The Old Pine

Did loggers (and alumni) myth this tree?

1770

Pines dropped to clear land for the College measure 270 feet tall. (By contrast, Baker Tower, with weather vane, is 208 feet tall.)

1828

The senior class sings "Auld Lang Syne" at the Old Pine before parting.

1846

Seniors gather at the Old Pine to smoke their pipes. They believe they are re-enacting an Abenaki tradition of assembling to smoke before traveling to seasonal hunting grounds.

1852

Seniors haul a cannon up to the Old Pine to make their party a real blast. Rocks are added to the charge. Professor Oliver Hubbard shuts down the party after his house is hit.

1854

Seniors decorate the Old Pine with a wreath made of cedar and red berries for Class Day.

1895

Former Dartmouth President Samuel Colcord Bartlett debunks the prevailing alumni myth that the Old Pine was "a young shoot when our fathers landed at Plymouth in 1620." The tree is not more than 150 years old, he claims.

1887

The Old Pine is struck by lightning.

1892

The main branches of the Old Pine are broken by a whirl- wind.

1894

Professors Henry Jesup and Herbert Foster attempt to save the Old Pine with zinc and cement.

1895

The Old Pine is cut down. Experts date the tree to 1783.

1912

The Old Pine is admitted to the National Hall of Fame for Trees.

1969

A "New" Pine is planted by the class of 1927 to mark Dartmouth's bicentennial.

1993

Responding to complaints from Native Americans, clay mugs replace the traditional clay pipes at Class Day. Several seniors are taken to the hospital after they accidentally cut themselves on cup shards. Anew tradition is not established.

1997

The campus rumor that the lectern used at graduation is a plastic replica of the Old Pine is untrue. The lectern is made of real pine, but not from the Old One.

Because the Old Pine wasn't the tallest on campus it lived to be the oldest.