Mitchell, Elisha, 1793-1857
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University of N. Ca.
Sept. 11th 1840
To
Charles
Manly Esq.
Dear Sir,
The meeting of
the board of Trustees is appointed for Friday the
25th of the current month at 12 o clock. The engagements of the gentlemen in
attendance are not likely to allow of a long delay in this place whether for an
investigation of the circumstances of this particular case or for the purpose
of devising means for preventing a recurrence of the same or similar disorders
in future. Matters were worse than from the tenor of your letter to
the Governor you seem to have supposed. That you may come to
this place with at least some general knowledge of the circumstances that
induced an application to your honorable body and with your wise head teeming
with schemes for the re-establishment of order and industry I propose to give
you a little history of the whole affair.
Some little disposition to annoy the Faculty by missiles of
different kinds has been exhibited within the last year or two. I do not
recollect particulars and perhaps over-rate the amount of what actually
occurred, but whatever it was our general forbearance rather encouraged those
concerned with the hope of impunity. There was a good deal of throwing though
apparently with a view of intimidating rather than doing injury when we
interfered with the ugly club in July last.
Three weeks ago, there was an affair in which
Professor Fetter
and myself were concerned of which some
account appears to have reached you — true perhaps in the main untrue in
some of the details. A Bull dance was got up on the second story passage of the
S. [unrecovered] of the
West
building
. A pail and wash-bowl I believe it was of water were placed in
the landing place of the stairs to wet such member of the Faculty as might
attempt to interfere. It was
Prof.
Fetter's
evening to be there for the preservation of order. The noise of
the dance was so great that after it had continued for some time I went down
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and was upon the ground a little before
Mr
Fetter
escaped the proposed ducking, but the lights were immediately
extinguished. I obtained a light in the third story and when it appeared the
persons who had been engaged in the disturbance ran down and escaped from the
building. Supposing the whole to be over I went home. After I left, the
annoyances were kept up and directed particularly against
Prof.
Fetter
. Water, books, tables, or parts of tables were thrown down from
above and a charge of pusillanimity is attempted to be got up against him for
not having put these disturbances down and for having run as it is (untruly)
said from the building when he finally left it over to
Dr Graves. The running
Mr
Fetter
positively denies any farther than that he passed rapidly out of
the building and to the distance of a few feet from it with the view of
avoiding anything that might be thrown from above. My own recollections are
that the night was too dark to admit of any person being seen either running or
standing still at the distance of an hundred yards in the grove. Before he went
out of the building
Mr
Fetter's
position was one of difficulty. The upper stories — the
second and third were quite dark — if he ascended without a candle he
could see no one — if with a candle he became a mark for a pitcher of
water or other missile by which the candle would have been extinguished. The
proper method would have been to have called in some other member of the
Faculty and taken possession of this part of the building at all hazards, but
Mr
Fetter
has not yet had experience in such transactions. As the plan of
operations has now for its object to correct
Mr
Fetter
of a want of spirit you may expect to hear the transactions of
that night represented as a mere bagatelle, but I will state some things
hereafter which may seem to satisfy you that the earnest reports on this and
other points are to be received with caution.
This affair having gone off so well gave additional spirit to
those of the next Saturday night. A freshman treat was had after dark in the
woods at the Foxhole (not Fauxhall as they tell me) spring from which the
company came up hallooing and shouting. The Faculty went round to the rooms to
see who was absent, and it not appearing to be of much use to stay longer went
home. Some stones and brick bats were thrown before they retired. Afterwards
the belfry having
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been broken open, the bell was
rung indefinitely. They also began to batter in pieces the doors of the
sophomore and junior recitation rooms and of the laboratory. The door of the
library yielding by the bursting off of the box of the lock to the first
application of force was not broken. Fearing that great injury to the apparatus
might be done in the laboratory I went down with a view if possible of having
an interview with the rioters and
persuading them to
desist. I had plenty of brick bats thrown at me, masses weighing from one to
two pounds thrown with a hearty good will and flying on all sides of me. The
Faculty afterwards went through the buildings between the hours of two and
three in the morning with the view of detecting some of the authors of these
disorders who had taken our horses out of the stables and were riding them
about the campus, but in consequence of some delay in our movements nothing
important was accomplished. I have spoken of what I myself saw because I do not
know exactly what befell the other members of the Faculty.
What is to be done? I answer, tis a great pity that we could not
have you here on the spur of the occasions. The parties concerned and engaged,
finding your visit have been strengthening each others hearts so that I am not
certain you will accomplish much now. But without presuming to dictate I will
respectfully state what my views are. Unless you come here prepared to call a
tet-e-tet, and state distinctly and unequivocally that this raising a row and
then throwing stones under cover of the darkness at those whose duty it is to
interfere is mean and cowardly, your visit will do more harm than good.
Secondly the Faculty are I suppose entitled to that protection
when engaged in the discharge of their appropriate duties which the laws of the
land are held to afford to the meanest citizen. The ordinances of
the Trustees do not encourage or even warrant a
criminal prosecution on our part. Nor could we institute such proceedings
without destroying altogether the kind of relation which it has been held
desirable to have existing between the Faculty and students. The circumstances
of the present case are perhaps such as would under such proceeding improper.
But it seems desirable that the students should be told in very plain terms
that they are amenable
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to the laws of the land and
that
the Trustees will of their own notion proceed
against them if these things are repeated or others like them are engaged
in.
Thirdly it is perhaps of more importance still, that you should
give no credit to a great variety of stories that are circulated from this
place. It is incredible; the number of them that go abroad which are totally
unfounded and untrue. Some are uttered in jest in the first instance and
believed by the second or third person that hears them, others are malicious
falsehoods. Take for instance a few with regard to myself. That on the night of
the ugly
club I was about the college buildings with a naked sword (from a sword
cane) in my hand. That I was thoroughly wet on the night of
Professor
Fetter's
adventure by water thrown upon men from above. That finding a
student asleep upon his back and the contents of some ones stomach upon the
floor, I both smelt and tasted of the same to see whether the ejectment was
from the stomach of the sleeper. That I was beaten to a jelly on the night of
the great row &c &c. In some cases the stories are too silly to do any
harm, in others, as in the case of
Prof.
Fetter
they may do mischief.
If the night when you shall be here shall be a bright star light,
I should be glad to have you stand at the door of the south entry of
the West
Building
on the west side and judge for yourself how much confidence is
to be placed in statements that
Mr
Fetter
was seen from that point to run over towards
Dr
Graves. I passed there last night after dark for the purpose of
ascertaining whether it were possible to see that a person was passing at that
gait and found it as it seemed to me impossible, and the night was lighter than
that on which
Mr.
Fetter
was said to have been seen. The stars were visible at that time
but the heavens covered in part with a thin haze — last night nothing
like a cloud was to be seen. Last night a person dressed in black might perhaps
have been seen for an instant at one or two points but no one could declare
with safety that he was running. The whole I fully believe to be a groundless
calumny.