WRESTLING-MATCH. At Harvard College, it was formerly the custom, on the first Monday of the term succeeding the Commencement vacation, for the Sophomores to challenge the Freshmen who had just entered College to a wrestling-match. A writer in the New England Magazine, 1832, in an article entitled "Harvard College Forty Years Ago," remarks as follows on this subject: "Another custom, not enjoined by the government, had been in vogue from time immemorial. That was for the Sophomores to challenge the Freshmen to a wrestling-match. If the Sophomores were thrown, the Juniors gave a similar challenge. If these were conquered, the Seniors entered the lists, or treated the victors to as much wine, punch, &c. as they chose to drink. In my class, there were few who had either taste, skill, or bodily strength for this exercise, so that we were easily laid on our backs, and the Sophomores were acknowledged our superiors, in so far as 'brute force' was concerned. Being disgusted with these customs, we held a class-meeting, early in our first quarter, and voted unanimously that we should never send a Freshman on an errand; and, with but one dissenting voice, that we would not challenge the next class that should enter to wrestle. When the latter vote was passed, our moderator, pointing at the dissenting individual with the finger of scorn, declared it to be a vote, nemine contradicente. We commenced Sophomores, another Freshman Class entered, the Juniors challenged them, and were thrown. The Seniors invited them to a treat, and these barbarous customs were soon after abolished."—Vol. III. p. 239.
The Freshman Class above referred to, as superior to the Junior, was the one which graduated in 1796, of which Mr. Thomas Mason, surnamed "the College Lion," was a member,—"said," remarks Mr. Buckingham, "to be the greatest wrestler that was ever in College. He was settled as a clergyman at Northfield, Mass., resigned his office some years after, and several times represented that town in the Legislature of Massachusetts." Charles Prentiss, the wit of the Class of '95, in a will written on his departure from college life, addresses Mason as follows:—
"Item. Tom M——n, COLLEGE LION,
Who'd ne'er spend cash enough to buy one,
The BOANERGES of a pun,
A man of science and of fun,
That quite uncommon witty elf,
Who darts his bolts and shoots himself,
Who oft has bled beneath my jokes,
I give my old tobacco-box."
Buckingham's Reminiscences, Vol. II. p. 271.
The fame which Mr. Mason had acquired while in College for bodily strength and skill in wrestling, did not desert him after he left. While settled as a minister at Northfield, a party of young men from Vermont challenged the young men of that town to a bout at wrestling. The challenge was accepted, and on a given day the two parties assembled at Northfield. After several rounds, when it began to appear that the Vermonters were gaining the advantage, a proposal was made, by some who had heard of Mr. Mason's exploits, that he should be requested to take part in the contest. It had now grown late, and the minister, who usually retired early, had already betaken himself to bed. Being informed of the request of the wrestlers, for a long time he refused to go, alleging as reasons his ministerial capacity, the force of example, &c. Finding these excuses of no avail, he finally arose, dressed himself, and repaired to the scene of action. Shouts greeted him on his arrival, and he found himself on the wrestling-field, as he had stood years ago at Cambridge. The champion of the Vermonters came forward, flushed with his former victories. After playing around him for some time, Mr. Mason finally threw him. Having by this time collected his ideas of the game, when another antagonist appeared, tripping up his heels with perfect ease, he suddenly twitched him off his centre and laid him on his back. Victory was declared in favor of Northfield, and the good minister was borne home in triumph.
