The Valley News article on the archaeological dig at the Choate House site saves this important news until the very end:

The Dartmouth Archaeology Station, a new facility near the Ledyard Bridge in Norwich will have an exhibition and visitor space in the front, and Casana said there are plans for a dig community members can participate in during September 2021, National Archaeology Month.¹Jasmine Taudvin, “College dig reveals 19th century infection,” Valley News (6 June 2021).

How fantastic is that? It’s amazing, when you think about it. Dartmouth has never had the space or the self-regard necessary to maintain a museum dedicated to its own history, but this sounds like a good start.

The College History Room (opened in 1965 in the west end of Baker) is a special place but really could be called the College History Nook. The Historical Society (1961) has its collection of antiques in Webster Cottage, but it is not intended to interpret the history of the college. The best prior effort was probably the historical room in the college library (Wilson Hall), which was described around 1910 as containing the Civil-War era banners of the Dartmouth Grays and the Dartmouth Phalanx; Wheelock’s honorary degree from the University of Edinburgh; and invitations to commencement balls from a variety of periods.²Kenneth C. Kramer, “The Dartmouth College Archives,” Dartmouth College Library Bulletin (April 1994). President Nichols apparently wanted to save a door lock from Wentworth Hall to put into a collection of objects removed from old buildings around 1912. Webster Hall was planned as a prescriptive alumni hall of fame that would contain a large apsidal mural depicting Daniel Webster arguing the Dartmouth College Case and possibly a museum of college history below the balconies.³The Dartmouth 29:? (22 October 1907), 76. As far back as 1873, students were suggesting that “[a] Historical Society would do much toward collecting and putting in proper form such documents and letters as would be of interest and value to those who wish to learn the history of the College.”⁴“Editorial Department,” The Dartmouth 7:9 (November 1873), 374.

While Rauner does a brilliant job of conserving objects and documents from the history of the college, it cannot take on too many architectural antiques, and it lacks the space for a permanent display. And Dartmouth might have a particular penchant for losing artifacts that are too big or too uninteresting to be accessioned by Rauner. The WWI cannon from Memorial Field (which somehow made it into the hands of a private individual, although with the implication that it would be returned to its owner upon request); the masonry from the Butterfield Museum that has been dug up from beneath Baker’s lawn during various landscaping or maintenance projects; most of the best bits of the old operating theater or main building of the MHMH; the foundations of the WWII-era prefabricated shipyard housing units used as dormitories (“Wigwam Circle”) that were uncovered in the 1990s; perhaps even the big brass revolving front door of Baker library (was it sold by Vermont Salvage? I do not know, but other Dartmouth architectural elements of lesser importance have been sold there).

The Archaeology Station will presumably occupy the historic brick house in Lewiston, Vermont that the college has used as its pottery studio. Naturally its mission will not include the display of architectural elements salvaged from demolished buildings (as opposed to items uncovered by excavation), but there is always hope, and it is certainly a step in the right direction.