Remembering the History Club's Ghost Tour on Halloween (by Harrison Leone)

A tingle down your spine. A disturbing and unshakeable sense of being watched. A slammed window, a knock on the door, the patter of footsteps down an empty hallway; probably a drunk roommate, but possibly…a ghost, a phantom or a spirit of the undead.

As with any 150 year old institution that is populated by rickety buildings and flanked by dark forests, St. Bonaventure has its fair share of ghost stories. The history club, in the spirit of the Halloween season, hosted a ghost tour to hear the tales of the school’s most famous purported paranormal phenomenon. The tour was guided by the wonderful Chris Brown, the Director of First-Year Experience and Orientation, who shared his unparalleled knowledge of St. Bonaventure history, lore and legend with the nearly forty students and faculty in attendance.

Mr. Brown regaled the group with some of Bonaventure’s most famous tales of terror, including the green light of De La Roche, the Dev Runner and, of course, the famous 5th Dev ghost. According to legend, the green light, which supposedly can be seen in the third floor windows of De La Roche, is the tortured spirit of a student who perished in a fire while attempting to finish a research project. The student is now condemned to eternity in his laboratory, working on his assignment until the end of time. The Dev Runner, as anyone who has lived or spent time in Deverux Hall, is the name given to phantom footsteps heard in the cavernous corridors of St. Bonaventure’s oldest dormitory. The ghost of 5th Dev has its origins in the period when the floor was opened for student housing. The supernatural happenings on this famous floor are related to an alleged “black mass” performed by some of the students in an attempt to summon some sort of dark, occult power.

History Workshop

Want help with that history paper? How about some tips on preparing for an essay test? How do you figure out what is important in preparing for the final? What does the professor want you to take away from the reading? The History Club and Friedsam Library are hosting a workshop for all students enrolled in history courses to answer these questions and more. Bring your questions and concerns about doing well in a history class to the downstairs Instruction Lab at 8 p.m. Thursday night, Nov. 13. Librarians and history majors will be on hand to offer tips, strategies, and advice.

If you have a particular topic or a suggestion for the workshop email Shannon Conheady (conheask11@bonaventure.edu), Alex McCuminsky (mccumiae11@bonaventure.edu), or Harrison Leone (leonehj11@bonaventure.edu).

The History Club's Trip to Mumford (by Harrison Leone)

What do Lucifer’s hoof-print, a horse treadmill and a 30-run baseball game have in common? They can all be found at the Genesee Country Village and Museum in Mumford, New York, and the history club was lucky enough to see all three.

The club journeyed to the sprawling living history museum just outside of Rochester for this semester’s trip, having gone to the Teddy Roosevelt National Historic Site last fall and to the World War 2 museum in Eldred in the spring. While both of those trips were fun and informative, the Genesee Country Village gave us the opportunity to step inside the lives of 19th century villagers and settlers.

History came alive as we made our way through the Village’s three different eras: the Pioneer days, Antebellum New York and the Turn of the Century Village. Each had its own distinct charm, whether it was the hard-scrabble self-reliance of boiling and dying your own thread with the Pioneers, perusing a 1830s general store or the gaiety of gloveless baseball games.

The history club was lucky enough to see the Village at harvest time, when tents packed to the brim with homemade jams, jellies and honey spreads were dotted among the historical buildings. Corn was being threshed and ground in the town square (hence the horse treadmill), and mouth-wateringly fresh New York apples were being pressed into buckets full of frothing apple cider. The smell of woodstoves burning mixed enchantingly with the cool October wind to let all at the Village that day know that fall had most certainly arrived.

Learning History Where it Happened: History Major Harrison Leone and the Defenestration(s) of Prague

In the summer after seventh grade, I fell through a second story window at my house, glass, frame and all. After my stitches healed, my dad began gleefully joking that I had been trying to re-enact the Defenestration of Prague. Now, I had no idea what the “Defenestration of Prague” was, and for a while I was convinced he had made it up. Defenestration? Come on, dad, that’s not a real word. Prague? Where was that, Russia?

Obviously, thirteen year old me was frightfully mistaken. Defenestration is a real word; Prague is not in Russia; and the Defenestration of Prague of 1618 played a pivotal role in modern European history. Throwing opponents out of windows is a peculiarly Czech solution to intractable political debates and, though the most significant from a historical standpoint, the Defenestration of 1618 was only one of three such events in Bohemian history.

Before understanding the defenestrations, readers should know that the Czechs have a long tradition of questioning authority and combating oppression, specifically when that oppression came via religious persecution. Prague itself was one of the first places to question the growing decadence of the medieval Catholic Church.

