the approval or disapproval of alumni 
 projects. Undoubtedly it also will devote its ener- 
 gies to the raising and handling of alumni funds for 
 the college and for the maintaining of the supply 
 and quality of its students. For this work President 
 
 270
 
 WHY MEN GO TO DARTMOUTH 
 
 Emeritus Tucker has made a suggestion that might 
 be considered radical were it not that his far-seeing 
 wisdom has so often been triumphantly proven. 
 
 " If Dartmouth is to maintain a national constit- 
 uency," says Doctor Tucker, " it must localize its 
 constituency. Why not make Cleveland, Detroit, 
 Omaha, Denver, and like centers permanent sources 
 of supply? If five or six scholarships were estab- 
 lished at each of such centers, giving sufficient in- 
 come to cover tuition, at least, they would secure a 
 steady supply of first-class and therefore influential 
 students. Each man so provided for would bring 
 others with him, and in time the college would 
 come to have a recognized place in the life of the 
 community. But to reach this result, it would be 
 absolutely necessary to make an outright endow- 
 ment of a given school or of the local board of edu- 
 cation for this purpose. A scholarship or a system 
 of scholarships, which might be withdrawn at 
 pleasure, would produce little impression on a 
 school or community. An outright endowment 
 would give the unmistakable impression that Dart- 
 mouth was proposing to make a home for itself in 
 that locality." 
 
 That forty-six men of a single class came to Dart- 
 mouth because of the location of the college is sig- 
 nificant of two things: that the glories of " Dart- 
 
 271
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 mouth out-o'-doors " are beginning to impress 
 themselves far and wide, and that fathers and 
 mothers appreciate the situation of a college that 
 has no easy access to the flashy fascinations of 
 metropolitan evil. If a Dartmouth student wants 
 to be " tough ", he has to make a very deliberate 
 and inconvenient business of it. Some occasionally 
 do just that, of course, but, says the Alumni Maga- 
 zine, " the sooner they learn that if Dartmouth 
 were situated five miles from Boston, it would cease 
 to be Dartmouth, the better for them and for the 
 college." That sentiment seems to have won favor 
 with a quite considerable number of " the old folks 
 at home ", who feel that as Hanover cannot be 
 accused of turning out milksops, neither has she any 
 ready facilities for the production of youthful 
 " rounders." 
 
 This " magnificent isolation " is the chief glory 
 and hope of those who rule the college and that 
 means the alumni of Dartmouth, as well as its 
 trustees and faculty. President Nichols has an in- 
 teresting theory that Dartmouth, and possibly 
 Princeton, will alone, of all the larger eastern col- 
 leges, be found on their present sites five hundred 
 years from to-day. He points out how all of the 
 others are even now pressed hard upon by the tight- 
 ening coils of industry, or commerce, or city devel- 
 
 272
 
 
 
 Observatory Slope
 
 WHY MEN GO TO DARTMOUTH 
 
 opments, and how they are even now compelled 
 either to tear themselves up by the roots and trans- 
 plant their academic groves, or burst through their 
 hard urban bonds and expand in some terribly 
 costly way. 
 
 Dartmouth, on her splendid plateau, is scores of 
 miles from any city. No stretch of the imagina- 
 tion, spanning even half a millennium, can picture 
 her as beset by other interests than her own. But 
 she is taking nothing for granted. Steadily she is 
 acquiring outpost lands in every direction. By and 
 by nothing can even remotely threaten her. To-day 
 there is not a man, woman, or child in the village 
 but is dependent in some way upon the college for a 
 livelihood. She is the summum bonum of Han- 
 over, and without her the place would revert to 
 nature. 
 
 Thus the college is securely looking far into the 
 ages and beginning to plan on a vast scale that is as 
 yet but whispered, but which is impressively hinted 
 at by the splendid new boulevard among the pine- 
 clad ravines from the river to the campus through 
 the great Hitchcock estate, which now gives the 
 institution a tract from the heart of the college to 
 the bluff's overlooking the Connecticut. 
 
