Innovative Locomotion

1769

Work begins on Wolfeboro Road, New Hampshire's first cross-state highway. The road is built so that colonial Governor Benning Wentworth can attend the College's first commencement. Because the construction is still in progress in 1771, the governor makes what may be the state's first official detour.

1773

Road trips to Boston are rare. On a good horse in good weather, the journey takes six days.

1776

A ferry owned by the College crosses between Hanover and Norwich. The fare is one cent.

1812

Amos Kendall of the class of 1812 has an arduous two-day carriage ride traveling from his Amherst, New Hampshire, home to the College. On day one he is violently ill from motion sickness. On day two the drunken driver crashes the carriage into a farm cart. The collision renders the carriage's brake useless. Coming down the last hill into Hanover the driver, unable to slow down, flips the carriage.

1853

The toll for "a single passenger on foot" for the new bridge spanning the Connecticut River is one cent. Two students argue that if one student carries the other across they should be charged only a penny. The tollkeeper balks at first. His rate sheet has fees for horses, cows, and oxen, but, he notes, "no mention had been made of asses."

1910

The Aero Club and the Outing Club join forces and try glider flights on skis. One ski-pilot manages a flight of 26 feet before crash landing.

1923

Students adopt a resolution asking that the Boston and Maine Railroad outfit its rolling stock with round wheels,

1967

Interstate 91 reaches Norwich. A road trip to Smith takes a little over an hour and a half.

1980

Nine hundred illegally parked cars are towed from campus lots. Eight hundred of those cars belong to students.

1987

Dartmouth forms a solarcar-racing team.

Sometimesthe only thingmore difficultthan Dartmouthis getting here.