The Farm in the Green Mountains

by Alice Herdan-Zuckmayer

  If the good Doctor Wheelock, they tell, had wanted a quiet place for his college, a place far distant from the temptations of the populous cities, he could scarcely have found a quieter or more remote one.

  Three weeks later a blockhouse stood on the cleared land, twenty feet square, with windows of isinglass and waxed paper, and the men began to prepare quarters for the students. In the middle of September, six weeks after Mr. Wheelock’s departure, Mrs. Wheelock started off.

  She rode in the lordly state carriage which had been given her by the English merchant; it was drawn by two disgruntled, panting horses.

  Behind the coach came the oxcart, loaded with a barrel of salt pork, a half barrel of sugar, wine, tobacco, pipes, and other provisions, but above all with the fabled keg of rum.

  In her train marched the four Negro slaves of the Wheelock family: Exeter, Brister, Chloe, and Peggy. Behind them came a cow that belonged to Brister, who had stubbornly refused to go without Peggy and the cow even though it was highly questionable whether there would be enough feed for the cow.

  Behind them came thirty students, Indian and white. Horses, oxen, and men trotted, plodded, and stumbled along the bumpy, almost impassable road. It must have taken not a little effort to keep the kegs from rolling off the oxcart, to say nothing of Mrs. Wheelock, who was shaken, jolted, rattled, and thrown about in her state carriage like a sailor in a storm on the high seas.

  The caravan could only cover a few miles a day. At the beginning of their trip a messenger came riding to meet them, a teacher sent by Mr. Wheelock, who urged them to turn back at once. A shortage of water had occurred, and Mr. Wheelock had to find new springs before he could prepare comfortable lodgings for Mrs. Wheelock and the students.

  Water or no water, Mrs. Wheelock could not be persuaded to turn back, and nothing in the world could stop her from traveling on. So, for the disappointed messenger, who had ridden night and day and had a special dispensation in his pocket that stated that he might proceed even on the Sabbath, there remained nothing to do but to turn his horse and accompany the slow procession on its weary way through the wilderness.

  The arrival of the caravan meant for Mr. Wheelock and his helpers complete confusion and the upsetting of all plans. But since in every mishap, accident, or good fortune he saw the hand of the Lord, he did not despair.

  He quartered his wife and the female members of the train in the finished blockhouse without water, and built, with the help of the Indians, temporary shelters for himself, his sons, the servants, and the students. When soon after that a new group of students and teachers arrived from Boston, the situation became even worse. A teacher gave the following description of their circumstances:

  It was near the close of the day. There was scanty room in the Doctor’s shanty for the shelter of those who were on the ground, and none for us who had just arrived. All constructed for a temporary residence a tent of crotched stakes and poles covered with boughs. It was soon ready, and we camped down wrapped in our blankets, and for a time slept very comfortably. During the night, however, a storm arose of high wind and pelting rain. Our tent came down and buried us in its ruins. After mutual inquiry, we found no one injured, and as the storm raged without abated fury, we resolved to abide the issue as we were, and wait for the day. When fair weather returned, we made more substantial booths for our protection till better accommodations could be provided.

  By the beginning of the winter there were two blockhouses. One housed the classrooms and the Wheelock family. The other, which was larger and more comfortable, was inhabited by the servants and the cow. Around them huts were built for the students. The roof of the college building was not quite finished when the first snow fell.

  In this first winter they were often hungry. The most important staples had to be brought sixty miles through snow and mud on bad roads, or be towed in from landings on the river, over waterfalls, cliffs, and through the dense forest. Some students left that winter, but most remained and studied.

  During the next spring a large house with two stories was built. It had a hall, a kitchen, and sixteen rooms for the students. A barn was added, a wash house and a cook house, and on the newly cleared land cultivation was begun.

  In the summer of 1771—after one year—the place in the primeval forest looked like a university town.

  In this first summer of its existence the university held its first final examinations and its first graduation. It was a great occasion.

  Governor Wentworth came with sixty gentlemen and brought a silver punchbowl with the necessary rum for it. In addition, he contributed an ox, which was roasted on a spit. The rum flowed in rivers.

  Only a so immovably God-fearing man as Mr. Wheelock could have withstood this day of the highest fulfillment of his dreams and of his deepest despair.

  You see, Mrs. Wheelock was sick and in bed when the guests arrived, and the cook used this excuse to drink himself unconscious. So Mr. Wheelock had to help in the kitchen himself to prepare the meal for the illustrious guests. He also had to apologize because the college had only one tablecloth that had been given by a charitable lady in Connecticut, and the lack of tablecloths had been taken especially amiss by the farmers and villagers, who apparently felt that it was degrading. All in all, in spite of this, the celebration was remarkably successful.

  The first four students were graduated as bachelors of liberal arts. The program was as follows:

  1. An introductory speech about virtues in English, followed by a hymn.

  2. A speech about history, delivered in Latin.

  3. A disputation in logic, in which a student had to address the question: Can true knowledge of nature be received by divine inspiration? This question was argued by three students.