 Dartmouth is frankly proclaiming her belief that 
 she will be where she is a thousand years from now, 
 
 273
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 and that she will be, as Oxford in England, almost 
 alone in the great antiquity of her home. If that 
 be called a vision, it is certain that it illumines many 
 a forward-looking heart on the Hanover plain. 
 
 Some men come to Dartmouth, as has been shown 
 by the 1912 test, because the cost of education here 
 is relatively small. Not so many come for that 
 reason as in the old days, but still a respectable 
 number perhaps more than cared to admit it in 
 the freshman catechism. That expenses are low 
 may be seen by the following table included in a 
 circular sent to applicants for scholarship aid by 
 Dean Laycock: 
 
 The college expenses put at the minimum and 
 average may be rated as follows: 
 
 MINIMUM AVERAGE 
 
 Tuition, with college bills ............ $140. $140. 
 
 Text-books ........................ 15 . 30. 
 
 Instruments (if Graphics is taken) . . 12. 
 Laboratory fees per course (if courses 
 
 are elected) $3.00 ................ 6. 15. 
 
 Room-rent in college building (inclu- 
 
 ding heat and care; room unfurnished) 50. loo. 
 
 Lights ............................. 4 . 6 . 
 
 Board (36 weeks, $4.oo-$6.oo) ....... 140. 180. 
 
 Laundry .......................... 15 . 30. 
 
 274
 
 WHY MEN GO TO DARTMOUTH 
 
 Summing up this important point, an officer of the 
 college once replied to a New York newspaper's 
 query on the subject that: "A Dartmouth under- 
 graduate with seven hundred dollars a year to his 
 credit can not only go through college, but can, 
 as well, partake of some of the joys of life in the 
 process." 
 
 Scholarships help many, the tendency of late 
 years being to combine them into fewer and larger 
 ones. Intra-collegiate business enterprises fatten 
 slender pocketbooks to some extent; a recent inquiry 
 showed one hundred and fifty student merchants 
 in varying degrees of prosperity. Tutoring, acting 
 as monitors, waiting on table and working for the 
 townspeople add to small incomes for poor men. 
 " A student at Dartmouth ", says President Nichols 
 understandingly, " may bring food to his class- 
 mate or wash a citizen's windows without the 
 slightest feeling of abasement on his own part or the 
 least dulling of comradeship and respect on the part 
 of others toward him; and this is true because there 
 is no serving class at Hanover to which he can be 
 compared." 
 
 The " spirit of the college " is modestly set down 
 by our investigator of freshmen as drawing eleven 
 men to an entering class. That may seern a small 
 number, but it is only technically correct, for the 
 
 275
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 " Dartmouth spirit ", far-famed and more clearly 
 felt than described, is a powerful element in each 
 of the other drawing motives, especially in that 
 which is aroused by the work of alumni and under- 
 graduates. In some psychological way the " Dart- 
 mouth spirit " is often impressed upon a young man 
 before he ever sees Hanover. 
 
 Dartmouth men have been called clannish after 
 their college lives. " They stick together ", the 
 saying is; they find jobs for the youngsters just 
 emerging; they solidly endorse Dartmouth men for 
 appointive offices; they even show political unity 
 when a Dartmouth man is nominated for something 
 or other. This sometimes vexes the onlooker, 
 whether he be from some other college or from none. 
 But possibly he fails to realize the power of ancestry 
 and inheritance. 
 
 Dartmouth men were compelled to be clannish 
 when old Eleazar's axe-wielders slashed the room 
 for their huts and cabins out of the virgin forests of 
 a wilderness. They were compelled to be clannish 
 for years afterward in the hard struggle for exist- 
 ence. The feeling of loyalty and oneness got into 
 the blood, and it has never gotten out. To-day the 
 geographic aloofness of the college still works its 
 ancient spell. 
 