Similar to these statements are those of Professor Sidney Willard relative to the same subject, contained in his late work entitled "Memories of Youth and Manhood." Speaking of the observances in vogue at Harvard College in the year 1794, he says:—"Next to being indoctrinated in the Customs, so called, by the Sophomore Class, there followed the usual annual exhibition of the athletic contest between that class and the Freshman Class, namely, the wrestling-match. On some day of the second week in the term, after evening prayers, the two classes assembled on the play-ground and formed an extended circle, from which a stripling of the Sophomore Class advanced into the area, and, in terms justifying the vulgar use of the derivative word Sophomorical, defied his competitors, in the name of his associates, to enter the lists. He was matched by an equal in stature, from that part of the circle formed by the new-comers. Beginning with these puny athletes, as one and another was prostrated on either side, the contest advanced through the intermediate gradations of strength and skill, with increasing excitement of the parties and spectators, until it reached its summit by the struggle of the champion or coryphæus in reserve on each of the opposite sides. I cannot now affirm with certainty the result of the contest; whether it was a drawn battle, whether it ended with the day, or was postponed for another trial. It probably ended in the defeat of the younger party, for there were more and mightier men among their opponents. Had we been victorious, it would have behooved us, according to established precedents, to challenge the Junior Class, which was not done. Such a result, if it had taken place, could not fade from the memory of the victors; while failure, on the contrary, being an issue to be looked for, would soon be dismissed from the thoughts of the vanquished. Instances had occurred of the triumph of the Freshman Class, and one of them recent, when a challenge in due form was sent to the Juniors, who, thinking the contest too doubtful, wisely resolved to let the victors rejoice in their laurels already won; and, declining to meet them in the gymnasium, invited them to a sumptuous feast instead.
"Wrestling was, at an after period, I cannot say in what year, superseded by football; a grovelling and inglorious game in comparison. Wrestling is an art; success in the exercise depends not on mere bodily strength. It had, at the time of which I have spoken, its well-known and acknowledged technical rules, and any violation of them, alleged against one who had prostrated his adversary, became a matter of inquiry. If it was found that the act was not achieved secundum artem, it was void, and might be followed by another trial."—Vol. I. pp. 260, 261.
Remarks on this subject are continued in another part of the work from which the above extract is made, and the story of Thomas Mason is related, with a few variations from the generally received version. "Wrestling," says Professor Willard, "was reduced to an art, which had its technical terms for the movement of the limbs, and the manner of using them adroitly, with the skill acquired by practice in applying muscular force at the right time and in the right degree. Success in the art, therefore, depended partly on skill; and a violation of the rules of the contest vitiated any apparent triumph gained by mere physical strength. There were traditionary accounts of some of our predecessors who were commemorated as among the coryphæi of wrestlers; a renown that was not then looked upon with contempt. The art of wrestling was not then confined to the literary gymnasium. It was practised in every rustic village. There were even migrating braves and Hectors, who, in their wanderings from their places of abode to villages more or less distant, defied the chiefest of this order of gymnasts to enter the lists. In a country town of Massachusetts remote from the capital, one of these wanderers appeared about half a century since, and issued a general challenge against the foremost wrestlers. The clergyman of the town, a son of Harvard, whose fame in this particular had travelled from the academic to the rustic green, was apprised of the challenge, and complied with the solicitation of some of his young parishioners to accept it in their behalf. His triumph over the challenger was completed without agony or delay, and having prostrated him often enough to convince him of his folly, he threw him over the stone wall, and gravely admonished him against repeating his visit, and disturbing the peace of his parish."—Vol. I. p. 315.
The peculiarities of Thomas Mason were his most noticeable characteristics. As an orator, his eloquence was of the ore rotundo order; as a writer, his periods were singularly Johnsonian. He closed his ministerial labors in Northfield, February 28, 1830, on which occasion he delivered a farewell discourse, taking for his text, the words of Paul to Timothy: "The time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness."
As a specimen of his style of writing, the following passages are presented, taken from this discourse:—"Time, which forms the scene of all human enterprise, solicitude, toil, and improvement, and which fixes the limitations of all human pleasures and sufferings, has at length conducted us to the termination of our long-protracted alliance. An assignment of the reasons of this measure must open a field too extended and too diversified for our present survey. Nor could a development of the whole be any way interesting to us, to whom alone this address is now submitted. Suffice it to say, that in the lively exercise of mutual and unimpaired friendship and confidence, the contracting parties, after sober, continued, and unimpassioned deliberation, have yielded to existing circumstances, as a problematical expedient of social blessing."
After commenting upon the declaration of Paul, he continued: "The Apostle proceeds, 'I have fought a good fight' Would to God I could say the same! Let me say, however, without the fear of contradiction, 'I have fought a fight!' How far it has been 'good,' I forbear to decide." His summing up was this: "You see, my hearers, all I can say, in common with the Apostle in the text, is this: 'The time of my departure is at hand,'—and, 'I have finished my course.'"