The Dartmouth Outing Club of Boston

EARLY in November of last year each of the 500 young alumni in Boston "one to five years out of college" received a mysterious letter, reading in part as follows:

"Have you ever spent a hot Sunday in the city with nothing in particular to and five days to go until the next pay check, and the last one in the final stages of exhaustion? Have the last half dozen week-ends, with their perfect weather, meant anything more to you than possibly a movie on Saturday, the Boston Herald on Sunday, dinner at no place in particular and an afternoon of wondering what to do?

"If so, what if you owned a cabin about 30 miles from the city, close enough to be within easy reach even without a car, yet in wooded country, sheltered in winter, cool when city thermometers are at ninety in the shade; located, we'll say, on a lake or stream, with opportunities for swimming, canoeing and fishing, hiking, skiing and skating. If you had such a place within easy commuting distance, wouldn't it solve the problem of many a week-end or holiday?

"The camp would be a simple structure, similar to those of the Dartmouth Outing Club. It would have the complete equipment of an outing club cabin, including a large fireplace, a stove and cooking utensils, an outdoor oven for summer cooking, modern steel bunks, mattresses and blankets, a saw, an axe, and so on. In short, this cabin would be equally suitable for week-end visits, Sunday picnics or class reunions and it would, of course, be open to every alumnus and to all undergraduate members of the Dartmouth Outing Club.

"Reservations for the cabin would be made through a local club secretary. Its use would be regulated so as to prevent conduct which might bring discredit to the name of the club and the college."

EARLY PREPARATIONS

From the moment when the idea of this camp for Dartmouth alumni was first conceived to the mailing of these letters a number of preparatory steps had been taken. President Hopkins had been informed, the Outing Club in Hanover had been consulted, and the detailed plans for a Dartmouth Outing Club of Boston had been discussed with a good many alumni of all ages in Boston.

A Dartmouth man presumably is easy prey to friends suggesting fishing parties, skiing trips or mountain climbs,—at any rate all of these men were quickly won for the project and many became so thoroughly convinced of the benefits which would accrue to the young city alumni that they asked in surprise: "Why hasn't somebody thought of that long ago?"—With the letters which carried the message of the idea to the young alumni was sent a questionnaire which, soberly worded and prefaced by some of the possible obstacles, was to determine if there was really justification for further pursuit of the Outing Club plans.

A few years' absence from Hanover, the replies showed, does not extinguish the memories of glorious mountain trips and camping parties with the D. O. C. nor does it lessen the longing for an occasional return to the wilds. The result of the questionnaires was amazing and we received letters from men who had found neither time nor inclination for participation in Outing Club trips in their Hanover days, but who admitted they realized how much they had missed and pledged their fullest support.

At this point young Dartmouth in Boston was ready for action, but there were so many things to be done that even, now we are wondering how we steered by the rocks. For one thing, it was necessary to go through a definite procedure in order to obtain permission to use the name "Dartmouth." Not that the D. O. C. hesitated to grant us the use of its name and seal, but to defend itself against schemes of all kinds which might illegitimately exploit the name of the college, the Alumni Council must pass on any such application. Next, some form of responsible supervision, more permanent than the annually changing officers of a club, had to be devised and a set of workable by-laws drawn up. It seems that Prexy fired the starting gun, for the very day that he sent us a charming letter giving wholehearted approval to the entire plan, we received the consent of the Alumni Council for the use of the name "Dartmouth" in connection with our club. Many other difficulties too seemed to fade away at this point.

For the permanent supervision and the approval of the major policies of the club it was decided to have a board of responsible trustees. These men were also to hold title to whatever properties might be acquired. It seemed essential for the successful completion of the project to secure the continued assistance and advice of the men who had been responsible for the progress to this point through their appointment to the board of trustees and it was our good fortune to obtain the consent of Clarence G. McDavitt '00, Charles R. Cabot '12, Carl E. Shumway '13, John R. Burleigh '14, Lloyd D. Brace '25 -and Richard M. Nichols '26 to serve in this capacity. These men added my name to the list of trustees.