 President Emeritus Tucker, than whom no man 
 276
 
 WHY MEN GO TO DARTMOUTH 
 
 has had better opportunity or capacity for knowing, 
 once wrote to an inquirer on the subject: 
 
 ' You ask me what I understand to be the mean- 
 ing of the so-called Dartmouth spirit. If you should 
 ask any general observer how the Dartmouth spirit 
 differed from that of most other colleges, he would 
 tell you, I think, that the difference was of degree 
 more than of kind that there was simply more of 
 it, that it was more in evidence, more easily pro- 
 voked, more irrepressible. The answer would be 
 true, but it would only make your question more 
 interesting. And yet there is no mystery about the 
 Dartmouth democracy. It is the natural outgrowth 
 of the local situation. That situation, as you know, 
 has been practically unchanged for more than a 
 hundred years. There have never been any domi- 
 nating or disintegrating influences, political or social, 
 at work from without upon the college community. 
 Naturally there has grown up an unusual spirit of 
 democracy which they found here. Probably there 
 is no college where students are more closely re- 
 lated to one another, or more personally related 
 to the college. The absence, in so large a de- 
 gree, of organized and formal relations shows 
 the reality of this underlying and almost uncon- 
 scious relation. The Dartmouth democracy grows 
 as the result of an accumulating inheritance and 
 
 277
 
 THE STORY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 of a steadfast environment, especially of the 
 latter." 
 
 Dartmouth clings to compulsory attendance at 
 chapel every week-day morning. She surprises 
 some other colleges in this; she is looked upon as 
 old-fashioned, unduly orthodox, rather lagging be- 
 hind in the procession of rationalism. But she knows 
 what she is doing. That daily gathering when the 
 whole college sees itself, feels its solidarity, looks 
 itself over and rejoices in its strength, does more 
 for Dartmouth loyalty and the Dartmouth spirit 
 than any other one element that can be found in 
 Hanover. Chapel is the only place where the whole 
 college foregathers for even a " big " football 
 game has its absentees. The shouting and the 
 tumult must, at most, be sporadic. Men may roar 
 their " Wah-Hoo-Wahs " together and feel that the 
 Dartmouth spirit has something to do with the game 
 of football. But football is only thirty years old. 
 From the day when the " Voice " first thrilled the 
 wilderness, " Chapel " has been. It is the one 
 existing exercise of the college that has come down 
 from the beginning unchanged and unbroken. 
 There is not the slightest trend toward its abolish- 
 ment. Sleep-loving students may grumble at it in 
 the customary undergraduate way; but by the 
 time they reach senior year, they see the power and 
 
 278
 
 WHY MEN GO TO DARTMOUTH 
 
 the glory of the ancient rite, and they, too, would 
 cling to this altar of democracy, if it were threat- 
 ened. 
 
 Men go to Dartmouth for many reasons, because 
 Dartmouth has a many-sided appeal. They stay 
 in Dartmouth because they have earned the right, 
 and with that earning they imbibe a love for their 
 college that challenges the admiration of even those 
 who cannot wholly comprehend it. Men come out 
 from Dartmouth to 
 
 Stand as brother stands by brother! 
 
 Dare a deed for the Old Mother ! 
 Greet the world, from the hills, with a hail! 
 
 No one has ever yet put into words better than 
 those three lines the Dartmouth spirit, its staunch 
 comradeship, its eternal devotion, and its supreme 
 confidence. The heritage of a great past it reckons 
 as the guardian of a greater future. 
 
 THE END
 
 INDEX 
 
 Adams, Melvin O., 207 
 
 &gis, 178, 261 
 
 Allen, Ethan, 66 
 
 Allen, Ira, 66 
 
 Allen, Ira B., 173 
 
 Allen, William, 101, 104, 113 
 
 Alumni Council, 270 
 
 Appleton, Samuel, 142 
 
 Armistead, Lewis Addison, 212 
 
 Arnold, Benedict, 9 
 
 Baker, William Lawrence, 163 
 
 Barren, Asa T., 173 
 
 Baseball, 247 
 
 Barstow, J. W., 134, 137, 223 
 
 Bartlett, Ichabod, 107 
 
 Bartlett, Samuel Col cord, 183, 
 
 189, 197 
 
 " Bed-bug Alley," 131, 226 
 Bell, Luther V-, 153 
 Bema, The, 261 
 Belknap, Doctor Jeremy, 48 
 Bingham, Harry, 187 
 Bissell, George H., 180 
 Bissell Gymnasium, 180 
 Boston Packet, i 
 Boston Repertory, 92 
 Brant, Joseph, 17 
 Brixam, i 
 Brown, John, 154 
 Brown, President Francis, 97, 98 
 
