Tag: the boulder

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Stories In Focus

The Boulder Rolls Back into Production in 2020

The Boulder is back. A lot of students and newer professors may find themselves asking, What’s the Boulder? The Boulder is Houghton’s yearbook, which came out almost every year for nearly a century. In 2019, the book simply wasn’t finished. 

This year, the Boulder is back on, and we, the yearbook staff, are very excited to announce that things are going well. Our yearbook has had a rough last few years, and it’s very odd being editor-in-chief of a yearbook that many students don’t even know exists. Often, I’ll say I’m on the yearbook staff, and I’m met with a blank look, and “We have a yearbook?” This makes sense, I suppose, given that my class (’21) is the only one left on campus that has had a yearbook while we’ve been students here. 

However, the project has many supporters. “I’m really pleased to see the Boulder being revived again!” says library staff member Michael Green (’17). “The Houghton yearbook has had such a long history, and it’s great to know that tradition will continue.  The 2020-21 book in particular will be a very valuable resource for future generations of students trying to find out what Houghton was like during this unique year. I know from creating my year’s book how monumental the task of putting everything together can be, so I’m really excited to see what this year’s staff comes up with.” Green was editor of the Boulder in 2017.

It’s worth noting that the yearbook’s name comes from the memorial boulder placed near the entrance to campus, across from Fancher and next to the Houghton sign. It stands to mark the grave of Copperhead, a Seneca man who returned to live in Houghton after his people were forced off the land. He died in 1864 after a tragic fire that burned his cabin down, and was buried in a spot of his choosing by the creek, on private land where the gazebo behind Gillette now stands. However, by the 1910’s, his grave was beginning to erode. Houghton students advocated in the Star for his remains to be moved up to campus and the new grave marked in a permanent way, so his body wouldn’t be washed away. His remains were reinterred in 1914; the boulder itself was placed the following  year. [Editor’s note: this story was covered in even more depth in a column last spring. Check that out here!]

In 1924, the yearbook was founded, and The Boulder was chosen as its name. An announcement in the STAR that year reads, “The Boulder!” Doesn’t that sound solid? That is to be the name of our annual, and we propose to make it lasting, like the boulder which is one of the dear landmarks of Houghton.” The name commemorated both Copperhead and Henry R. Smith, Jr., a deceased professor of English literature, who had headed the project to reinter Copperhead’s body. The first volume of the Boulder is dedicated to him. 

A photo from the first volume of The Boulder, of the staff who worked to put it together.

“We are dedicated to creating a yearbook that will creatively memorialize this strange year,” says Frances Mullen (’23). In her role as Design Editor, she created the new logo, and will be the primary force behind the book’s design and overall look. “I love photography and design because it is so soothing, and bad design/layout makes me crazy,” she says. Now a political science major, Mullen was part of an art and design program at her high school and so has a lot of experience in that department. 

Business Manager Mary Vandenbosch (’23) got involved because she enjoyed yearbook in high school. She’s helping out with photography, but she is also the treasurer, the contact person for the printer, and will be the person in charge of selling the book once it’s been put together. “My role is to help promote the book to the Houghton community. I’m really excited for student engagement in this; it’s such a great historical record.” 

A senior writing major with an intense interest in history, I started advocating for the yearbook’s return a year ago, when I discovered the 2019 volume was never finished. I was a volunteer in the college archives my sophomore year and a bit last fall, just before the former archivist, Laura Habecker, left for a job at the college archives of the New York State College of Ceramics, at Alfred University. She is now also the Town Historian of Caneadea. It was Laura who first told me about the yearbook’s abandonment, and encouraged me to bring it back to life. The yearbooks are a rich record of Houghton history we didn’t want to see go.

Supporting Boulder staff include Elise Koelbl (’22), and Vanessa Bray (’21). Both writing majors, Koelbl is taking pictures for the book, and Bray, who originally volunteered to help write captions and event descriptions, is currently helping schedule photography appointments with faculty and staff. Anyone who would like to support the yearbook staff, primarily in the area of photography and assisting with layout, can still reach out. Vandenbosch adds, “The Boulder is a great opportunity for students to get involved, and we would love to see you join us.”

What do you think of The Boulder’s return? Excited? Still puzzled? Comment below or get in touch with us via Instagram, Twitter, or email (editor@houghtonstar.com)!

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Columns

Ever Wonder… The Story Behind Houghton’s Boulder?

Lost in the clouded annals of history is the story of the Houghton Boulder. 

As people on campus will recall, The Boulder is the name of the currently defunct college yearbook. What many people do not know is that the name of The Boulder was inspired by a real & historical boulder located on campus.

