Seventeenth Century Freshmen Before Danforth Fined Lightly For Drinking

Just one hundred years before the American Revolution, Thomas Danforth, treasurer of Harvard College and justice of the peace in Cambridge, issued a warrant against three Harvard students, several town men, a soldier, and some of then female friends "to answer respectively for nightwalking and entertainment of such persons, with other inside meanors committed by them contrary to law" notably drinking.

This is the first disciplinary action for intoxication taken by the college, so far as the manuscript, written by Danforth as he presided over the court, is occupied by the testimony of the Harvard men. Whether the Harvard men were summoned first because they were the worst offenders or because Danforth, due to his position as treasurer of the College, wanted to get them out of court as soon as possible, is hard to tell. James Alling, whose age Danforth wrote down as "about 17," was the Freshman in whose rooms the party started. It is interesting to note that in spite of his early difficulties with authority and his drinking habits as a Freshman. Alling managed to graduate number three in the class of 1679. Thomas Barnard, another Freshman, was one behind him as number four in the same class, while the third Harvard man, Thomas Cheever, a Junior at the time of his arrest, held first place when he graduated in 1677.

A party seems to have started in Alling's room on December 29, 1676, when Onosephoeus Stanley, presumably a friend but no in Harvard, "came in to his chamber, sometime in the forenoon and so continued there until 3 or 4 or ye clock in ye afternoon. During which time...they had cider fetch(ed) in by ...Ailing... as he judgeth in all about 3 qts. for which they paid 2d a quart." Barnard, the other Freshman, stopped in to see Alling and "found they had some rum, which they had been drinking of." Another pint was soon required and sent for "which was mixt with water and sugar. They drank it among them but he saw no excess." After this addition was gone, still another pint was secured, making the total for the three boys in the hours between noon and three or four o'clock at least two quarts of hard cider, probably a modification of the modern applejack, and three pints of rum. From here the party must have continued from room to room, for there is the notable addition of some townsmen and several young ladies during the course of the evening.

The testimony of Stanley, who signed with a cross since he, like all the girls and a few of the good burghers of the town, was unable to sign his name, reveals another visit to the College on January 3, with James Alling, the willing Freshman, fetching the pint to be again "mixt with sugar and water." The action of the college seems to have stopped with the slight fine imposed by Danforth in his capacity as justice of the peace. It is due to the investigation made necessary by the more serious scandals concerning the activities of Mary Ruggles, Hannah Arrington, and their accomplices, that we owe these records of seventeenth century Freshmen, their experiments with liquor, and the college's attitude toward it.