Town-Gown Relations

1770

Eleazar Wheelock locates his new college two miles from the nearest neighbor because he wants his students "free from a thousand snares, temptations and divestments."

1833

Most of the large crowd visiting town for Commencement skip the ceremony in order to patronize the gambling booths and beer stalls on the Green.

1839

Students pack town meeting and win control of the local school district. Although they do a good job of managing the schools (they build the brick school house that eventually houses the Christian Science Society), the state legislature passes a bill prohibiting students from voting.

1845

After students learn that a town resident is prostituting his wife and daughter, they resolve, according to the Granite State Whig, "to abate the nuisance in the most summary way." The man is tarred and feathered.

1884

Hanoverian Dorance B. Currier attempts to build a bandstand on the Green. The College, claiming ownership of the Green, gets a court injunction. Students settle the dispute by burning down the uncompleted shell. 1923

Students reportedly pack town meeting and approve construction of a town hall 100 feet long, 500 feet tall, and one foot wide. Decades later President John Sloan Dickey '29 sees the tale in Bennett Cerf's syndicated column. Dickey asks his staff whether there was any substance to this tale. Their conclusion: it is a Dartmouth myth.

1942

The Hanover police serve notice that sunbathers in the graveyard will be prosecuted.

1962

Following the theft of 1,000 light bulbs, the town permanently affixes the bulbs into the sockets of the Christmas lights.

1977

A Boston Globe columnist reports that retired Harvard President James Conant bought his summer home on Occom Pond so that he could be "within walking distance of Baker Library."

The football team's send-off iseither the epitome of communitycooperation or proof that studentsthink they own the street.