The Burning of Dartmouth Hall

The Editor

SOME one came into chapel late on that frosty February morning in 1904 and the monitor at the door must have been holding the door open for him. All of us had just trooped in, and I, wondering as usual how many overcutters would come rushing at the last moment dressing on the run, kept turning about from the sophomore benches to see who the late comer would be. The bell sounded the final double stroke, but still the monitor at one door did not throw the door to. I wondered why. Professor Morse had already begun the prelude and Dr. Tucker was looking out over us as he did sometimes, when there came a sudden shout from outside. I couldn't quite make it out. The words were not distinct but the tone indicated something unusual. We all stirred as a crowd will and began to murmur, I don't remember saying anything. A draft came in from outside. What was the matter and why wouldn't that monitor shut the door? There came another cry from outside and this time the accents were unmistakable. The word was "fire." But even at that moment it seemed a joke, for we had just come in to chapel and there was no fire anywhere visible.

Then another door swung open. There were more cries outside and someone was in the main aisle walking up toward Dr. Tucker. I think that he walked in as straight a line as I ever saw anyone walk. We had all risen with that, for we recognized that it was Dean Emerson and we knew that only an important matter could bring him up the main aisle of Chapel in such fashion. He said something to Dr. Tucker, and Dr. Tucker rose to his feet. "Dartmouth Hall's afire" were his words as I remember them. The bolts clanged on all doors, and we emerged into the air emptying the chapel as one empties a pocket by turning it inside out. The first face I remember in that cold air was Jake Bond's. He came hurrying over from somewhere, the fire alarm was sounding on the top of the church steeple; he had sounded it, I believe.

But Dr. Tucker left by the side door, and was up that icy little slope that leads to Dartmouth Hall. I think that Dean Emerson was close behind him, and the two men disappeared from sight inside the doorway on the side towards the Chapel. I gave the sight little attention at that minute, but it came to me years afterwards. I have learned that both men, with perhaps some aid, patrolled the whole building and were finally driven out, after having been assured that all occupants of the hall were in safety. Dondero was hanging out of a window on the Thornton Hall side as we came up the hill, but a crowd of rescuers had already raised a ladder beneath his feet and he was groping for it amid some shouted encouragement. The captain of the track team, Jake Smith, had a room close by full of trophies, but that end of the building was not only full of smoke but the crackling of flames might be heard distinctly all through the halls.

THE FIRE GETS UNDER WAT

The fire had started in the little room under the tower, or at least that is the place where the first smoke was seen. However the whole underpinning of the roof was on fire when smoke burst out into the cold air, and probably had been on fire for many hours. We were hardly out of chapel when the smoke column gave way to a tongue of flame that curled up like a burning glove and just simply ate its way up that splendid Italian tower with such terrific heat that the supports crumpled like paper. The curious flag above the ball dropped first, then the tower settled and collapsed, and then as if a huge smoke explosion had swept the whole building, smoke came wriggling like little worms out of every joint and crevice where the roof-edge joined the walls. The Hanover Fire Department had arrived but if I remember correctly the very low temperature played havoc with all the connections and the jetting water froze in sheets over the men fighting the fire. Ladders went up from all sides, manned largely by students, but the water pouring from the hoses elevated upon the ladders seemed to do little good. I can remember one chap of my class by the name of Hackney who had a rather flurried college career and a heroic death at sea some years later,—I can see Hackney now at the top of one of the ladders thrusting a hose-nozzle directly into the flames. The heat was terrific. In the early stages before the flames found vent on all sides the building was a furnace almost beyond imagination. Hackney remained as long as he could and when he was driven down the ladder, resembled a huge icicle, for the spray from the nozzle had frozen all over him.

Professor Husband had run early to the north wing of the hall to rescue some Greek inscriptions from the Greek rooms. These were the rooms to be occupied in the new hall by the English department. Chidley of my class followed Husband in and helped get the inscriptions out. That qualified Chidley as an archaeologist. It was his start in life. The north end of the building was the first to go, although the smoke in the first picture shows distinctly that the wind was blowing towards the south. It is probable that the fire in descending into the Old Chapel split in two and ate both ways, and found more open space and drafts on the north than on the south. In fact as the picture above shows, the lower part of the north end, and the upper part of the south blazed most fiercely.

OTHER BUILDINGS THREATENED

And now the heat drove back the crowd on all sides. It was quite apparent that there wasn't the slightest possibility of rescuing anything from the flames. The old bell had long since crashed through from the falling tower into the old chapel beneath, and was already melted in the heat. The wind rising now and then in curious little spurts carried the sparks high into the air and down upon the roofs of Thornton and Reed. Thornton became at once a scene of excitement; one man started to empty his room of furniture and movables and soon a whole crowd was at work. My own roommate spent the morning packing up his belongings and had them all packed up beautifully at the very time that the fire had burned itself out in the ruins of the old hall.

But in the midst of the conflagration a mass of sparks caught in the lower portion of the triangle that supports the roof of Reed Hall, and a resident of the old "village" on the top floor armed himself with a fire extinguisher and crept out to fight the blaze. Other sparks descending on caps, mattresses in the snow or other rescued baggage sent up a stray blaze now and then. A bucket brigade went to work moistening first Wentworth Hall roof when the flames swept in that direction and Thornton Hall roof when the fire began to threaten on that side. Matt Bullock and Cromwell on the lower floor, Walsh and Brock on the top floor, and Richardson and McGrath on the second had a few scorching moments that led them to believe that Thornton would catch, while Boynton and Leighton on the second story corner did actually move out their goods.

College Engineer McKenzie, confined to the hospital by injuries which proved later to be fatal, saw the smoke arising from the fire and demanded its cause. At first they concealed the truth from him, but he later guessed it; with amazing vigor he then and there dispatched messengers to the scene of the fire, with orders that a portion of the cornice, original with that hall, should be saved. It was saved and is reproduced today not only in the New Dartmouth but in many other college buildings.

THE FIRE BREAKS OUT

A MASS OF FLAMES

THE LAST OF OLD CHAPEL