DARTMOUTH UNDYING

1796

Shipping mogul Elias Hasket Derby donates some exotic items to the embryonic Dartmouth College Museum, including a stuffed zebra. "This was apparently as great an asset to the College as Yale's two-headed snake," writes Professor Charles Hawes in the June 1915 Alumni Magazine. President Wheelock is said to have been especially fond of the creature.

1798

Fire breaks out in Dartmouth Hall, which houses the museum and the library. Historian John K. Lord writes, "Professor Smith was calling out to save the library, while Professor Woodward pleaded for the air pump, and the President at the same instant shouted to save the zebra."

Early 1800s

The zebra frequently appears on the roof of the chapel or the belfry of Dartmouth Hall, displaying its almost figurehead status among students.

1811

Three students blow down the museum's walls with a small cannon. The three are expelled (one of them, a brother of future President Franklin Pierce, becomes an artillery officer in the army). The zebra survives but, homeless, is put into storage.

1986

J. Gary Bucher '65 donates a herd of zebras, which have been roaming wild on his farm in Texas, as a twentieth reunion gift to the Alumni Fund. The animals, including the one shown, are sold to a New York dealer and the proceeds sent to the Fund.

1988

Mysteriously, the original Dartmouth zebra cannot be found. A computer search of Baker Library's collection reveals that the only current record of a zebra on campus is a phonograph record of zebra calls.

The picture is of a Dartmouth zebra, but not the Dartmouth zebra, which arguably was the College's first mascot.