The lives of nine Dartmouth undergraduates were snuffed out in a tragic accident at the Theta Chi house on Sunday, February 25, when poisonous monoxide fumes from an banked furnace circulated through the entire house and killed the Students as they slept. Only the fact that seven other residents of the house were away over the week-end kept the most appalling tragedy in the history of the College from reaching even greater proportions.
The students killed were: WILLIAM S. FULLERTON '34, 20, of Cleveland Heights, Ohio. EDWARD F. MOLDENKE '34, 21, of New York City. WILLIAM M. SMITH JR. '34, 21 of Manhasset, N. Y. EDWARD N. WKNTWORTH JR. '34, 21, of Chicago. AMERICO S. DEMASI '35, 20, of Little Neck, N. Y. WILMOT H. SCHOOLF.Y '35, 20, of Middletown, N. Y. HAROLD B. WATSON '35, 21, of Wilton, Me. JOHN J. GRIFFIN '36, '19, of Wallingford, Conn. ALFRED H. MOLDENKE '36, 20, brother of Edward Moldenke.
Discovery of the dead bodies was not made until 4:30 in the afternoon, at which time the janitor of the house, Merton D. Little, arrived to make the beds. He had made two previous visits to the house at 6:30 A.M., when he fixed the furnace fire for the day, and at 1:30 P.M., when he cleaned up the lower floor and took pains not to disturb the students, being under the impression that they were sleeping late after their usual Saturday night bridge game. Upon discovering the true situation, the janitor attempted to summon Dr. John F. Gile, who was out, and then called Chief of Police Dennis J. Hallisey, who met Dr. John J. Boardman as he rushed to the fraternity house and took him along.
Dr. Boardman found that all who had been sleeping on the second and third floors were dead. A white collie dog, curled up at the foot of one of the beds, was also a victim of the carbon monoxide fumes.
An investigation, which was begun at once by Dr. Ralph E. Miller, medical referee for Grafton County, and County Solicitor Norris Cotton, disclosed that the smoke pipe of the furnace had been blown off in an explosion, after which someone had apparently re-shut the furnace door without noticing the displaced pipe, and that the carbon monoxide gas accumulating from an improperly banked fire had escaped through the break instead of going up the chimney.
"The position of the shaker arm and of the check-draught lever," Dr. Miller declared in his report, "indicated that the furnace had been fixed the night before by someone who was not entirely familiar with the furnace."
When the janitor reached the Theta Chi house at 6:45 Sunday morning, the fire was burning brightly and there was no trace of carbon monoxide gas, which becomes harmless carbon dioxide when oxidized by the flames of a fire. Poisonous fumes were generated in the fraternity furnace because no glowing center was left when the fire was banked for the night. First the explosion, displacing the pipe, and then the accidental creation of poison gas spread death throughout the house.
The students were last seen alive at 12:30 Sunday morning, at which time two nonresident members of the fraternity house left the others playing bridge and went to their dormitory rooms. The medical report disclosed that the students retired some time after 2:30 A.M. and that the smoke pipe had been blown off between 10:30 P.M. and that time.
President Hopkins, when notified of the tragedy, was entertaining a faculty group at tea at his home. He went immediately to the Theta Chi house and there directed the Administration's part in the situation. He cancelled an important engagement, which would have required him to leave that night for New York, and worked with Dean Neidlinger, Dean Strong and others until the early hours of the morning, notifying parents and making sure that accurate accounts of the disaster were available to all news organizations.
Student correspondents for the out of town papers worked throughout the night as orders for unlimited coverage poured in from the leading.newspapers and press associations. The Western Union office re- opened to handle the greatest rush of words that has ever gone out of Hanover, and at 4 A.M. Monday morning, Ernest L. Barcella '34, Hanover correspondent for The BostonPost and United Press, was still filing the 10,000-word story which the United Press requested. Philip R. Sherman '28, correspondent for The Boston Globe and TheNew York Times; John H. Thompson '35, correspondent for The Boston Herald and Boston Transcript; Richard K. Montgoraery '35, correspondent for The ManchesterUnion, Universal Service, International News Service, and The Boston American', and Robert F. Webb '34, correspondent for The Associated Press, were among the others who worked hour after hour to tell the story of Dartmouth's great disaster.
Memorial services for the dead students were held in Rollins Chapel on Thursday morning, March t. Palaeopitus arranged the program in behalf of the undergraduates, and President Hopkins delivered the valediction. The College Choir sang, and "Men of Dartmouth" closed the impressive service.
Scene of Dartmouth Tragedy The Theta Chi fraternity house, on North Main Street, where nine students lost their lives by carbon monoxide poisoning.
Editorial IN BEHALF of Dartmouth alumni the editors of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE extend their sympathy to the sorrowing parents of the nine young Dartmouth men whose lives were cut short in the fraternity house tragedy in Hanover, February 25. With the members of Theta Chi, Alpha Theta Chapter, we sympathize too, for they will keenly feel an intimate, personal loss. Words of consolation may be of some small comfort. But the quiet stealth with which death crept up the stairs and into every room of the house leaves one voiceless before the tragedy of the misfortune. To all those who knew and loved these boys we can only say: We share your sorrow. In every corner of the earth, in all walks of life, our hearts grew heavy at the sad news from Hanover. We grieve, as a devoted father grieved when his son died in 1904, after one year in Dartmouth. As of him, written by his father in bronze, it may also be said of these sons: DURING A BRIEF SPAN OFCOLLEGE LIFE THEY REALIZED THEIR HIGH IDEALS OFLEARNING, FRIENDSHIP, DUTY.