Fortress for Pranksters

If the Harvard Corporation was ever wrong it was wrong about Hollis Hall. With the pious hope that it was adding to undergraduate sobriety by housing all the students within the College gates, the Corporation opened Hollis in 1763, thus making it the fourth oldest building in the Yard. Three days later, Hollis' neighbor, Harvard Hall, burnt down in a spectacular blaze, and the Hall's restraining career was off to an auspiciously bad start. Since then, Hollis has provided a colorful mixture of deviltry and distinction in College history.

If Hollis is a subversive influence in the Yard, it is apparently a lasting one, for its solid box-like architecture makes it almost indestructible. Together with Stoughton it was the last dormitory built with a "medieval type" chamber-and-study-room arrangement that made for large apartments.

During the War of 1812, some students got together to use Hollis' natural fortress for the base of the Washington Corps, a swagger company that paraded in blue coats, white vests, trousers and gaiters, and kept their arsenal in the attic. Town and gown relations were never good, though, and on one occasion irate Cambridge citizens fixed their bayonets and chased the Washingtonians to the gates of the Yard. There, the rout was haltered by white-haired Dr. Popin who, appearing at the gate, shouted; "Now, my lads, stand your ground. Don't let one of them set foot within the College grounds." Collective teeth bared and their backs to the gates, the Washingtonians stood firm and presumably saved the Hall.

This effort probably exhausted the patriotic group for the soon faded away to be replaced in the middle of the century by the nortorions "Med. Fac.," a secret society famed for its violent initiations. The College put up with the society until it sent a bogus diploma to the Czar of Russia, reaping a handsome gift in return. Lingering on despite administrative wrath, the Society continued to be happily destructive until the turn of the century, when its nihilistic bent culminated in the blowing up of the old College pump in front of Hollis.

Next to the mischievous, Hollis has also housed some of the "greats" of Harvard. Among its alumni, the Hall can number Emerson, Thorean, Santayana, and President Eliot. But perhaps the best loved in the College was Charles T. Copeland, who as an instructor in English was one of the first faculty members to cultivate a wide undergraduate friendship. "Copey" kept open house Wednesday evening in Hollis 15 for many years. The most distinguished students, however, has passed almost unnoticed from College history; he had only one asset. His name was William Shake Speare.

Today, watered down by modern regulations, a plethora of shiny fire extinguishers and some automatic sprinkling equipment, the Hall bears only faint echoes of a vigorous Colonial past; a past when,

"...Hollis used to roar

And Stoughton used to sing

When the rollicking rabble lay under the table

A-pouring down gin-sling."