Class of 1898 reunion photo. Found at the Oberlin College Archives, Oberlin, Ohio.

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Excerpted from the 1899 Hi-O-Hi. One co-ed’s account of the night of December 3, 1897.

“How They Did It”

Oh weren’t they just too perfectly lovely for anything! Our boys, I mean. I think they were regular heroes to stay up all night like that and work so hard down in that nasty hole. I asked Professor Jewett if there was ever another such a class of boys as ours. He said no, and there likely wouldn’t be. I wonder what made him look so funny when he said it. The mean thing! But then he couldn’t have meant that, I know he couldn’t. And it was down so deep in the mud, too, and they had to dig so hard to get it up. Oh, dear! How I wish I could have been there. But I’m only a girl, you know, and couldn’t. All the girls wished they could have been there. One of them kept her head out of the window nearly half the night, listening while the boys were digging. She said that she stopped wishing that she had a man long enough to wish she were a man. But she must have wanted to go awfully, though. But there! I haven’t told a bit about how they did it. Now I’m going to begin right from the beginning and tell all about it. continued