It’s just a worn-down, rectangular slab of brownstone in the ground between South College and the Chapel. But it’s the base of one of Wesleyan’s longest traditions—one that involves multiple explosions, masked men, the Soviet Union, Richard Nixon, the C.I.A., global jet-setting, mysterious letters, and, depending on who you believe, President Doug Bennet.
That brownstone chunk is actually the pedestal for an object that has been referred to as the University’s oldest alum: The Douglas Cannon.
—
During the mid-nineteenth century, Wesleyan’s senior class began a tradition of firing a cannon in the early morning hours of Independence Day. In 1859, the University’s calendar was altered to give students the summer off, and the explosive custom was shifted to Feb. 22, George Washington’s Birthday. Not wanting to wake up early on a cold winter morning to fire a cannon, the seniors delegated the duty to the freshmen class.
In 1866, the sophomore class began annual attempts to thwart the freshmen from firing the cannon. That year, in the first “cannon scrap,” sophomores spiked the cannon to prevent it from firing. The cannon overheated, sending shards of metal into High Street and injuring three students.
The following year, students borrowed a newly forged 140 lb. brass cannon from the Douglas Battery, a Middletown artillery regiment named after Middletown mayor Benjamin Douglas.
In 1869, a heavily-packed cannon charge shattered most of the windows in the new library, Rich Hall (now the ’92 Theater). Faculty responded with a ban on cannon firings on campus, although freshmen usually managed to find a place to fire the cannon off of the grounds but within earshot.
By 1883, the tradition resumed on-campus, and the scraps between the freshmen and sophomore classes became increasingly more elaborate. Sophomores began the custom of elaborate attempts to steal the cannon from the freshmen before they could fire it.
Both classes would form a secret cannon committee at the beginning of the academic year to plot “cannon scraps” strategy, and decoy cannons, wire barricades, snow forts, trip wires, and electric buzzers were reportedly all used over the years.
Once, sophomores stole the cannon and sunk it in the Connecticut River, but the University hired a diver and it was recovered.
In 1905, the freshmen set off a false fire alarm in order to transport the cannon safely behind the fire wagon. When the firemen figured this out, they turned their hoses on the attacking sophomores.
A near-unanimous student vote in 1916 ended the cannon battles for good, aside from one revival in 1923.
The cannon maintained a low profile until 1931, the University’s centennial, when it was detached from its wheels, filled with 100 lbs. of lead and mounted on College Row between South College and Memorial Chapel.
A plaque was attached to the pedestal which read “THE DOUGLAS CANNON / BORN IN OBSCURITY / REARED IN STRIFE / TEMPERED BY TRAVEL / NEVER DISCOURAGED / HOME AT LAST.”
On March 12, 1957, a watchman discovered the cannon missing at 5 a.m., and a new tradition was born. The cannon allegedly moved through various campus buildings and dormitories for the rest of the year, until one of the perpetrators was too lazy to carry it down two flights of stairs in his residence. He dropped it out a window.
The cannon was returned in a black, coffin-like box at 1958’s annual Alumni Luncheon by two hooded students. It was remounted on the pedestal and stayed there until 1959, when it was again removed, with a hacksaw.
In 1961, it was taken to the United Nations in New York City, where three students posing as members of the College Body Senate presented it to Nikoli Burov, the first secretary of the Russian delegation. They offered it as a gesture of friendship between Wesleyan and Russia.
Then-Dean of Students Mark Barlow sent several letters to the delegation to explain the situation as a student joke, and eventually met with the Russians to reclaim the cannon.
“Evidently the Russians had been completely taken in by the hoax,” Barlow told the Argus in 1963.
Again, the cannon was remounted, but it disappeared on Memorial Day 1965. Several days later the Argus received a note from the Douglas Cannon, explaining that he had been stolen by a group called the Cannon Retrievers South of Heaven (CRUSH), who hoped to “broaden the cannon’s horizons.”
In 1966 the cannon arrived via mail at the offices of George P. Hunt, managing editor of Life magazine. The cannon was returned and remounted for President Victor Butterfield’s farewell address the next year, but—catching on?—didn’t stick around for long.
Leave a Reply