This week in… Hillsdale History

Home City News This week in… Hillsdale History

1863 — Ransom Dunn Jr., son of Hillsdale College’s famous theologian and forefather, dies of complications caused by pneumonia and typhoid fever during the Civil War. Dunn, serving with his brother Wayland in the 64th Illinois Infantry near Corinth, Miss., received final communion at the request of his grieving father back in Michigan.

1888 –— Delegates from Hillsdale College meet in Jackson with those of various other institutions from around the state to form the Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association (MIAA), the oldest college athletic conference in the United States. Hillsdale would withdraw from the MIAA in 1961 to join the Division II GLIAC.

1955 —The nine members of the newly formed Hillsdale College Sailing Club compete in the Michigan Championship Regatta on the Detroit River, defeating Wayne State, the University of Michigan, and Michigan State University.

1966 — A “UFO sighting” occurs above Slayton Arboretum and is witnessed by female residents of McIntyre Hall. The incident attracts national attention, but its origins are eventually demoted to nothing but a “will-o’-the-wisp” a.k.a. ignis fatuus — ignited swamp gas — from the Arb itself.

 

  -Compiled by Dane Skorup