Dartmouth Raids Focus On Yard

Dartmouth--Harvard football rivalry began in 1882 with a game in which the Big Green "might possibly" have been "able to cope with Boston Latin School," according to the Boston Globe.

Ever since than contest, except for a ten-year gap from 1912 to 1922 and a four-year wart-time halt, the annual gridiron struggle with the Crimson has always promoted an Indian hegira from their reservation in Hanover to the relatively "big city" gaiety of the Hub.

At no time, though, has Dartmouth hilarity reached the peak it attained in 1939.

First warning of the onslaught came on Thursday, October 21, when a solitary brave wandered into the Stoughton Hall quarters of one David B. Shaw and demanded lodging for the night. Ughing something about the provisions of a gift of bricks used to build the original Stoughton Hall in 1695, he claimed that the building's charter entitled all Indians to free lodging in the Yard dormitory.

--Bum's Rush to Indian

The alarmed Shaw managed to force the Indian from his quarters, but before he left, the brave war-whooped a threat that he would return with reinforcements on the following day.

He lived up to his promise, for Friday afternoon a whole tribe of "noble savages," dressed in blankets and other Indian trimmings, made a full-scale attack on Stoughton. Yard cops and students, however, managed to repulse the onslaught, and the red-men had to be content with pitching a tepee north of the Old Pump.

As the evening wore on, the war-painted invaders organized a war dance to the throbbing of tom-toms and marched through the Yard, waving torches, chanting "ugh, ugh, ugh," and bearing signs reading "We Wampum Injun rights in Stoughton."

Charter to Biame

Their claims to rooms in Stoughton was based on the charter to the original building, which collapsed in 1781.

The sharter said, in part, "Whereas the President and Fellows of ye Colledge in Cambridge have Proposed. . . that ye Bricks to ye Indian Colledge wch is gone to decay May be Removed & Used for an Additional Building to Harvard Colledge. We do Hereby signifye to ye Corporation our Consent to their Proposal; Provided that in Case any Indians should. . . be sent to ye Colledge, they should enjoy their studies rent free in said building; This Dated in Boston, Sept. 19, 1695. Win. Stoughton Ch. Morton Wait Winthrop Gab Bernam Inc Mather.

No Other Invasion

Obviously unimpressed with the white man's spelling, the Indians stayed away in droves, and the 1939 assault was the first attempt to exercise the privilege bestowed by the charter.

Minor disturbances marked other Dartmouth appearances in Boston, and hotel lobby riots sprung up in the Twenties. With the advent of the Thiries, however, this type of deviltry disappeared; and by 1940, one hotel manager reported that "we never have any trouble," while a nightclub owner declared, "Hell, they don't make no trouble and they don't drink much. Of course, we always find a few beer cans around in the inner court the next morning."

Raise Hell in Yard

From hotels, the Dartmouth lads turned to the Yard, where they succeeded in making a fairly substantial uproar on the night before the game.

It remained for Harvard, however, to strike the last blow in the pre-war battle between the Crimson and the Green, when a 1941 pre-game rally burned to a cinder an effigy on an Indian.