  4. A farewell address in Latin, with a closing hymn that had been composed by the students themselves.

  The conclusion was said to be so moving that many of the listeners burst into tears, although up to this point no rum had yet been served from the silver bowl.

  The students gave their speeches and disputations from a platform built of rough tree trunks and reached by a plank of unplaned pine.

  One of the students, an Indian, refused to use this stage, but climbed to a wide branch of a tall pine and gave his speech from up there with an Indian accent. The first college year ended under a lucky star, so that Mr. Wheelock could send a prospectus for the next year, in which among other things stood: “The Rev. Dr. Wheelock, through the surprising smiles of Heaven upon his unwearied endeavors, has now so nearly effected his great and arduous undertaking to settle and accommodate his Indian school and college in a howling wilderness that he has the fairest prospect in a little time to be able to support an hundred Indian and English youths.”

  In spite of this success, the school in the wilderness still had many dangers to overcome.

  The source of money in England was drying up; the students revolted against the bad food; parents wrote threatening letters about moldy bread, rotten potatoes, and stinking meat. Mr. Wheelock’s cooks were a test of his endurance. They stole and had an unquenchable thirst for rum. The greatest thorns in his flesh, however, were the taverns which had sprung up in the town around the college.

  It was strictly forbidden for the students to go into the taverns, but they did so anyway, and from that situation came the following dialogue, so terribly painful for Mr. Wheelock, which has been preserved for us.

  A student stood before Mr. Wheelock.

  “Ah, Miles!” Mr. Wheelock is supposed to have said, and this was set down by that same Miles word for word. “Ah, Miles! it is you. But where is your chum? I sent for him; why does he not come?” “Sir, he is not able to come.” “But he can walk, can he not?” “Sir, he cannot stand upon his feet.” “Indeed, then he is badly done up. This is a miserable affair. That tavern is a nuisance. But can you tell me, Miles, whether my sons Eleazar and James were there?” “Sir, I understand that they were.” “Ah! I suspected it. Bad boys of mine! I have some
hopes of James yet; but as to Eleazar he will be damned, I believe.”

  In spite of all these hard trials and challenges, Dartmouth College prospered.

  Two years after its founding it had fifty students, among them six Indians. After four years it already had a hundred students, with twenty-one Indians among them, and in the next year it was praised in Connecticut as the best college on the continent.

  Then came Canadian Indians, who were much more difficult to tame than the tribes with which Wheelock was used to dealing. They came and went, turned up and disappeared into the woods again when civilization was too much for them. They disturbed the other students with continuous, shrill howling and by following their inclination for “large beer,” as they called it.

  Then came a hazardous epoch for the young college: the War of Independence.

  The college owed its existence to English money, and its subscribers and protectors were Englishmen. But Mr. Wheelock did not hesitate for a moment and wrote to his English sponsor Thornton— the rich merchant who had given him the state carriage—a letter that stirred the Englishman to a towering fury, but which set Mr. Wheelock in a place of high honor in the history of Dartmouth:

  I believe there never was a more dutiful, loyal, and well-affected people to Government than has ever been in these colonies till the Stamp Act. And the colonies have ever been propense to peace and reconciliation till those horrid murders and savage butcheries, so inhumanly committed under pretence of reducing rebels to obedience. The wringing of the nose bringeth forth blood. Our liberties were dearly bought, and we have tasted the sweetness of them, and esteem them our birthright; and perhaps his Majesty will find they will not be given up so tamely as he imagines. The colonies seem to be determined they will not be slaves.

  Wheelock’s sons and a few students fought in Washington’s army, but otherwise the college suffered little from the war, and studies and graduations went on undisturbed.

  Many Indian students disappeared and did not come back and probably fought with their tribes. However, the college had no Indian attacks to endure, although Royalton in Vermont, a place that lies scarcely fifteen miles distant from the college, was at this time plundered, burned, and robbed, and the women and children were murdered, scalped, or carried away into captivity.

  This Royalton, a half hour from Dartmouth College by car, is still today an uncanny place whose deathly stillness and gloominess make one think of ghosts even at bright noonday.

  The Indians spared the college, and the war spared it, since it lay outside the war zone. In addition, Lord Dartmouth had brought the college especially to the attention of the British General Howe and his brother Admiral Howe and had specially urged them to spare it.

  The attack at Bunker Hill on June 16, 1775, was heard in peaceful Dartmouth in an unusual way.

  In Wheelock’s diary is found the entry: “June 16—The noise of cannon supposed to be at Boston, was heard all day. 17th—The same reports of cannon. We wait with impatience to hear the occasion and the event.”

  Boston lies three and a half hours from Dartmouth College by express train, but Wheelock’s entries were surely not added at a later time.

  The thunder of the cannons was heard.

  It was heard by one of the Indian students, named Daniel Simons, who lay on the ground and pressed his ear to the earth.

  There is much more that could be told about the history of Dartmouth, about the famous men who studied there, about its destinies and battles, about its part in the Civil War—up to the present day, when it is one of the best and, I think, one of the loveliest universities in the country.

