The humble origins of celebratory bonfires at Dartmouth began with a baseball victory over Manchester College in 1888. After the win, students collected whatever flammable material they could find and used it to create a makeshift fire in the middle of the Green.
According to The Dartmouth at the time, the event "disturbed the slumbers of a peaceful town, destroyed some property, made the boys feel that they were men, and, in fact, did no one any good."
Although the practice of burning wood and running around the pyre may to some seem questionable, very respectable individuals have attended the bonfire, including Winston Churchill and Lord Dartmouth, who were special guests in 1904.
In fact, bonfires became so popular for celebration at Dartmouth that the administration needed to intervene in order "to save what was left of town outbuildings and other combustibles not firmly pegged down."
Yet, even after the administration stepped in, the bonfire saga continued to develop.
In 1971, a local farmer donated his barn to be used as fuel for that year's fire. When students arrived at what they thought was the right barn, they found wood inside and burned that instead. Two days later, another local farmer reported to Hanover Police that his wood had been stolen.
Foul play has not always been limited to stolen wood and upperclassmen screaming, "Touch the fire!" For many times during the second half of the 20th century, upperclassmen succeeded in burning down the bonfire structure prematurely by overpowering its freshmen guards.
Due to these prior incidents, Dartmouth today has developed a method to help ensure order and safety in the bonfire process.
The Thayer School of Engineering supplies the current design, which is designed so that it can only collapse inward. Dartmouth also custom orders the wood to fit non-treated, square-cut specifications so that no longer do freshmen builders wander around campus to find scrap wood.
For additional safety issues, the freshmen builders, who started working on Thursday, are monitored by a professional construction crew. Safety is the primary concern of the event administrators.
"Though the structure is carefully designed, it is possible that a piece of wood may fall out and hurt someone," bonfire co-Chair Cory Cunningham '10 said. For this reason students must stay outside of the danger area, marked off by white paint on the ground.
Despite the arduous building process, the Bonfire crew easily found freshmen to volunteer.
"I already love this school and I want to be a part of it," said Shaun Stewart '10, a freshman volunteer.
The Dartmouth Night bonfire is the social initiation of freshman into the Dartmouth community. In the past, the night's festivities were broadcast throughout the country via an extensive radio network, according to Bob Conn '61.
