Walking among the Dead

While a freshman at Dartmouth College in 1898, Arthur H. Chivers fell in love with  the Old Dartmouth Cemetery. He could often be seen wandering the grounds. After he graduated in 1902, Chivers went on to earn a M.A. and a Ph.D in botany from Harvard. He joined the Dartmouth faculty as an instructor in botany in 1906. He retired a full professor in 1950. During his time at Dartmouth, Chivers was involved with many town and civic affairs. Having never forgotten his love for the cemetery he was happy to take over the supervision of the cemeteries as a member of the Board of Selectman of Hanover in 1948. First on his list of actions regarding the cemeteries in Hanover was to create a card index of all known burials, reading and recording the inscriptions on each stone. By 1951, he had made 1,814 entries.

Using William Worthington Dewey's journal "List of Deaths in the Vicinity of Dartmouth College Including Likewise the Hamlet usually Called Greensborough from AD 1769 to 1859," John Richard's "Record of Death, Internments and Descriptions 1771-1858" and official town records, Chivers then proceeded to map out the Old Dartmouth Cemetery, creating a location map and diagrams of every monument, stone and marker. Chivers also discovered that there were many discrepancies between the different sources and so, whenever it was possible, he contacted family members of the deceased to verify dates and names.

The entire project, a labor of love, took him four years to complete. As part of the process, Chivers could be seen crawling around the cemetery. At one point an unsuspecting visitor to the cemetery was so perturbed by this strange behavior that she rushed away to report it. According to Chivers, she said, "There's a very queer man in the cemetery and I think that the police should be told about him."

In 1952, Chivers gave his research to Kenneth C. Cramer, the college archivist, and it became part of Rauner's cemetery collection DH-38. We recently scanned Chivers's seven three-ring binders and they are available as one searchable record in pdf form on our web page. Since Chivers completed his record more than sixty years ago, many more inscriptions have disappeared. As such his contribution to the history of the Old Dartmouth Cemetery is invaluable. Arthur H. Chivers died in 1981, at the age of 101. At the time of his death, he was the oldest living alum and the only surviving member of the Class of 1902. He is buried in the cemetery that he loved.

Usually we tell you come in and take a look, but this time why not use Chivers's guide as you stroll through the cemetery.

The "God" in the Iliad

Richmond Lattimore '26 is widely regarded as one of the best modern translators of ancient Greek texts. For example, his 1952 translation of the Iliad is excellent and praised by his fellow classicists. Rauner Special Collections Library possesses a large amount of material relevant to Lattimore, ranging from poems he wrote as an undergraduate about sunny Hanover afternoons to his personal correspondence with friends.

Among these materials is a notebook he kept while translating the Iliad, conveying something of the method of his translational process. The notebook, covering Books 15 to 22 of the Iliad, contains little in the way of editing marks and closely resembles the finished, published translation, which is itself quirky. One example of this quirkiness is that it capitalizes "God," doing so ten times. Out of five other famous Iliad translations (Fagles, Lombardo, Fitzgerald, Merrill, Mitchell) there is no precedent for this decision. Interestingly, the notebook at Rauner indicates Lattimore’s initial uncertainty regarding the capitalized "God" in two different places, 15.403 and 17.101, images of which are shown here.


For those unfamiliar with or rusty on the Iliad, the speakers of these two passages are, respectively, Patrokolos and Menelaos. Patrokolos (a Greek) speaks of his desire to bring Achilleus back into the fighting, and Menelaos (also a Greek) contemplates the consequences of yielding before Hektor, the mightiest Trojan warrior. Plot details aside, the strikethrough as seen in the first notebook image (Lattimore's own) conveys his somewhat intensive deliberation regarding phrasing, the subject of the sentence, and the capitalization of "God." As is evident, he does not capitalize the first instance of the word in his notebook, yet does so with the later Menelaos passage, shown here in the next image. In the published version of his translation, both instances are capitalized. So, the issue of capitalization in the notebooks, later resolved in published format, reveals Lattimore’s initial trepidation regarding whether to capitalize "God."

A letter addressed to Lattimore and archived in Rauner provides some valuable context for his deliberation over the unique capitalization of the word "God." Dated June 27, 1933, the letter’s author was Richard Jackson, a friend of Lattimore's from Dartmouth who graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a degree in Classics. The body of the letter is a speech that Jackson produced at Lattimore's request. The speech is somewhat discursive but discusses the importance of poetry and religion:
"Everywhere in epics and lyrics... is the poetry of religion. Religion, I realize, is a hazardous subject to discuss these days.... We should not lose sight of the immaterial idea.... Nay, we must believe in that idea, not through logic, but through poetry...."

The comment about religion being "hazardous" might explain Lattimore’s timidity. More importantly, the letter enshrines a moment when Lattimore apparently sympathized (by requesting the speech from Jackson) with the desire to believe in that "immaterial idea… through poetry." Moreover, the mention of "epics and lyrics" in the letter brings to mind the Iliad. This letter potentiates a Christian subtext to the capitalized "God" of Lattimore's translation, a potentially dangerous move for one who wished to have a reputation as a serious scholar of Greek literature.

To examine Richmond Lattimore's notebooks and correspondence in greater detail, ask for MS-503 at Rauner Library.

