Fires Enliven University's History

One hundred and ninety fire-filled years ago, a burning grate pilled high with colas started one of the University's most disastrous blazes. In the middle of the winter of 1764 the fire place in Harvard Hall, where the Massachusetts General Assembly was meeting, set the famous building into an inferno. When the blaze subsided most of the books in John Harvard's original library were up in smoke and the hall lay in ashes.

Since then the University has compiled a long list of false alarms, wasted fire extinguishers, and genuine fires. The most recent hot house was the Calverly blaze which began late one Sunday morning in 1855 to find it clouded March night in 1951. A cigarette got the blame for $65,000 worth of damage. Before the days of the infernal weed, flying sparks and gas fumes were the cause of most of the fires in undergraduate rooms.

Former President Eliot tells the story of his narrow escape from asphyxiation in his room in Hoollis Hall. According to Eliot his servant came into his room one with smoke. Eliot lay partially unconscious on his bed. Once aroused, he and the man traced the smoke to the downstairs room of a freshman who had left his grate fire going over the weekend.

Three years after this incident, in 1858, Eliot recalled the case of a famous French instructor who resigned over the issue of a fire in his classroom. The distracted man, who was held in high esteem by faculty and students alike, blamed the Jesuits for starting the blaze which almost consumed University Hall.

A number of more recent fires have been responsible for new buildings on Harvard grounds. In 1917 a faulty furnace and a foolish mistake caused a fire in rickety Dane Hall, the Law School Library, and it burned to the ground. Lehman Hall replaced it a few years later.

Field House Fire

Since then two other buildings partially destroyed by fire, have seen new structures in their stead. Massachusetts Hall was badly burned in 1924 and required about $176,000 to replace it. Two years later the Rotch building, north of Langdell Hall, caught fire. It had been the Carey Athletic Building until Carey Cage was erected.

The last big university fire indirectly spawned Dillon Field House. The former Solider Field locker building, built in 1894, had become antiquated when Clarance Dillon '05 offered the University money for a new building.

The job of razing the old structure was simplified by a blaze on January 15, 1930. The fire attracted 4,500 onlookers and forty fire engines. Everyone watched but no one moved since flames were shooting twice the height of the building. When the inflreno subsided, over 300 complete football uniforms, 100 baseball pants, and miscellaneous minor sports equipment were listed among the missing.

Harvad's most picturesque fire occured six years later and one hundred yards away. This was the beautiful 1936 press box blaze in the stadium. Those who watched it say flames could be seen for miles silhouetted against the gray sky. It caused about $15,000 worth of damage to the press box atop the horseshoe.

Men Hall Fire

Even venerable Memorial Hall has had its share of flames. In 1874a hot pot of melted fat caught fire, filled the kitchens in the hall with smoke, and nearly burned through the wooden floor into the main dining hall upstairs.

The narrow escape forced the Corporation to take stops to prevent future fires in Harvard's wooden buildings. A fire-proof floor was installed in Mem Hall and Boylston Hall got new brick walls. Fire escapes went in, ropes were provided for dormitory rooms, and ladders and waterproof covers for furniture were placed in the Yard.

Today the University carries blanket coverage for all its buildings and property. It also subscribes to an inspection service which checks University grounds annually. According to the contract with the service, the dormitory ropes are supposed to be gone over twice each year. But even in the modern age of cigarette fires in sofas, the college has no record of an undergraduate escaping a fire in his room by sliding down a rope.