There’s an age-old story that the dents in Harvard’s sidewalks date back to the American Revolution, when students threw cannon balls out the windows. I haven’t been able to find any photos of these dents, and my father, a Harvard grad, is long gone. Much as I like this story, it seems apocryphal. Wouldn’t a cannonball shatter any construction material available in the 18th century? Concrete sidewalks didn’t exist until the late 19th century, but they’d shatter, too, wouldn’t they? In any case, one would think they’d have degraded long ago.
But if the dents were NOT made by cannonballs, what’s the likely explanation?
That’s interesting. I have no doubt the dents are or were actually there. Hundreds of sites claim “the” dents in Harvard sidewalks were caused by cannonballs, which leads me to believe the existence of the dents is not in question, merely the reason for them.
What’s a “dent” in a sidewalk, anyway? Any concrete sidewalks at Harvard obviously weren’t there during the revolutionary period. Flagstone sidewalks don’t dent; they crack. Brick sidewalks either crack or subside - mostly the latter. It would astonish me if Harvard University has sidewalks that date from the revolutionary period that have not been occasionally repaired in the past two hundred odd years to deal with subsidence, cracks or “dents”. Even if they aren’t repaired to keep them safe, they’d get lifted and relayed to deal with pipes, cables, services, etc.
Plus, why would anybody be throwing cannonballs out of the windows? Harvard was used during the revolutionary war as a barracks for the Continental Army - the university decamped to Concord - so it’s entirely plausible that there were munitions kept on campus. For obvious reasons, though, you keep keep heavy munitions on the ground floor and, if at all possible, not in the same building as is used for sleeping accommodation. So why anybody would have brought cannonballs upstairs and thrown them out of the window is something that requires explanation. What did they hope to achieve by doing this?
I’m going to call BS on the whole story, in the absence of any actual evidence.
I live right next to Harvard Square and I hear the school tour guides in Harvard Yard talking about this urban legend. It supposedly is seen in the Yard, not the Square, around dorms that we’re once used by soldiers. The paths in the Yard are asphalt, dirt or brick, so it could conceivably have happened, but those paths are resurfaced every few years so it’s clearly nonsense. It’s just a tall tale told during tours.
I don’t have a dog in this race, but usually when a source says something “is said” to mean something, it usually means they don’t have any facts to back it up. They’re basically just saying, “Hey, that’s what they tell us”. Not to say it isn’t true, because like I said I could go either way, but if you want us to buy it you’re gonna need evidence that’s a lot more… wait for it… concrete.
At the University of Maryland there is a bronze statue of Testudo the terrapin attaches to a concrete pedestal. There is a legend that if a virgin ever graduates from the university Testudo will leave his perch and fly around the square.
My vague recollection of this urban legend is, after the war, the students used cannonballs as bed warmers (warming them in the fireplace and then placing them where needed). At the end of the year they’d trow it out the window.
As it happened I was walking around Harvard last Sunday. The brick sidewalks were in dreadful condition, but I hardly think they date back 240 years. My son (who is director of traffic for the city of Cambridge) told me they are gradually being replaced by concrete.