BOSTON D. O. C. IS ORGANIZED

After receiving approval and endorsement of the various authorities who had to pass on all plans, an organization meeting for the club was called December 10, 1930. All who attended and helped to organize the club will enjoy remembering the occasion. We had hired a fairly good-sized room in the University Club in Boston and done our best to create an Outing Club atmosphere. The familiar red and white arrows, used on the D. O. C. trails, decorated the corridors from the elevator to our room, the walls displayed blue-prints of various Outing Club cabins and maps of the surround- ing country where we were going to look for our site. Dan Hatch '28 and Craig Thorn '31, then Chairman of the D. O. C. in Hanover, had come from Hanover to address the gathering. These two, Ray Cabot '12 as the principal speaker, and I, making my first public address, told of the plans and read the By-Laws and Trust Agreement for the club which were approved and passed after only brief debate. These papers are the joint product of Ray Cabot '12 and Dick Nichols '26 and embody, we think, a rather complete set of working rules as well as provisions for the administration of properties and funds which may become necessary at some time in the future. A nominating committee of twenty young alumni who had been picked at random, presented its selection of candidates to hold office for the first year of the club's operation. Fortunately since the local newspapers had already received a full story reporting the formation of the club and the names of the officers—the following were all elected as proposed: Chairman, Hans Paschen, Tuck School '28; Vice Chairman, Canfield Hadlock '26; Secretary, Richard M. Nichols '26; Treasurer, Harold P. Trefethen '26; Director of Cabin Administration, Edwin H. Griffin '25; Director of Sports, Blair C. Wood 'SO; and Director of Membership, H. Archer Clark '30.

That night a preliminary membership and building fund campaign was started which was actively followed up through December 31st. It is a high tribute to the enthusiasm of the fifty founders present at the organization meeting that notwithstanding the fact that our brief campaign was carried on during the Christmas period, 261 Dartmouth men joined the club. The financial result was close to $800,—somewhat in excess of our estimated expenditure for the purchase of a site.

The first six months of each year are set aside for the Alumni Fund Committee in Hanover to make its appeal for the contributions which are so essential to the life and progress of the college. Compared with this work, all other Dartmouth projects are of lesser importance and any financial campaigns which they entail must rest. The observance of this time-honored arrangement, although preventing us from solving all our financial problems in one campaign, permitted concentration on other equally important matters. We were still an Outing Club without an Outing place,—a tribe of Indians without their hunting grounds, and steps were to be taken to remedy this condition.

SCOUTING FOR THE LOCATION

The replies to our questionnaire dictated four main requirements for the location of our cabin: Privacy, accessibility from Boston, good skiing conditions and proximity to a desirable "swimming hole." As good skiing conditions, which our members demanded above everything else, cannot be found along the Massachusetts shores, ocean locations were definitely eliminated. Nevertheless, there remained a large stretch of country within a thirty-mile radius of Boston where at some pond, or nestled between some hills a site for our camping adventures might be discovered. So we went to work with survey maps and plotted some thirty locations suggested by our members. And then, beginning on the first Sunday in January and extending well into the spring, each holiday saw one or several scouting parties of Boston Dartmouth alumni investigating these various locations. As a rule, each group included an officer of the club, the man who had suggested the site or general location to be investigated, and any friends who cared to come along. These outings were in the nature of a pleasant reuni&n where groups of members would meet and thrash out the problems, plans and hopes for the future of the club. But the discovery of a location seemed more and more difficult as the weeks went by and the men reported about the places visited on their excursion: "too much built up, too far to a swimming place, poor skiing conditions"—or other objections of that kind. Finally, however, we came to one township where there was an almost perfect combination of all the factors which we were looking for. Two ardent enthusiasts, one Sunday night late in March, weary and wet after a strenuous hiking excursion, telephoned till the last nickel was spent to all the Outing Club fans that the place for the camp had been found. They had been in Groton, Massachusetts, some thirtytwo miles from the city and their tales left no doubt that the pond they had seen and the hills they had climbed fully met the requirements of our Outing Club. Their railroad and bus travel that day confirmed satisfactory conditions as regards accessibility, and there was privacy too, for had they not struggled to find their path back to the road?

There is a certain small restaurant in Groton and the old fellow who runs it has seen his business pretty nearly double during the spring of this year. But for many weeks he was quite at a loss to explain what attracted these crowds of young men from Boston. It was obviously some land scheme because they talked of acres and feet and pines and birches and ponds. But up to the time when they held a good clean title to one of the prettiest spots in the township, these Dartmouth men guarded their secret perfectly. Now, of course, they tell with pride that they own acres of land, half a mile from Baddacook Pond and equally far to the best skiing hill in the district. The lot is just the spot to find universal approval, there are meadows in which to play in the sun, some fine outdoor picnic places with a view over sleepy hillsides, and a good steep slope which some day will make a miniature ski-jump. The building site itself, in the shadow of a towering pine, might be anywhere in the northern part of New England and hardly suggests that the city is only an hour's drive distant.

WORKING AT GROTON •

At present, however, such reveries about our good fortune in finding such an attractive place would not find very patient listeners at the Outing Club site, because the young alumni are more than busy cutting trees, blazing trails, digging foundations, hauling rocks and doing all the other jobs incidental to building their home in the woods. These organized working parties which have been a regular Sunday feature for seven weeks are a much better proof of genuine interest in the club than any replies to a questionnaire. From two or three men at the first party, the attendance has grown to fifteen, and this during the hottest vacation season of mid-August. When the heavy labors of the digging gang are ended and the more pleasant carpentry jobs have begun, we can count on an even larger participation. Since very few, if any, of our volunteers can be classified as skilled laborers for fireplace building or framing of the cabin, we have secured the expert help of a local mason and carpenter. A casual visitor might find it difficult to tell amateurs and professionals apart in the enthusiastic crowd.