Posted for Henry Woram '17, CLST 4 class

Welcome Home

We know you are going to have a better Homecoming than poor Odysseus. What a nightmare--coming home to find his house infested with suitors and his kingdom in disarray. This image is one of the tamer ones in John Flaxman's suite of images for the Odyssey.

Dartmouth Night is upon us, the bonfire is built and ready to blaze despite the rain. It is about welcoming back the alumni while welcoming in the new class. It is always a festive weekend and the fall colors make campus seem like paradise. We hope your homecoming is bucolic and filled with fun--and everything Odysseus's was not.

To see more of Flaxman's images, ask for Illus F619h copy 3.

Of Blue Points and Cigars

Roast mallard duck, celery, queen olives, lobster croquettes, and blue point oysters. This sumptuous meal comes to us through the archives of Kappa Kappa Kappa, one of the oldest fraternities at Dartmouth. The occasion? The Initiation Banquet of 1890 (program at right).

In a bygone era, new fraternity members were welcomed into their houses at an Initiation Banquet, featuring multiple courses, speeches, and songs. For each Initiation Banquet, the fraternity produced a commemorative booklet. These small pamphlets are scattered throughout the collection in membooks and fraternity files, just like the dance cards we've previously blogged.

Most banquet booklets follow a basic format: the fraternity name, date, location, a list of new members, a list of toasts, song lyrics, and, most importantly, the menu. But unlike dance cards, there's no set name for these items: Are they pamphlets? Programs? Menus?

They give us a glimpse into what students considered fancy and sumptuous in the late nineteenth century. One thing is certain -- they thought blue point oysters were awesome. They're the first item on almost every banquet menu. Oysters required ice and rapid transportation from the sea coast, indicating that they would be expensive, and therefore, a status symbol. They probably tasted pretty good too!

Other popular menu items include crackers, sherbet, and jellies. The evenings concluded with cigars and cigarettes, listed on the menu as though they were just another food group.

To see some examples, come into Rauner and ask for the Vertical File of almost any fraternity that existed before 1950. The menus in this post are from Kappa Kappa Kappa (Initiation Banquet, 1890), and Psi Upsilon (Initiation Banquet 1885 on the left and Initation Banquet 1884 on the right).

Instagram Then and Now

After feeling pretty hep for blogging, we are finally moving into the current decade with an Instagram account. Instagram was going to be an easy way to share vacation photos while on the go, but, like most social media, it transformed into a venue for self expression. We have a lot to express, so it should be fun.

Being of the archival mindset, always looking to the past for an new, more powerful sense of the present, we couldn't stay away from an example of an ur-Instagram: Dartmouth Membooks. This one is particularly fitting. A hundred years ago Conrad Snow '12 visited Europe while a student at Dartmouth. He documented his travels with dozens of postcards and other images (Instagram's original intent), then assembled them in his Membook as an act of self creation (Instagram's more typical use!). His travels became him, his pages of images transformed over time into the self we can still visit.

Conrad Snow was pretty amazing. Later in life he was chief of the State Department's Loyalty Security Board during the McCarthy Era and was instrumental in McCarthy's eventual downfall.

You can expect a Membook image every other Monday on Instagram ("Membook Monday") and you can see Conrad Snow's Membook by asking for it at the desk.

Mountain Sticky Stew

Recently, we promised you an entry on one of the strangest foods at Dartmouth -- Mountain Sticky Stew. Trips began in the 1930s, and have continued as a cherished Dartmouth tradition, involving first years hiking, paddling and eating their way through the mountains surrounding the College. Trips also spawned a lot of wild traditions, including colorful hair, flair (outrageous costumes), and MOUNTAIN STICKY STEW! (as it is titled in the 1977 recipe).

This mixture of melted cheese, meat, cake and vegetables was featured on first-year trips in the 1970s and 1980s. The 1977 version consists of Minute Rice, dried beef, cheese, peas, bread, a can of fruit cocktail, a Sarah Lee cake, 4 packages of iced tea, and onions -- with the instructions to cook the rice, melt the cheese, add the other ingredients, and then "gorge silly."

The 1984 recipe includes cheese, Koolaid and cheese cake mix. It seems like a great way to consume lots of calories in a easy-to-prepare form. But by the 1990s, "Mountain Sticky Stew" no longer appears on the menus.

Did the Stew disappear because tastes changed? Or was Mountain Sticky Stew considered a form of hazing? The archives are curiously silent. If you know anything about the Stew, please let us know!

No one in the library has volunteered to make us a sample batch.

For the Mountain Sticky Stew recipes, ask for Box 79, Folder 86 of the files of the Dartmouth Outing Club (DO-1).

Separated at Birth?

"On Friday, June 24, Mr. Dickey started his fishing trip. Others, not part of the fishing party, were on hand with missions to accomplish prior to the 'informal lunch.' And then the guest arrived..."

This is the folksy start to a photo album titled "A Friend Came to Lunch." Assembled by Edward C. Lathem and the Stinehour Press, it commemorates Dwight D. Eisenhower's visit to John Sloan Dickey's annual fishing party at the Second College Grant in 1954.

The pictures are priceless. Ike donned a DOC jacket, while various Dartmouth administrators decked themselves out for a weekend of fishing. In some pictures it is hard to distinguish Dickey from Eisenhower. After all the hoopla--understated as it was--"Quiet returns to the Dartmouth College Grant."

To see it ask for D.C. History LD1446 1955 .D378.