 106, 117 
 
 Brown, Reverend Francis, 5, 201, 
 
 213, 215 
 
 Brown University, 10 
 Bull, Ole, 233 
 Bunker Hill, 57 
 Butterfield Hall, 208 
 Butterfield, Ralph, 208 
 Burnham, Franklin James, 163 
 Burr, Sanford S., 152 
 
 Calvin, Hezekiah, 17 
 
 Cane rush, 225 
 
 Carter, " Lil," 235 
 
 Chamberlain, George E., 159 
 
 Chamberlain, William, 122 
 
 Chandler, Abiel, 142 
 
 Chandler Scientific Department, 
 
 142, 205 
 Charter of Dartmouth College, 
 
 28, 29 
 
 Chase, Salmon P., 174 
 Choate, Rufus, 81, 103, 106, 138 
 Christian Association, 264 
 Cleaveland, Reverend Ebenezer, 
 
 25 
 
 College cheer, 226 
 College Church, 90, 179 
 College Hall, 204 
 " College Party," 65, 66 
 College tower, 189 
 Commencements, 231 
 Concord Gazette, 93 
 
 281
 
 INDEX 
 
 Concord Patriot, 93 
 Connecticut River, 33, 48, 65 
 Continental Congress, 47 
 Crandall, Richard Bailey, 161 
 Crane, John, 33, 35 
 Crosby, Nathan, 102 
 Cross, David, 213 
 Crosby, Professor Alpheus, 119 
 Cube Mountain Cabin, 245 
 Cushman, Oliver Tucker, 161 
 
 Dana, President Daniel, 118 
 Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, 261 
 " Dartmouth Belligerents," 180 
 Dartmouth College 
 
 alumni representation, 196 
 ancient chapel, 76 
 ancient rules, 68, 120, 136 
 Centennial, 172 
 complaint of bad food, 50 
 first Commencement, 41 
 first main building erected, 40 
 " group " system adopted, 216 
 growth in numbers, 76, 140 
 Indian students, 55 
 lotteries, 73, 74, 79 
 named, 28 
 national growth, 269 
 plans for the future, 273 
 settled, 32 
 
 students' expenses, 274 
 students' uniform, 123 
 Webster Centennial, 212 
 Dartmouth College Case, 107, 108, 
 
 "3 
 
 Dartmouth Gazette, 93 
 " Dartmouth Grant," 252 
 Dartmouth Hall 
 
 burned, 207 
 
 completed, 75 
 
 Dartmouth Hall 
 corner-stone of the new build- 
 ing laid, 214 
 " Old Chapel " in, 129 
 remodeled, 129 
 reading-room, 179 
 Dartmouth Hotel, 234 
 Dartmouth Magazine, 261 
 Dartmouth, second Earl of, 5, n, 
 
 72 
 Dartmouth, sixth Earl of, 5, 214, 
 
 216 
 Dartmouth Literary Monthly, 192, 
 
 261 
 
 Dartmouth Outing Club, 243 
 " Dartmouth Phalanx," 136 
 " Dartmouth Roll of Honor," 150 
 " Dartmouth Spirit," 276 
 Dartmouth, The, 260 
 Dartmouth University, 97, 101 
 " Dartmouth Zouaves," 151 
 Dodge, George Webb, 158 
 Douglas, Charles Lee, 151 
 Dramatic Association, 262 
 De Berdt, Dennis, 4 
 Dresden, 65, 66 
 Duhigg, Dennis, 160 
 Duncan, William H., 130 
 
 Eastman, Charles A., 10, 214, 216 
 
 Eaton, John, 157 
 
 Edwards, Morgan, 10 
 
 Eliot, Charles W., 216 
 
 " English Society," 9 
 
 Everett, William, 213 
 
 Fagging, 223 
 Family Visitor, 139 
 Fayerweather Row, 203 
 Field and track athletics, 251 
 
