Peterborough Favors Move by University

Three leading residents of Peterborough, N.H., joined yesterday in inviting the College to leave Cambridge to the Cantabridgians.

The original "Our Town"--from Thornton Wilder's famous play--was painted as the ideal site for a relocated university by Paul Cummings, Jr., editor of the weekly Peterborough Transcript, Mrs. Florence Connell, the town bookkeeper, and selectman Forrest Mercer.

All three endorsed the recent proposal by Charles R. Cherington '35, professor of Government, that Harvard consider an eventual move to Peterborough.

"It would be a very good thing if they ever move up here," Mercer said yesterday. "If they do decide to move, I'd like to have them look us over. We've got a lot of good land up here," he said. Mercer, a resident of Peterborough for over 40 years, is the owner of a bustling automobile agency on Main Street.

Mrs. Connell, who recently moved to New Hampshire from Arlington, Mass., thinks "it's a fine idea. I'd like it very much if Harvard decides to come up here."

"If it ever happens, I think it would be a good thing for you to escape that stuffy, musty Harvard Yard," Cummings said. "I'm a Dartmouth man myself, and I think you should get out of Cambridge as soon as you can."

True to his Dartmouth brothers, however, Cummings hesitated in giving statistics about how far Peterborough is from Colby Junior College, the Dartmouth refugee's traditional haunt.

At last night's Chamber of Commerce dinner, President Pusey told reporters that "Harvard moved once to Concord during the Revolution to allow Revolutionary troops to be housed in Harvard." But "it was the only time we moved," the President said. "and we are not moving again."

"I think the Dartmouth fellers wouldn't want you up there. You better keep to your own haunts," he said. "Besides the roads up there are usually snowy and it's pretty hard to get there in the winter." Finally, he confessed that Colby Junior is "about 50 miles" from Peterborough.

Meanwhile, in Hanover--65 miles to the north--a spokesman for the Daily Dartmouth said that "we'd be more than pleased to have you up here, although we're not quite sure you'd be rugged enough to last out the winters. Of course your ski team might improve under the stimulus," he said.