Canon Hoax background
I was thrilled by Dodwell’s stories of derring-do exhibited by Princetonians of the misty past, as well as by the remarkable audacity of the students involved in the Oznot affair, the creation of a fictitious student who had been admitted to the class of 1968. I was amused by the idea of the intercollegiate elephant race of 1962 and by the more remote incident in which students led a horse up the steps of Middle Dod Hall, to the chagrin of college officials when the horse refused to walk down. Tales of the 1963 Spring Riot with its bulldozer run amok were equally entertaining. Surely, my predecessors at Princeton were giants of intellect and boldness.
My personal favorite was an event related to the two-car railroad train currently referred to as the “dinky.” It was this train that carried lovely weekend visitors from Smith and Holyoke and Vassar to the all-male Princeton campus. They would arrive at the station in Princeton where they met their dates, jostled by the ride but happy to have survived.
According to legend – and to Mr. Dodwell – one Friday afternoon, the train was stopped and boarded by a band of bandana-masked, pistol-toting desperadoes on horseback. Guns were brandished, and pre-selected women were snatched away on the ponies’ rumps to vanish into the woods, leaving stunned passengers with their open but intact wallets still in hand.1
S. Aaron Laden '70
[Curators note: Amazingly, the train holdup was filmed and may be seen here]
1Edwards, Selden: “The Great Train Robbery,” The best of PAW, April 7, 2004