 282
 
 INDEX 
 
 " First sprout of the college," 
 Fletcher, Richard, 171 
 Football, 249 
 Fort Stanwix, 23 
 Foster, Daniel, 156 
 Fowler, David, 17, 18 
 Franklin, Benjamin, 72 
 Franklin, Governor, 23 
 Frary, " Hod," 234 
 French, B. F., 145 
 " Freshmen beer," 226 
 Frisbie, Levi, 41 
 Frost, E. B., 159 
 Fuller, Melville W., 213 
 Fullerton, William, 187 
 
 Gallagher, Charles T., 216 
 Gates, General, 63 
 Gilpatrick, Rufus, 154 
 Glee Club, 262 
 Goodrich, Chauncey, 109 
 Gray, Samuel, 42 
 " Great Awakening," 134 
 " Great Road," 37 
 Greek letter societies, 258 
 
 Haddock, Charles B., 122 
 
 Hale, Edward Everett, 213 
 
 Hancock, John, i 
 
 Handel Society, 262 
 
 Hanover, 30 
 
 Hardy, Arthur Sherburne, 192 
 
 Harris, F. H., 243 
 
 Harvard College, 106 
 
 Hazing, 181 
 
 Henry, Patrick, 47 
 
 Hill, Isaac, 115 
 
 Hoar, George Frisbie, 213 
 
 Holmes, John, 108, 112 
 
 Hopkinson, Joseph, 108, 112, 
 
 34 
 
 114 
 
 " Horning," 134 
 Hovey, Richard, 192, 240 
 Howe Library, 141 
 Rowland, Clarence, 249 
 Hubbard Hall, 203 
 Hunt, Ebenezer, 153 
 Huntington, Reverend Joseph, 56 
 Hutchins, Arthur Edwin, 160 
 
 Indian Charity School, 3, io, 17 
 " Indian Thomas," 21 
 
 " Jack O'Lantern," 261 
 Johnson, Reverend Jacob W., 23 
 Johnson, J. E., 245 
 Johnson, Sir William, 17, 23 
 
 Keen, Robert, 7, 12 
 Kendrick, Ariel, 76 
 " Kibling's Op'ry House," 236 
 Kirkland, Samuel, 18 
 
 Ladd, Nathaniel Gould, 153 
 Lansing, Captain A. J., 26 
 Laws, Solomon, 132 
 Ledyard, John, 240 
 Leeds house, 81 
 Little, Arthur, 159 
 Lodge, Henry Cabot, 113 
 London, i, 5 
 Lord, John K., 174, 201 
 ^Lord, President Nathan, 126, 127, 
 
 130, 137, 145-149, 174 
 Loveland, Aaron, 81, 84 
 
 Marshall, Captain John, i 
 Marshall, Chief Justice, 108 
 Mason, Jeremiah, 107 
 Massachusetts Hall, 203 
 
 283
 
 INDEX 
 
 Mathematics, obsequies over, 227, 
 
 229 
 
 Mathewson, Charles F., 215 
 McCall, Samuel W-, 212 
 McClure, David, 38 
 Mercury, The, 65 
 Merrill, Thomas A., 86 
 Miles, Reverend Noah, 54 
 Mitchell, Edward, 125 
 Moose Mountain Cabin, 244 
 Moulton, Colonel Jonathan, 30 
 
 Nichols, Ernest Fox, 166, 219, 
 
 244, 272, 275 
 " New Connecticut," 66 
 New gymnasium, 208 
 New Hampshire Hall, 204 
 New Hampshire Register, 115 
 Noyes, Edward F., 143 
 
 Occom, Samson, 2, 4, 6, 8, 215 
 " Old Dud," 235 
 Old Pine, 223 
 Oliver, Daniel, 122 
 Oliver, Henry K., 102, 104 
 