The fiery and passionate preacher Jan Hus decried the opulence of the church during his time. Hus would eventually be tied to a stake and set ablaze for the troubles he created. His teachings and grisly demise ignited the Hussite Wars, a proto-Protestant movement that lasted for several decades and left Bohemia a devastated, backwards province, removed from power, and without any capacity for self-government. The Hussite Wars were set off with the First Defenestration of Prague in 1419, when town council members were thrown to their death from the New Town Hall.

 

The Second, and most famous, Defenstration of Prague was once again provoked by religious conflict. By this time, the Protestant Reformation was in full swing and threatening to upend the social order of Europe. The Czechs, now under the rule of the devoutly Catholic Hapsburgs, were once again at the forefront of the religious fissures developing across the continent. The Protestant Bohemian nobility had enjoyed freedom of worship and equitable legal status under Emperor Rudolf II after he issued the Letter of Majesty in the early 1600s. Now, Rudolf’s successor, Emperor Matthias, revoked the letter, leaving the powerful Czech Protestants enraged at their disenfranchisement. In May of 1618, Catholic ministers were hurled from a three story window at the Prague Castle. According to the Catholics present at the scene, their lives were spared by intervening angels; according to the Protestants, they fell in manure. In either case, this spark ignited the powder keg, and Europe descended into the Thirty Year’s War, a horrendous conflict that was the deadliest the continent had ever seen.

The Third Defenestration, which is little known or publicized outside of the Czech Republic, had nothing to do with religion but everything to do with power. In 1948, Czechoslovakia had just undergone a bloodless and widely supported Communist coup. Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk, son of one of the greatest Czech heroes Tomáš Masaryk, was found dead below his bathroom window, with the official report stating suicide. Masaryk was an ardent nationalist and no fan of the increased Soviet influence in his country, and suspicion abounded that either Czech communist thugs or Soviet secret agents sent the unfortunate minister to his death. In 2004, after further investigation, the Prague police officially stated that Masaryk had in fact been murdered.

The story of the Czech people’s struggle is often tragic. Surrounded by powerful neighbors, placed in the middle of the most historically mercurial continent on earth, the Czechs have sought for centuries to assert their national character on their own lands. The Czechs seem to have been the victims of every historical villain of the past 500 years, whether this villainy came in the form of corrupt priests, power-hungry Austrians, Lebensraum-seeking Nazis, or the Warsaw Pact. Troubled past aside, my experiences with the Czechs have been absolutely peaceful and pleasant, although I have made it a point to avoid standing near windows.

History Major Harrison Leone Writes from Prague

Before coming to Prague, one of the many refrains I heard was what a historical place it was. When told this, I would smile and nod and express excitement, thinking "of course it’s historical! It’s been a city for a thousand years!" Through my first two weeks in the city of a hundred spires, I can safely say that I was vastly underestimating the explosion of history that lives on every street corner.

With my personal interest in 20th century history, the Cold War to be specific, Prague seemed to be a natural choice to study abroad and has not disappointed. Whether it’s the Museum of Communism or the memorial to the victims of the Communist regime, evidence of the city’s troubled recent history is everywhere. Even in the tourist shops, some of which are around the corner from the memorial, one can purchase hats, shorts, or t-shirts stamped with the hammer and sickle.

But what is really amazing about the city is that it truly has a wealth of history from every one of the eras since its founding. On a single subway line, you can stop and see a Romanesque rotunda from the 10th century, continue on to the city center with its wealth of Baroque merchant houses and churches, and finally get off outside the city in Soviet Era block apartments. The city truly has something for anyone with even a modicum of interest in the past.

 

For a lover of medieval history in particular, Prague would be an absolute delight. The city reached its zenith under the rule of Charles IV, the Holy Roman Emperor who made Prague his capital city. The city was flush with imperial power and wealth and developed into an international market place. Some of the city’s best known and most beloved are from this era. Charles Bridge, St. Vitus Cathedral and Old Town Square, complete with Gothic pointed arches and elaborate religious imagery, attract millions of tourists a year.

I challenge anyone to visit Prague and not be moved by the centuries of human history that is visible before them. My experience in Prague has reaffirmed my belief that anyone who condemns history as boring simply hasn’t been taught it properly.

Update on History Club Activities: Vice President Nick Siciliano Reports

           Nick Siciliano, a junior history major; Secretary Patrick Tintle, a junior JMC major; and treasurer Mike Specht, a sophomore history major. We at the History Club hope to spread our love of history to students of all majors in the St. Bonaventure community.

