"My hardships were excessive"

When we were young and sturdy

The year was 1772 and, against the advice of his father and friends who "regarded it as a visionary and wild undertaking," a young man by the name of Joseph Vaill left the relative comfort of his Connecticut home and started out for Dartmouth. He earned money at the College-owned sawmill for two years before entering with the Class of 1778, and his account of work andstudent life later appeared in Isaac Parson's Memoir of the Life and Character of Rev. Joseph Vaill (reprinted in A Dartmouth Reader). It is, especially, an account of hard WORK, but even some oftoday's well-fed students may find in Vailla kindred spirit. As with many of them, hegraduated from Dartmouth in debt.

HAVING made the best preparation I could under my circumstances, I set out, with three others, for Dartmouth College, Sept. 28th, 1772. I took my axe with me, and such articles of clothing and a few such books as were most necessary.

Four of us started in company, taking one small horse with us, on which the youngest and most feeble of our company rode most of the way. Three of us travelled on foot, and for part of two days, each footman swung his pack, soldier-like. But, at length we contrived to place our packs on our horse. The distance we were to travel was computed to be one hundred and eighty miles. I had only about fifteen shillings in money in my pocket to bear my expenses on the journey; and as this proved insufficient, I received some more from one of our company. We travelled, on an average, about thirty miles a day. I had never before been twenty miles from home, nor gone on foot a whole day at a time. I became excessively weary, and at times almost ready to lie down in the street. . . . On Monday, Oct. 5th, we reached the College Mills.

We found Mr. J. 0., living alone in a small framed unfinished house, which had been built for the residence of the man who should tend the College Mills. A more solitary and romantic situation can seldom be found. The howling of wild beasts, and the plaintive notes of the owl, greatly added to the gloominess of the night season. Mr. O. was supplied with some provisions and utensils, sufficient for one who lived in his solitary condition. His lodging was a box made of boards, called a bunk, with a ticken filled with pine shavings, and a sufficient covering of Indian blankets. For the first week we strangers took each one a blanket and slept upon the floor; - but in a short time we furnished ourselves with bunks and straw beds, and with utensils sufficient to take our meals in a more decent manner.

... During the first winter, we studied in our cold house, and used pine knots to burn for lights, instead of candles, for a part of the time. I lodged in the chamber, with one of my class-mates. We ascended a ladder placed in our small entry. My pillow was a duffed great coat, and our covering narrow Indian blankets. We did our own cooking and washing until the latter part of March, when a young married couple came from Connecticut, and lived in our house, and superintended our domestic concerns. Having repaired a small cottage near by, built in part of logs, we removed into that to study and lodge, where we remained during the next summer, suffering many inconveniences, and undergoing many privations.

On the return of spring in 1773, as soon as the ice dissolved, we resumed our sawing. We sawed about sixty thousand feet of pine boards, and stuck them up. We also tended the grist mill in our turns. We had one dollar per thousand for sawing and stacking the boards, and half the toll for grinding. We also burned over several acres of ground, and cleared them for tillage, - we sowed a part with clover seed for mowing and pasture, and planted yearly about one acre of corn, besides our garden. Our corn-field was never plowed. We employed our hoes in planting the corn, and we dug our field when the corn was up, with our hoes. The first spring after we commenced our settlement there, the measles broke out in our family, and proved fatal in the case of one of our number, who was thrown into a quick consumption, which terminated his life in about six weeks. This was an afflictive Providence to us all.

In the first summer, we built a new convenient house. One of our number and myself constructed the chimney; and for want of cattle, we backed the stones from several rods distance. The mantle-tree stone, two of us carried on our shoulders nearly a mile; and the jambstones, we backed some distance. By the time we had finished our house, which was in September, my health was very much reduced; and I experienced a severe attack of the dysentery, attended with a burning fever; and for several days, my life was greatly threatened. But through a merciful Providence, I was at length restored to health. Thus, I continued to labor and study for two years, before I, with one of the company, entered College. My hardships were excessive, and especially in the spring, when, after studying through the winter, we turned out in the latter part of March, two of us at a time, and tended the saw-mill for about six weeks together. In the second spring we sawed about seventy thousand feet of boards; and in the third about ninety thousand. We made it our rule to saw every evening, except Saturday and Sabbath evenings, till ten o'clock, and in the mean time, some one, in his turn, tended the grist-mill.

After I entered college, I went twice a day to recite with my class in College, which made me four miles travel each day. We recited to our Tutor immediately after morning prayers, and again at eleven o'clock; and some part of the time we had three recitations in a day. In the winter, we rose frequently at five o'clock, and in the shortest days at six o'clock, and having united in morning prayer in our family, I set off for College, having to face the North West wind, which was cold and piercing in that climate; and not unfrequently, I had to break my path through a new fall of snow, a foot in depth or more. Considering the severity of the winters in that cold region, it was marvellous that I did not freeze my limbs, or perish with the cold, especially as I was but thinly clothed for that climate. After my admission to College, I tended the saw-mill about six weeks in the spring, which was chiefly vacation; and in summer, in addition to going to College twice or three times a day, I made it my rule to labor about three hours in the field or garden, or some other kind of manual labor. I had scarcely a mordent's leisure from one day, week and month to another. My hardships were excessive, and especially in the Spring, in tending the saw-mill. I was frequently exposed to being drenched with water when mending the trough or buckets of the waterwheel; and in one instance, I experienced a narrow escape from being torn in pieces by the saw.

I continued at the mills and pursued my studies and labors until the month of June 1777, when I was in my Junior year....

In the winter after I entered College, there was a revival of religion among the students. The awakening was more general in the Freshman class, though there was a solemnity among nearly all the members of College. A number of my class-mates, and several others, were brought to indulge hope of their conversion.... Notwithstanding the little evidence I had gained of my conversion, I ventured to join the College Church sometime in 1775, while a Sophomore; and I hope, by the amazing grace of God, that notwithstanding my great remains of the body of sin and death, my criminal short-comings and abuse of distinguished privileges my experience has borne some faint resemblance to the light of the morning, which shineth more and more unto the perfect day....

In the spring of 1778, I returned back to the College; but not finding provision made sufficient to board all the students in the commons, a number of us of different classes, agreed to purchase our own provisions, and to hire our board dressed at a private house not far from the College, and we continued thus to live until commencement, which was the fourth Wednesday in August. I then took my degree with my class; and to pay up my College bills which remained unpaid, I was obliged to hire some money, which brought me in debt about twenty dollars, at the close of my College life.