THE TOPOGRAPHY OF WALNUT HILL"

During the past year our college world has been interested in the changes that have taken place gradually in the neighborhood of Robinson Hall. The ground has been graded, and seeded, Lombardy poplars have been set out, and a sidewalk with granite curbstones has appeared, running along College Avenue from Boston Avenue to Professors Row. Within the year, too, Professors Row has been "accepted" by the city of Somerville and ́macadamized, and a new concrete sidewalk has been laid. Talbot Avenue has received, none too graciously it must be admitted, two rows of young elm trees, which we may expect will some day shade another Professors Row.

These undertakings, though not of great extent, any of them, have, nevertheless, added considerably to the attractiveness of College Hill. But last year was not exceptional in this respect, for hardly a year passes that does not sce some change for the better, either in grounds or buildings-often in both.

It follows, then, that this hill of ours must have been very unlike what it is now, forty-five or fifty years ago. Nor can

we restore the past by removing buildings, one by one, or by uprooting trees, here and there, and reducing others to saplings. The view of Tufts College in 1860, reproduced herewith from the History of Tufts College published by the class of 1897, makes that evident enough.

At that early day nothing of any consequence had been done to change for better or for worse the form of Mr. Tufts' barren hill. College Avenue was not constructed until 1862, and it was not reconstructed in this vicinity until 1900, when the raw edges of the cut across the hill were trimmed off, carted away, and made into a lawn for Dr. Bolles. The Reservoir, according to the History of Tufts College, dates from 1866.

Of the original eastern slope there still remain a few square rods near Robinson Hall, occupied by some decrepit apple trees, the sign throughout New England of an abandoned farm. These trees, which are the remnants of a considerable orchard, are said to have been seventy-five years old when Ballou Hall was built, and doubtless they figure in the "view" mentioned above.

North of the Reservoir there is a much larger portion of Walnut Hill (so-called "for lack of walnuts") that we may suppose looks about as it did in the days of President Ballou.

Having given these known quantities, it is not difficult to imagine the main features of the round-topped hill, whose highest point was where the Reservoir is now. We are indebted to the Reservoir, however, not only for a fine promenade but for several feet of elevation above that highest point.

It should be said in this connection that Mr. Tufts' pasture was very uneven in contour, as compared with our College Hill. The Quadrangle formerly had a hump four or five feet high, between Ballou and West Hall, and numerous small hollows in various places were filled long ago, notably one in the neighborhood of President Ballou's house. So much soil was dumped around some of the trees that it was feared they would die.

*

Prophetic, besides being almost supernatural, was the spring at the very top of the hill, which served the public as well, perhaps, as the fountain does at the present day. That public at first was largely what we are pleased to call the student body," and it made its home in Ballou Hall. The greater part of the student body soon moved, either into the brick dormitory which has been called Hall B, West Hall, and Middle Hall, and for the time being is known as the Library, or into a wooden building accommodating twelve students that occupied the present site of West Hall.

*This spring is certified by affirmation of several leading citizens.

For several years (until the death of Professor Keen, in 1864) Professor Keen and Dr. Schneider both lived in the wooden building. Dr. Schneider has never moved out of it, though the house itself came down to Professors Row in 1870.

Besides these three buildings there was another, the barn, standing behind the dormitory. Here both horses and cows were kept, for it must be explained that board was furnished at first, and the tables were supplied with milk and vegetables from the college farm.

Dr. Ballou lived in the house now occupied by Professor Lewis, which then stood inside the college yard, nearly opposite the Zeta Psi house. Two sides of the rectangular lot are indicated by rows of elms, including those threatened by the grading operations already mentioned, while a cherry tree shows where the garden was.

I cannot ask the reader to believe that this identical tree stood in the President's yard. Its location is not questioned, but it looks hardly old enough. Moreover, it bears very bad cherries, it is said.

Toward the end of Dr. Ballou's administration Professor Marshall and Professor Tweed built the first houses on Professors Row, thus increasing from five to seven the total number of buildings erected at Tufts College from 1853 to 1862. Professor Tweed's house soon passed into the hands of Professor Dearborn, who lived in it from 1864 to the time of his death.

These houses mark the end of the era of paths and cart-roads and the beginning of the day of permanent streets. People came across the pastures to the first Commencement, and for several years all avenues of approach were private ways, hard to travel if not dangerous. The first road came up from Somerville and, passing not far from the site of President Capen's house, climbed the eastern shoulder of the hill-just where it is impossible to tell, as all traces of it have been obliterated.