For many new incoming students, the answer seems clear as to which boulder this is. The boulder by the Gillette Dorm of course! It’s the most iconic rock on campus. But this is not the case. The Gillette Boulder has only been on campus since the spring of 2008 and was donated by the outgoing class of that year. Furthermore, when the Gillette Boulder was initially installed on campus it was met with a wide amount of criticism.

Marc Smithers (‘08), the Dean of Students, was a part of the class that donated the Gillette boulder. He explained, “The class of 2009, which my wife graduated in, had a strong push within their class to have their class gift be the removal of the rock as they saw it as an eyesore. But, hey, people thought the Eiffel Tower was an eyesore when it was first installed.” 

Returning to the initial question, it turns out that there is another rock on campus which inspired the name for the yearbook. Located in front of Fancher Hall and emblazoned with a bronze plaque is the grave of Copperhead, “The last one of the Seneca tribe of Indians,” as the plaque reads. This is Copperhead’s story.

During the days of westward expansion, many of the original inhabitants of Allegany country were forced away from the Genesee Valley and forced onto reservation. That is, all but Copperhead, who claimed that he was never paid for his land and thus refused to leave. Over the years, Copperhead became a local icon. He lived off of charity and would often share his lunch with the local children who visited him. In March of 1864 tragedy struck, as his cabin caught on fire and badly burned him, leading to his death. Claiming to be 120 years old when he died, he was buried at the intersection of Centerville and Old River Road, facing eastward so that he could see the sunrise each day. 

The narrative was not over, however. In 1910 the Houghton Star published an article revealing that the nearby creek to Copperhead’s grave was beginning to destroy the burial site. The students on campus immediately began to raise money so that in June of 1914 Copperhead’s remains were safely transported to the top of the campus. Then, in order to give Copperhead a proper memorial, Leonard Houghton (son of Willard J. Houghton) donated the historic boulder that now rests there to this very day. 

Eventually, in 1925, the student body held a contest to see what the yearbook should be called. On the suggestion of a student known as Kieth Farner (‘25), The Boulder was chosen. 

The Copperhead Bolder is still used to this day on the campus’s insignia. You can see it on the front desk in the Reinhold Campus Center and on many of the stickers placed on the glass doors around campus.

A special thank you to Professor Douglas Gaerte for helping to make the research for this article possible!

Categories
Stories In Focus

A Bolder Boulder

Houghton Students Revive Yearbook

For the past two years, Houghton has lacked in one of the quintessential college institutions: the yearbook. This year, however, Michael Carpenter ’17 has gathered a team of Houghton students to produce a yearbook for the 2016-2017 year. Noting that “it’s sad that Houghton didn’t have that for a couple of years,” Carpenter has taken the initiative to revive the yearbook. “We have to kick-start it,” said Michael Green ’17, a yearbook team member.

Photo by: Nate Moore
Photo by: Nate Moore

Both Green and Carpenter are prepared to “kick-start” Houghton’s yearbook, having had previous experience with yearbooks in high school. “I loved it,” Carpenter said. “I thought it was a great opportunity to practice graphic design and photography with the end result being something special for a lot of people.” He has gathered a group of students who are also excited and dedicated. Seth Pearson ’20, another member of the yearbook team, expressed, “I feel like I am part of something special by helping to bring it back.” Green noted the visible signs of progress. “We’ve had photographers at a lot of events lately,” he said, and added“I’ve been organizing what pages might go where.” The team is also in contact with Houghton’s clubs and teams, which they hope to clearly represent. “We’re trying to make it as comprehensive and accurate a compilation as can be,” Green said.

While Carpenter noted the progress of the yearbook, he also expressed the difficulty of taking initiative to revive the yearbook. “It has been more complicated than I’ve wanted it to be,” he said. Because of the lapse in years of producing a yearbook, a transition process is lacking. “It’s not as much passing the baton as refashioning the baton,” Green explained. Yet Carpenter looks forward to the finished product. “I enjoy the process,” he said. “ Having something to take home, that physical book, makes all the behind the scenes work worth it to me.” He added that the revived yearbook will include “pieces of Houghton yearbooks past,” such as old photography and design.

With the fall semester nearly at an end, the yearbook team is beginning to look forward to the finished product. “Soon we’ll be working a lot on taking students’ orders, advertising, that sort of thing,” Carpenter said. “We’re hoping that when we’re ready to take orders, students will be excited to do so.” He estimates being ready to take orders at the beginning of the spring semester, and emphasized that they are striving for an affordable price.

The team does recognize the concern for the value of yearbooks in the face of social media. “Considering how saturated our lives are with social media, yearbooks might seem out of date,” Green acknowledged. Yet he and Carpenter both stand by the benefits of a yearbook beyond social media. “A yearbook represents everyone,” said Green. “It better depicts a whole of what goes on at Houghton rather than the little snapshot they might get in day to day life.”