On January 19, 1843 future Vermont Supreme Court judge James Barrett ‘38 checked into room number two at the Dartmouth Hotel, a precursor to the Hanover Inn located on the same corner from 1813 to 1887. James Barrett was at the beginning of his law career at the time, practicing as a partner in the law firm of Charles Marsh, a former congressman, Dartmouth Trustee, and prominent lawyer in the landmark Trustees of Dartmouth College vs Woodward (1819) case. In 1843 he became a partner in the law firm of James Collamer, a prominent Boston lawyer who would go on to serve as an anti-Slavery Republican senator for Vermont. Barrett’s career led him to the highest bench in Vermont, where he served in the Vermont Supreme Court for more than 20 years.
Original Handwriting poem | Source: the Rauner Library
While we can only speculate on why James Barrett was in Hanover on that Thursday in January 1843, the recent Dartmouth graduate no doubt had friends, acquaintances, and associates in town that might have precipitated the visit. We were excited to discover a small trove of Barrett’s papers and correspondence in Dartmouth College’s Rauner Library and found an item of particular interest which we (at our own peril…) have undertaken to transcribe for you today: a lyric poem titled Bones!!. Barrett penned the verses in 1840, two years after his graduation from Dartmouth, and it seems to recount a college prank involving a canon and a weary college president, referred to here as Bones. Although the poem is merciless to poor old Bones (also referred to as Prex, 19th century slang for a college president), it should be noted that Barrett set the poem to the tune Malbrough s’en va-t-en guerre, a melody that was popularly performed as He’s a Jolly Good Fellow in the mid-19th century, possibly as a hint of unspoken mercy. One can imagine the young alumnus leading a rousing chorus of the song in a room full of other members of the class of ‘38, perhaps at the bar of the Dartmouth Hotel, which burned in 1887 and was replaced by the building that would eventually be called the Hanover Inn. At press time, the identity of Bones is still unconfirmed, but assumed to be Nathan Lord, president of the college from 1828 - 1863. Barrett went on to serve as president of the Dartmouth Alumni Association and two terms in the Vermont State Senate before ascending to the Vermont Supreme Court.
James Barrett Portrait
Without further ado, we give you: Bones!!
Come listen to me for a minute
A song I am going to begin it,
There is something serious in it
‘Tis all about old Bones!
REFRAIN:
B-O-N-E-S, Bones!
There’s nothing like unto bones!
If you’re fond of something to laugh at
And don’t love a thing that is half fat
I hope you’re not such a calf that
You will not laugh at Bones!
And for sophomore classes
That are fond of breaking glasses
And playing with the lasses,
There is nothing like unto Bones!
REFRAIN
Just come to Dartmouth Station
If you want an education
Tho your head’s like a bull of the Bashan
They’ll beat it in with Bones.
One midnight that we knows on
Bones lay on his bed with his clothes on
When a thundering gun’s explosion
Startled his dandy bones.
REFRAIN
He heard the glass a shattering
And the window blinds a clattering
And he thought the Devil a battering
Had come for his bag of Bones.
He thought the cannon resounding
Was the final trump asounding
So off from his bedstead bounding
He fell on his marrow Bones.
REFRAIN
To the lord he began to groan
“If the Sophs don’t leave me alone
The devil a bit of a bone
Shall I have left of my own”
In his dread of going to [illegible]
He thought of the word of the prophet
And prayed to the lord if he saw fit
That these dry bones may live.
REFRAIN
His blood-high lips were quivering
His long lean shanks were shivering
Awaiting the lord’s delivering
His aching quaking bones.
The lord soon came to assist him
Bones jumped up and kissed him
“Where’s the chap?” “I’ve missed him.”
“The devil you have!” says Bones
To puppy the Prex did whistle:
Let your back all bristle
For the Sophs have frightened the gristle
All off from our old Bones.
Tho puppy his clothes did claw on
“If I could get my paw on
I’d have him a walk to gnaw on
For bothering our dear old Bones”
Prex thought they could not fail,
For puppy was good on a trail,
Like a kitten after her tail,
He ran about after Bones.
The Prex in vain went walking,
At every room a knocking
And sniffing at every stocking
“Hast a powder smell?” Says Bones.
REFRAIN
They each caught up in a boot
To find what one would suit
The tracks of the fellow’s foot
Who had routed out dry Bones
They hunted all about
And made a furious rout
But could not find them out
Which sorely grieved old Bones.
And now the call is ended
And all the windows mended
Yet not one was pretended
To mend the broken bones.
Though he may bind with leather
His broken bones together
Yet some think tar and feathers
The only cure for Bones!
If you’re fond of something to laugh at
And don’t love a thing that is half fat
I hope you’re not such a calf that
You will not laugh at Bones!
