Tag Archives: FO+M

Dorm Horse Legend (Jacob Cruger)

Title: Dorm Horse Legend

General Information About this Item:

  • Legend, workplace folklore
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: Informant #3
  • Date Collected: 2/20/2018

Informant Data:

  • FO+M worker, started working for the college over 30 years ago. Has worked in multiple FO+M divisions. Originally from the Upper Valley, the child of a former FO+M employee.

Contextual Data:

  • One of many stories passed to informant by older FO+M employees. Takes place “way before 1975,” between ten to twenty years before the informant started working for the college. The informant was told this story is true. The story describes an experience of a custodian assigned to an undergraduate dorm. The story takes place prior to coeducation, so all of the students involved in the story are male. It also takes place prior to major changes to dorms on campus, which means whoever brought the horse up the stairs didn’t have to deal with obstacles like smoke doors.

Item:

  • A custodian for Wheeler hall walks into the building and hears a clomping sound coming from above him. Goes up to the fourth floor and finds a horse and buggy. Knowing horses will go up stairs but not down stairs, the custodian gathers a group to help him get the horse down the stairs.

Transcript:

  • “Now, I have no proof of this, but here’s one from way way back… he [a custodian for Wheeler Hall] came in and he could hear this ‘clomp clomp clomp, clomp clomp clomp.’ And he goes up to the fourth floor and there’s a horse and buggy. And all he could do is laugh… because he knew the horse would go up the stairs, but it won’t go down the stairs… so he had all the guys get together and get around the horse and they had to blindfold the horse to try to get it down the stairs. I don’t know where the horse actually came from”

Collector’s Comments:

  • This legend reminds me of similar stories I heard growing up, including a story about a student at a local high school student bringing a cow up the stairs of the school and struggling to get it back down. Perhaps large animals being brought into buildings and being unable to get back down stairs is a common practical joke.

Collector’s Name: Jacob Cruger

Tags/Keywords:

  • Legend
  • Narrative Folklore
  • FO+M

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