 Palaeopitus, 259 
 Parker, Henry Elijah, 155 
 Parker, Joel, 171 
 Parkhurst Hall, 211 
 Parkhurst, Lewis, 211 
 Parkhurst, Wilder Lewis, 212 
 Parkinson, Royal, 156 
 Payne, Elisha, 64 
 Penn, Governor, 23 
 Phi Beta Kappa, 260 
 Phillips Exeter Academy, 80 
 Phillips, John, 46 
 Pomeroy, Benjamin, 88 
 Portsmouth Gazette, 93 
 
 Portsmouth Oracle, 93 
 
 Pratt, Daniel, 237 
 
 President's " jewel," 73 
 
 " Professor of Dust and Ashes," 
 
 234 
 Provincial Assembly, 46 
 
 Quarter Days, 167 
 
 Quint, Alonzo Hall, 156, 186 
 
 Reed Hall, 141 
 Reed, William, 141 
 Revolutionary War, 57 
 Richardson, Charles F., 192 
 Richardson, Reverend Daniel F., 
 
 H3 
 
 Richardson Hall, 203 
 Ripley, Sylvanus, 33, 41, 46, 64 
 Robinson Hall, 265 
 Robinson, Wallace F.. 265 
 Rood House, 235 
 Rollins, Daniel A., 227 
 Rollins, Edward Ashton, 189 
 Root, Elihu, 216 
 Rowing, 248 
 Royalton, Vt., 57 
 
 Sanborn, Edward Webster, 213 
 Scales, John, 143 
 " Scotch Society," 9, 46 
 Senior Societies, 258 
 Senior " Wet-Down," 230 
 Sherman, W r illiam T., 176 
 Shumway, Franklin P., 244 
 Shurtleff, Roswell, 78 
 Simons, Daniel, 58 
 " Sing-Out," 230 
 Skinner, Joseph, 55 
 Smith, President Asa Dodge, 166, 
 182 
 
 284
 
 INDEX 
 
 Smith, Reverend Charles J., 26 
 Smith, Jeremiah, 107 
 Smith, W. T., 173 
 Social Friends, 103 
 Stage-coaches, 140 
 Sullivan, George, 107 
 
 Taverns, 53 
 
 Tenney, Caleb, 87 
 
 " The College Cavaliers," 152 
 
 Thornton Hall, 129 
 
 Thornton, John, 7,12 
 
 Ticknor, George, 100 
 
 Tracy, William Carter, 162 
 
 Tuck, Edward, 209, 211 
 
 Tuck School, 209 
 
 Tucker, William Jewett, 200, 202, 
 
 215, 218, 257, 271, 276 
 Tyler, President Bennett, 119, 126 
 
 United Fraternity, 103 
 Updyke, F. A., 269 
 
 " Vox Clamantis in Deserto," 32 
 
 Washington, George, 67, 72 
 Webster, Daniel, 80, 81, 82, 83, 
 84, 85, 86, 87, 94, 109, 116, 138 
 Webster Hall, 207 
 Wentworth, Tappan, 171 
 
 Wentworth, Governor Benning, 
 
 27 
 Wentworth, Governor John, 27, 
 
 44, So 
 
 Wentworth Hall, 129 
 Wentworth, " Long John," 176 
 Westminster Convention, 65 
 Wheeler Hall, 203 
 Wheeler, John B., 106 
 Wheelock, Eleazar, 3, 44, 53, 55, 
 
 58, 60, 6 1 
 
 Wheelock, James, 54, 72 
 Wheelock, John, 42, 46, 59, 63, 72, 
 
 88, 95, 96, 98 
 
 Wheelock, Madame, 34, 43 
 Wheelock, Ralph, 19 
 Whitaker, Nathaniel, 2, n, 60 
 Whitefield, George, 3, n, 14 
 Wilder, C. T., 208 
 Wilder Hall, 208 
 Wilson Library, 189 
 Wilson, Woodrow, 220 
 Windsor ]\'ashingtonian, 93 
 Winter Carnival, 243 
 Winter teaching, 177 
 Wirt, William, 108, 112 
 Wood, Henry, 153 
 Woodward, Bezaleel, 37, 63 
 Wolfeboro Road, 45 
 Woolley, Joseph, 17 
 
 285
 
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