  At last report it had 3,200 students.

  There are no more Indians. The last Indian student, a Sioux, graduated in 1891 and became a famous doctor and author.

  There is no more wilderness, and everything is well arranged, prosperous, comfortable, and secure.

  But still today Mr. Wheelock sits with his raised index finger in the weathervane high above everything. It is the same Mr. Wheelock of whom they say that when he loved someone, he kept his trust forever, and those whom he did not love he hated like the devil. That is Mr. Wheelock, who, when he was sick and tired, longed for a small pension that would enable him to have some coffee, chocolate, tea, and a small glass of wine, but who nevertheless taught until the hour of his death and died standing.

  It is Mr. Wheelock, on whose gravestone is written:

  By the Gospel he subdued the ferocity of the savage;

  And to the civilized he opened new paths of science.

  Traveller,

  Go, if you can, and deserve

  The sublime reward of such merit.

  THE JOURNEY TO AMERICA

  In August 1946 we received the news that Zuck was to begin his government service.

  He worked for two months in an office in New York, a branch of the War Department.

  Some weekends he spent on the farm, visits that were like military leaves.

  We didn’t know when he would be sent to Europe. Every visit at the farm could be the last before he was sent over.

  We began to say goodbye.

  We had been on the farm for five years, and there were many things to consider, practical decisions to make, preparations to take care of.

  The house was winterized as usual. We didn’t sell the animals, but gave them to a reliable farmer who would keep, shelter, and feed them until our return.

  Zuck had signed up for only one year. During this time I was to travel to Europe, first of all to Switzerland. Michi was married and living in the South. Winnetou was studying in California. I could not stay on the farm alone.

  So my trip to Europe was my next problem, especially since Zuck’s play, which he had somehow managed to finish in the rare pauses during three years of farm work, was to be presented on the stage in Zurich. We agreed that we would all meet again on the farm after a year, but we felt in our bones that it was a final leave-taking.

  We felt like Sinbad the Sailor, Gulliver, or the first rocket travelers to Mars.

  We imagined the destruction and the terrible conditions over there. We were set to find fewer of our friends and to meet and be strangers, and we had no false illusions.

  At the beginning of November, Zuck was suddenly called and sent by airplane to Berlin.

  At the end of November I embarked for Holland. It was very difficult to get a berth on a ship, but as luck would have it, I found a place on a Dutch ship that was the sister ship of the one that brought us to America seven years earlier. That one had been sunk by the Japanese, but the surviving sister ship was so like it that I could find my way around immediately, and in a strange way the crossing resembled the one of seven years before. I set out from our landing place in Hoboken, and I arrived at Rotterdam, our earlier point of departure.

  It was a slow ship that took nine days to cross. On five different evenings a notice appeared, written with white chalk on the blackboard: “Today at midnight the clock will be set ahead one hour.”

  The crossing was rather quiet. The ship hammered its way through the water like one of the great plows that tear up the ground in the endless cornfields of the Midwest.

  We put thousands of miles behind us and became accustomed to setting the clock and impressing the new time on our minds.

  One night I woke up frightened by the stillness. The hammering of the engines had stopped. I saw lights through the cabin porthole. We were in port.

  In Rotterdam I saw the first bombed-out houses. Brownish grass grew over the places where the earth had been leveled. There for the first time, too, I saw hunger in the eyes, faces, and skin of the people.

  I stayed for a few days with friends in Amsterdam.

  That was a proper introduction to later experiences. My Dutch friends had suffered much, but had with difficulty resisted and survived.

  Their house had not been damaged, and they had not been injured.

  I remembered them as people of unusual beauty, a beauty the
y showed in every word and movement. They were like pictures that one would like to see again unchanged.

  Since it was not a question of separation in the usual sense in these years, we had unconsciously put our memories away in safe places and protected them from our feelings because we had to. The pictures, images, and mementos of our friends had been walled into deep vaults which were later sometimes buried under rubble or lava.

  Now the first excavated figures stood before me, the first friends seen after they were brought back to the light. They were undamaged and unchanged. At the most they had a little mortar in one ear, a few grains of sand in the corner of an eye, a small bit of cement in the corner of a mouth.

  But nothing was crumbled, nothing had been broken, and the patina of the weathering process they had endured had only heightened their fragile attractiveness.

  On December 5, 1946, I arrived at the Swiss border.

  At that time American citizens needed not only a visa, but also a valid reason for visiting Switzerland to enter the country.

  I had given as the true and important reason for my visit that I was to attend the world premiere of Zuck’s new play. I had, however, not inspected my passport, nor looked more closely at the Swiss visa. It was only when I saw the expression on the face of the customs official that I realized that something might not be in order. He went through the whole passport, studying every page. Finally he brought the page with the Swiss visa up quite close to his glasses, and then looked at me questioningly. He read it again, shaking his head. Finally he stamped the page and gave the passport back to me.

  On that page, under “Reason for Travel,” stood in neat handwriting “Des Teufels General” (The Devil’s General).

  The premiere performance of Des Teufels General took place a week later.