Cremation of Textbooks
From 1854 until 1897, imitating the custom of some other colleges, Union students conducted an annual mock funeral for the textbook used in a course they had just completed; after the ceremony they burned a copy of the book. By mocking death and celebrating the completion of an onerous course, the ceremony filled two functions; later, the funeral procession also became one of several trials by which the freshmen symbolically established their right to full membership in the student body.
Ceremonial incineration had been customary at other colleges for some time: Brown University students had begun burning their compositions by 1827 and burying their rhetoric textbooks at sea (i.e., in Providence Harbor) by 1853. Elsewhere, it had become common to cremate or bury "Euclid."
The first ceremony at Union, held by the sophomore class immediately after final examinations on the night of July 18, 1854, was anything but impromptu; the organizers wrote clever dirges based on "Massa’s in the Cold, Cold Ground" and on the tune a classmate later used for the "Ode to Old Union," printed a four-page program for the event, and hired a brass band from Albany. Downtown at the Van Horne House, reserved for the occasion, the mourners held a funeral service, complete with sermon, after which, at about 1 a.m., they marched by torchlight up Union Street to the field between North and South Colonnades, sang a dirge over Whately’s logic textbook, and placed the "corpse" on a burning tar barrel. Jonathan Pearson noted in his diary that the barrel threw up "an immence volume of lurid flame illuminating the Colleges and grounds for a great distance." The funeral procession, preceded by the band, then marched back downtown via what is now Nott Street.
Fearing that the custom would become perennial (as it did), and that it would lead to worse mischief, the administration threatened, in letters to parents, to bar the culprits from returning to College unless they apologized and pledged "never again to be engaged in disturbing the peace and order of the College." In the end, however, no one was actually punished.
Subsequent years brought several changes. The programs grew temporarily even more elaborate (thirty pages in 1864), while the sponsorship of the obsequies changed by 1862 from the sophomore to the junior class, and by 1879 to the freshman class. With the last change, it became customary for sophomores to harass the procession. The identity of the deceased changed with alterations in sponsorship, in the curriculum, and in the choice of textbooks assigned for a course: the junior class cremated the mechanics textbook used in John Foster’s and Isaac Jackson’s courses, and the freshmen burned their algebra textbook (Bourdon until 1881, then Newcomber).
Owing no doubt to changes in the freshman course, by 1882 cremations were held in March or April, and from 1886 onwards, in December.
Although the early ceremonies were advertised as burials ("The Burial of Logic" in 1854; "The Planting of Whately" in 1855), they always culminated in cremation, sometimes in a casket. Afterward the remains might be buried, though this step was probably omitted when the funeral occurred in midwinter. After the exercises in 1882, and perhaps in other years, the freshmen adjourned to the gymnasium, where they auctioned off the battle axes they had carried, the charred leaves of the book, and the remnants of the casket; the auction realized thirty dollars that year.
By 1885, it was considered ideal to steal and burn the professor’s own copy of the textbook, but 1892 is the only year in which the freshmen are known to have succeeded in that exploit.
From at least 1879 onward, the funeral procession was harassed by sophomores—with the aid, by 1883, of town boys. The printed program for 1885 mentions, among the participants, "Plebs, Vulgus, Townies, '88, Loafers, etc." The town-gown fighting could be vicious: some freshmen were severely cut when hit by large pieces of ice in 1883, and in 1885 a club-wielding freshman laid open a town boy’s head. The police sometimes intervened. The sophomores also tried to steal the casket, the book, or the wood for the funeral pyre.
The 1886 cremation was described in a newspaper account: A few minutes before midnight, about twenty-five freshmen emerged from the college grounds bearing a coffin. They wore flowing white gowns, ornamented with skull and crossbones and with their class numerals on the back, and white masks, hideously painted. As protection against stones, their heads were wrapped in cotton batting, pillows and other padding. Eight of the men carried lighted torches, and all carried a short stout club in their right hands.
At the gate onto Union Avenue they were ambushed by a group of sophomores who planned to steal the coffin, but the freshmen were victorious and left one sophomore behind, unconscious. Moving down Union Avenue, the procession was met at Blue Gate by the drum corps and about four hundred young men and boys "all anxious to see a disturbance." As they marched down to Friedrich's Hotel, they acquired a larger crowd, including ladies with escorts. Picking up a wagon loaded with wood at the hotel, the procession then moved back to the campus. As was customary, Blue Gate had been barricaded, so the marchers moved on to the upper gate, which was blocked with barbed wire. While cutting it, the freshmen were bombarded with eggs and with water from a hose connected to a hydrant. Finally, near the Nott Memorial, still repelling the sophomores, they built a fire and carried out the ceremonies, consisting of an oration, dirge, and chant. The obsequies ended at 1:15 a.m.
At the request of President Webster, the freshmen confined the march to the campus from 1889 to 1891. They held the 1892 ceremony without advertising and without challenge. In 1894, the freshmen decided to forgo the custom; the next, and last, cremation was held at about 4 a.m. on March 26, 1897; although advertised, it was not harassed.
Condensed from Wayne Somers, compiler and editor, Encyclopedia of Union College History (Schenectady: Union College Press, 2003), page 194.
Image courtesy of Union College, Schaffer Library Special Collections and Archives, Photograph Collection