THE CABIN PLANS

The sketch and plan shown here—to be supplemented before long by an actual photograph of the finished cabin—have been prepared by Lloyd K. Neidlinger '23 who is connected with Harper & West, architects, of Boston. As in some of the larger cabins of the Outing Club, the living room, kitchen and bunk room have been completely separated. This, together with the locker or dressing room, which is a new feature in D. O. C. cabin design, is a concession to the thought that this camp will be "lived in" more than the cabins along the New Hampshire trails, where the men often put up for only a short overnight stop on their way to the mountains. The dimensions of the living room, 14 by 19 feet, are sufficient to seat twenty men and it seems that class or fraternity outings with informal suppers at the cabin may prove very much more popular with the alumni of all ages than the conventional dinners in a small hotel room with which we have had to be satisfied so far. The cabin will not be built of real logs, the expense and lack of experience of local men in that kind of work prohibiting this. But by the use of rough sawed pine boards with the bark left on at the edge we will obtain a rustic appearance. In addition to being indebted to Pudge Neidlinger for his well planned and most attractive design, the club is receiving favors from other alumni who are furnishing the lumber for the building and certain equipment at prices substantially lower than the most favorable independent bid. This cabin is indeed a project of Dartmouth men, by Dartmouth men, for Dartmouth men!

FINANCIAL NEEDS

So far little reference has been made to the financial problems of the club, and the non-Boston alumni might assume that this part of the work has been completely solved through donations of outstanding size. This is not the case, perhaps fortunately so, for a substantial part of the building fund contributions to date has come in moderate amounts from a broad group of alumni of all ages including the younger men, a fact which seems to predict again that the interest in the venture and the demand for cabin facilities will come from the many rather than the few. The total cost of the project, including the purchase of the land for which $500 was paid, is estimated at about $4,000, nearly half of which has been raised. With the excellent guidance of several of the older alumni in our financial campaign, we hope that the balance of required building funds will become available during the next few weeks.

Although the task in hand requires concentration of all efforts for the present, some fairly definite plans have been developed for future activities. First of all, the cabin key will, of course, be available for overnight and week-end visits of the alumni. In addition the property should attract many visitors who desire a refreshing swim and supper in the camp during the summer months. In the coming winter we expect to feature skiing instructions every Saturday afternoon and Sunday for members and their families. A group of good instructors is available among our members. For more advanced skiiers there will be organized trips in the Mt. Monadnock region some twenty miles beyond our cabin and we shall undoubtedly take advantage also of the Sunday winter sports trips initiated—upon the suggestion of a Dartmouth man—-with astounding success by the Boston and Maine Railroad during the past winter. Organized hiking or mountain climbing parties will continue as a regular monthly feature after the end of the skiing season. Another plan which is winning much favor with the officers of the club is to acquire a canoe to be kept in an existing boat house on the Concord River in Concord, Massachusetts, for the use of members and their friends. If this feature meets with popular demand, gradual additions to the fleet on several of the rivers in the vicinity of Boston might follow. For the immediate future, however, the main concern will be to develop the use of the new cabin along orderly lines and to popularize it among the local alumni and the new graduates who join this body each year. It is even possible that, like the D. 0. C. in Hanover, we may have to add additional cabins to meet the increasing demand, and in spite of the short season an ocean cabin may prove a welcome addition in the future. But these matters are speculations now and can better be answered from experience at some later date.

One thing, though, seems certain: A project which has won so much favor with the Boston alumni will be ripe for discussion with Dartmouth groups in other cities, once we have passed the experimental stage. There is no reason why exercise and enjoyment of the out-of-doors should end once a man holds his sheepskin, but there is, on the other hand, every reason to believe that the Outing Club is just as much a necessity for our young bankers and brokers, merchants, physicians and teachers in the cities as for the undergraduate body in Hanover.

HEADQUARTERS FOR THE OTJTING CLUB IN BOSTON The Cabin, designed by Lloyd K. Neidlinger '23, with Harper and West, architects of Boston

DIGGING THE FOUNDATION FOR THE FIREPLACE Left to right: Canfield Hadlock '26; Harold P. Trefethen '26; Huck (Arthur H.) Norris '27; in the foreground, Charlie (Erwin B.) Paddock '27

HAULING ROCKS Bob (Robert C.) Lee '30 Tom Herlihy Jr. '26 Hans Paschen, Tuck '28

THE END OF A PERFECT DAY The cabin builders refresh themselves at Baddacook pond before their return to the city.

THE CABIN PLAN As drawn by L. K. Neidlinger '23