The Charles Osgood oil-on-canvass portrait of Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1840. Courtesy of Peabody Essex Museum
The Bowdoin College Class of 1825 is revered as the greatest in the school’s history for its many legendary graduates. Yet, despite his later distinction, one of those American legends was nearly expelled.
Future novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne, perhaps best known for “The Scarlett Letter” spent most of his youth traipsing around the family summer home in Raymond, and he spent a great deal of time preparing for the rigid Bowdoin College entrance examinations.
Hawthorne’s uncle, Robert Manning, then sent his nephew to Portland to study under the tutelage of a “stingy old curmudgeon,” Rev. Caleb Bradley of Stroudwater. By August of 1821, Hawthorne had made the cut.
Then, Bowdoin’s campus had only five faculty and just three buildings — Maine Hall, Massachusetts Hall and the Chapel. Winthrop Hall was under construction.
Most students worked long and hard to pass the exams but, once admitted, many later seemed hell-bent to toss it away. Hawthorne appears to have been one of those students.
“I was an idle student, negligent of College rules” and preferred “… to nurse my own fancies.” Undoubtedly, it was not helpful that Moorhead’s Tavern was located at the northwestern corner of the campus, or that a number of “secret societies” existed.
“Mischief … is the constant companion of idleness,” Hawthorne scribed. “I am afraid that my stay here will have an ill effect upon my moral character.”
“Drinking, smoking, and card playing” were three sins Hawthorne rarely avoided, though punishment — if caught — could be harsh.
“I narrowly escaped detection,” Hawthorne wrote. “I have, in a great measure, discontinued the practice of playing cards,” Nathaniel assured his sister, “and [I] mean … to be more careful.”
In his second year, while Brunswick saw a green-up of spring, catastrophe struck. On Monday, March 4 of 1822, at 3 p.m., the loud cry of “Fire!” was heard. Flames and smoke were found coming from “the garret” at Maine Hall, and the conflagration was already “beyond control.”
“Twelve of the students” lost all of their belongings, clothing, furniture, and bedding to the flames. Hundreds of volumes in the “theological library,” and “the whole of the woodwork” of the building’s interior, were lost “by seven that evening.”
“Except having my coat torn,” Hawthorne wrote, “I sustained no damage by it.”
Hawthorne was a “dandy,” a handsome young man who took great care in his appearance. When, Hawthorne received his first watch in his sophomore year, he proudly remarked that he would “cut a great dash” on campus.
Hawthorne was provided a stipend from his uncle, yet he often wrote home asking for more funds. “If I remain in Brunswick, I shall spend all my money,” Hawthorne complained to his sister, and “I have no clothes in which to make a decent appearance.”
Yet, leaving campus seemed more of a priority for Hawthorne, and he was not above conspiring to finagle permission to leave. “You must write me a letter” Hawthorne cautioned his eldest sister, “If you do not, I shall certainly forge a letter” or, “I will leave Brunswick without liberty.”
Monotony appears to have been Hawthorne’s constant nemesis. He and fellow classmate Horatio Bridge spent much time walking the woods of Brunswick, and each enjoyed “lingering for hours” by the river watching “giant pine logs … come to the falls … and plunge into the foamy pool below.”
Bridge wrote of “an old woman” that lived in a run-down shack at “the lower end of town.” She “pretended to be a fortune teller,” and “for nine-pence” Bridge and Hawthorne were often “entertained” by her prognostications.
Yet, it was card playing and drinking at “Ward’s Tavern,” or more likely at Moorhead’s Tavern, which was most preferred.
In May of 1822, a large card game was exposed by college faculty and the result of that discovery left “one student dismissed, two suspended,” and others fined. And this time, Hawthorne did not “escape detection.”
On May 29, College President William Allen fined Nathaniel “50 cents for gaming at cards.” “If I am again detected,” Hawthorne warned his mother, “I shall have the honor of being suspended.”
The only known class (portrait) silhouette of Young Nathaniel Hawthorne at Bowdoin. Courtesy of Bowdoin College archives
Hawthorne was often cited for numerous infractions such as “neglect of themes,” “Excessive walking on the Sabbath Day,” and “absence from recitation.” He may even have been absent from sitting for his own class silhouette (portrait). “Hawthorne disapproved,” explained Horatio Bridge, “he steadily refused to go.”
Yet, despite his trials and tribulations, on Sept. 7 of 1825, Nathaniel Hawthorne graduated from Bowdoin and, though he little considered himself to be a memorable student, his time at Brunswick is not forgotten.
Today, the bookstore Twice-Told Tales, even bears one of Hawthorne’s book-titles and serves to remind us that Nathaniel Hawthorne’s matriculation at Bowdoin, nearly 200 years ago, is one of the best-surviving of our Stories From Maine.
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