Not So Long Ago .... Fires
THE ANNALS of fire fighting in Hanover during our particular era bring back fond memories even though they lack the glamor of preceding and following years. Dartmouth Hall, South Fayer, and the old Post Office were almost forgotten before our time, and such spectacular conflagrations as the Inn Stables, Phil's, the Delt house, Sphinx, Sigma Chi, and the White Church (to say nothing of the Lebanon Town Hall and the Junction House) came too late for most of our generation.
Compared to those our fires were puny but, faute de mieux, we enjoyed them. The first notable one was the barn by Scotty's restaurant. The Phi Gam's and Deke's had already had small fires in the winter of '15-'16, but they were almost annual affairs and since the Psi U's owned a fire extinguisher they were soon put out. The barn in question caught fire at 10 o'clock Friday night during the 1916 Winter Carnival. It was listed as a $1.50 fire in the Volunteer Hose Company's records (most fires netted the members only apiece), but it was rated much higher by a large, appreciative, and mixed audience that lingered on its way to the Carnival Ball to be led by Fat Mackie in cheers for the fire, the firemen, and the hose. Later there were a couple of chimney fires, Scotty had a small blaze in his kitchen in April, and the roof of Crosby flared a little one night in May; but nothing above the 50c class.
The next year was particularly dull, with only three chimney fires at professors' houses and a "small extinguisher" gasoline fire in Christgau's room in the Bridgman Block. About this time Box 87 (near the Tri Kap house) displaced Box 34 (by the Chapel) as the favorite for false alarms, and retained it lead until 1923 at least. Most of us missed the only noteworthy fire of 1917-1918, if you rule out Trachier's barn which was struck by lightning during finals in June and the mattress that burned in the Tavern in February. On New Year's Day, 1918, during a cold snap that has only recently been equalled, Professor Shelton's house near Wheeler Hall burned from five till ten a.m. The note in the Hose Company's record reads: "Plenty of water used. S—-, R„ passed around a quart of 'good spirits' and those wishing same had a smile. Those who did not found hot coffee at Prof. Robert Fletcher's and Prof. Colby's. 20° below and several men were frost bitten. Jake Sullivan froze both ears."
In the spring of 1919 came the two really good fires of our time. At 4:30 one sunny April afternoon the Phi Doodles, while burning some paper and excelsior in their big fireplace, managed to set the whole top of their house on fire, and for two hours there was much merry wrenching of electric fixtures from walls and chopping of holes in the main hall floor to let water into the goat room. Several Phi Doodles finished the spring at the newly built Newton Apartments (below Randall's on West Wheelock) and that structure was duly burned at four one morning during final exams. Pat Leonhard was alleged to have changed into silk pajamas before descending by ladder from the third floor, but all the writer recalls definitely is a chiffonier balancing a moment on the porch eaves before it crashed to the walk, and how silly it seemed either to go back to bed or to stay up before a Music a exam at eight.
That was the beginning of prophetic fires, for the Newton Apartments burned out again a few years later, the next fall the Sigma Chi's had a fire in their basement as earnest of their more disastrous subsequent blaze.
Today the undergraduate fire squad is highly organized and wears red hats, but in our time membership carried only the privilege of riding on the truck—which was enough, since it earned the envy of the entire student body, who turned out to a man at the slightest flicker of flame. A spectacular fire, conveniently timed, still draws a respectable audience; but the writer shed a tear for the waning of the old insanity when, in the mid-twenties, a mere handful of undergraduates bothered, at 3:00 A.M. at eighteen below zero, to see Allen's burn.
The Phi Doodle Fire Never mind the piano. Save my Eccy notes.
