The Lake and Campus Life

Down to the Lake

What history, the yearbooks especially, tell us about student traditions and Seneca Lake.

When the lake in silver morning
Brightly gleams all blue and clear
When the sunshine floods the hillside
Shedding glory far and near
Glad are we that we are with the
Alma Mater ever dear"

— William Smith "Alma Mater"

It wasn’t always easy to connect with Seneca Lake.

"When I was in school there was a trough, almost like a moat, filled with garbage between the railroad tracks and the lake," recalls Ralph DeFelice ‘61. "Even if you tried to get down there you’d fall into a big mucky pit."

In the 1950s, according to Faith Francis Sealy ‘51, "the lake did not have very much to do with us and we didn’t have anything that directed us toward the lake."

With nothing to direct them, however, students have found their own way. Sealy thinks a little and the memories start to flow.

"I remember all the great times we would have at Hobo’s Point, drinking beer and Cokes, and singing songs and smoking cigarettes. It was a place right by the water where we could all go and act smart, just us William Smithers."

The 1953 Pine also includes a mention of "our first official beer party down at Hobo’s Point." So we learn that these things were central to unofficial Seneca Lake traditions of at least one generation: Hobo’s Point, beer.

The Echo and Pine provide some indication that, through the years, students have made use of Seneca Lake. In the 1901 Echo, for example, S.P. McDonald, then the oldest living alumnus, recalled that in his day, "the only athletics were swimming in the lake, wrestling and playing wicketball on the campus."

Athletics, and swimming especially, make a none-too-surprising central thread in the history of student traditions. Consider this woman’s account from the 1915 Pine: "Katherine does not dive but told me the boys often dive from the pier, so I determined to make the attempt. . . . A plunge, the rush of cold water in my ears, the tips of my fingers just grazing the bottom, and I was at the surface again with Kate swimming near. And oh! The exhilaration of it; the fine chill of the water that set the blood a-tingling through our veins, and gave new vigor to our arms, and new strength to our strokes, and made us laugh aloud for the pure joy of living."

Skating is rarer. Today, Seneca Lake is reputed to never freeze over. But C.M. Wiley ‘61 (that’s 1861), in the 1903 Echo, gives credence to contemporary theories of global warming. "Outside of games there was plenty of exercise, however: fine boating, swimming, and, in the winter, glorious skating. I recall an occasion especially when the whole north end . . . was frozen over from the Colleges’ banks to Johnson’s Cove, and far below the point."

That freeze must have wreaked havoc in the mid-19th century, when students also had a very practical relationship with Seneca Lake. "Having no running water in the dormitories, the Hobart students bathed at a private beach on the lake," according to Carol Sisler in Seneca Lake; Past, Present, and Future. Sisler goes on to note "an altercation[that] ensued when the spot was invaded by town boys. Initially driven off by the students, the townies returned with missiles to attack the college."

Back then, Seneca Lake was also a source of local transit. Advertisements in turn-of-the-century yearbooks list the College Book Store as the "City Agent for New York Center lines and for all the lake and ocean steamships." The 1916 Pine has an account of how "the Cabinet of the William Smith Christian Association traveled by portadora down the lake to a cottage lent them by Katherine Gracey ‘14 to do a little planning."

Of course, one travels the lake at one’s own risk, healthwise and sartorially. The 1930 Pine records a September incident where "a canoe turns over and three girls fall in the lake. Drying clothes go up in flames from the bonfire."

While the Lake taketh away, it also giveth. Menus printed in the yearbooks for senior banquets around 1900 feature Seneca lake trout. (More recently, Sally Webster ‘74 recalls an afternoon spent practicing sailing when a local fisherman, who had exceeded his limit for lake trout, hailed her boat, came alongside, and offered a laker. "We took it back, cut it in sections, and cooked it in somebody’s toaster oven in Emerson Hall," she reports.)

A relatively few students have enjoyed living by the lake in summer cottages, just south of Geneva and on the east side. Lakeside living carries a certain cachet even during the coldest months when simply making it to campus could become an ordeal.

Since 1983, when the Colleges installed a plastic floating dock at the foot of the bluffs for the sailing team, and perhaps a little earlier, there seems to have begun an epoch of rediscovery of the lake. In the yearbooks, where senior portraits more likely reflect individualized expression, lake awareness seeps in. In some portraits, the lake is backdrop. In another, students clown beneath the "Lake Trout Capital of the World" sign or gaze contemplatively at the waves.

Lake connections continue to grow. Agayentah’s paddle has returned. New crew and sailing facilities beckon both experienced and would-be water enthusiasts. On any warm afternoon when school is in session, classes are held overlooking the lake. If they’re not in class, some students may be found rollerblading along bike paths near the new Ramada Inn.

We’re told that students today, in those few months the waters are bearable, wend down the steep path to the dock. Nearby are the favorite wading/swimming spots of today. In other months, it’s sometimes possible to locate a cadre of HWSers zipping through the waters of no more than 40 degrees — in their wetsuits, in conditions their ancestors could not have braved.

The Colleges’ grounds-keeping staff periodically cuts back the fast growing sumac trees that would obscure the dramatic view from the bluffs. Even in the coldest months, people stop, sit, and think on benches that overlook the lake on South Main Street.

If they want to, and generally they can’t help it, students will find their own way to the lake. — P.R.

The Seneca Lake series was researched and written by Dana Cooke and Peter Rolph '85 — writer/editors in the Office of College Relations. Portions of the series also appear in the Fall '97 issue of The Pulteney St. Survey. To request a copy, e-mail Susan Murad at murad@hws.edu.