The officers have been elected, the meetings have been set, and the St. Bonaventure History Club is going to hit the ground running this semester. I’d like to introduce our talented officers: President Harrison Leone, a junior history major; myself, Vice President

One of our primary goals for this upcoming year is to establish a History Lounge for our history majors to be able to have a quiet place where they can work on homework, relax, and socialize. We hope to be able to have this lounge in Falconio Hall or Doyle Hall; however, this project is still in its infancy. Additionally, we hope to set up a history help session for non-history majors to get help with studying, research, formatting, etc. for their history classes. History majors would be on hand to assist these students while supplemented with occasional help from the professors.

We are also in the process of planning history-related field trips to the Buffalo area in the near future. For the club’s volunteering hours, we hope to go to the Olean SPCA and offer our assistance there. If you missed out on the first two meetings of the History Club, there’s nothing to worry about! Our next meeting is this Wednesday, October 23 and will be open to all students regardless of major. Make sure you come out to further discuss our activities for the year.

Harrison Leone, a Bona History Major, Visits Gettysburg

           To say that I was “lucky” to be able to be in Gettysburg for the 150^th anniversary of the battle would be a tragic understatement. Thanks in large part to my father’s impulsivity, my family and I found ourselves in a sea of amateur historians and over-zealous re-enactors, sweltering under the early summer sun.

 Even if the greatest battle in the Western Hemisphere hadn’t occurred there, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania would still be an attractive vacation destination. The bucolic community of 3,000 people is complete with lush, verdant hills, brick sidewalks and a quaint liberal arts university and has a small-town charm that borders on the surreal. The battlefield nested on the town’s southern flank can almost be forgotten.

            Until, that is, you get onto Tarrytown Road and head towards the field itself. Soon, placards and statues begin to crop along the roadside. Companies, soldiers and generals are all represented by monuments of varying shapes and sizes, ranging from blocks of granite to larger-than-life representations to temples and obelisks.

Along the center of the former union lines, opposite the site of Pickett’s charge, stands perhaps the most impressive tribute to an individual solider: a massive statue of General Meade astride his war horse Old Baldy, surveying the long-dormant battlefield. From the base of the colossal bronze general one can see nearly the entire breadth of the field, from both Round Tops down to the Peach Orchard, Devils Den and the Wheatfield and finally up along Confederate Avenue to Seminary Ridge.

The stones and earthworks the Union defenders took cover behind during that massive assault on the third and final day still stand. Standing behind the  imagine the experience of those men, holding fast under withering fire as a howling wall of gray descended upon them.

The History Club's First Meeting of the Year!

The History Club will have its first meeting of this academic year! The meeting will be this coming Thursday, September 26 at 7:00 in the Plassmann Student Lounge. Harrison Leone is the president and Nicholas Siciliano is the vice president. The meeting is open to all Bonaventure students. Those attending the meeting will set the club’s agenda for the year and elect additional officers. If you have any questions, feel free to contact any of the officers. 

Thursday, April 18, 2013: A Busy Day for History Majors!

Eight History Majors will present their research at the 2013 Arts & Sciences Exposition at St. Bonaventure University. On Thursday, April 18, a reception will be held in the Trustees Room from 11:30 a.m. to about 1:00 p.m., during which our eight students will stand by their posters and answer questions about their research projects. 

Please come by to talk to Colin Bearer, Shannon Conheady, Harrison Leone, Jason Mahar, Alexandra McCumiskey, Colin O'Donnell, and Matt Zaros!

On the same day, at 5 p.m., the History Department will initiate six new students into its national honor society, Phi Alpha Theta. The induction ceremony will take place in the Living Room of University Ministries, and there will be a small reception afterward. Please come and support our new members: Shannon Conheady, Harrison Leone, Jason Mahar, Alexandra McCumiskey, and Maria Swieciki.

Mixing History and Music

Sure, 8 o’clock in the morning may be early and, yeah, it’s cold more often than not here at St. Bonaventure, but, every Tuesday, three stalwart cohosts rub the sleep from their eyes, guzzle their coffee, gulp down their breakfast sandwiches, and brave the sub-freezing temperatures to bring the “To Be Announced Show” to the world.

While I haven’t had the pleasure to listen to every show aired on WSBU The Buzz, St. Bonaventure’s nationally renowned, student-run radio station, I can say with confidence that the “To Be Announced Show” is the only one on 88.3 FM featuring a major historical component. Not only are two of the three hosts history majors-and proud of it, damn it-but our DJ names, “Kid Charlemagne” and “DJ Boris”, are inspired by historical figures. While we can’t claim to be a solid two-hour block of historical wisdom, we do have to play some music, after all, but we can at the very least say we incorporate a healthy dose of intelligent discussion into our show.