Web Exclusives: Under the Ivy
by Gregg Lange '70

October 25, 2006:
In praise of Old Belcher
Celebrating an underappreciated Princeton icon

By Gregg Lange ’70

On campus, we are in the midst of celebrating a Princeton icon so special that, while continually celebrated, it is still underappreciated. (This is a rare combination; the norm in historical circles is the reverse, the incessant overhyping of the relatively trivial. Even Triangle cleverly noted this tendency in a long-ago grandiose patriotic hymn to the memory of Warren G. Harding.)

I speak, of course, of Nassau Hall. State and U.S. capitol, pivotal American battlefield, shrine of our war dead, launchpad of our Commencements and stepsings and sit-ins, cauldron of our faculty, edificial model for countless colleges elsewhere, focus of the First Campus, home of the two George paintings, namesake of a school song that doesn’t mention the name of the school – it simply exudes respectful import. Perhaps only Yogi Berra is more beloved and simultaneously more underrated.

So we don’t really need to dwell on it here. You can go to princeton.edu and read anecdotes about Nassau Hall until you’re ready to come back for your 50th reunion. Good ones, written by actual writers, mostly. And then there are the books: Probably as a result of both its photogenic qualities and far, far too many alumni publishers, there have been enough coffee-table tomes on Nassau Hall to drive Starbucks prices up 20 or 30 cents. Accordingly, I’m going to invoke the Five-Book Rule: If there have been five or more books written on a historical topic, you won’t read about it here. There are too many important underreported recollections, and too few columns, to allow the luxury. Why five, you ask? Well, it lets me hang onto my 20th-reunion beer can while counting, for one thing, and for another, history is distressingly arbitrary at times. Why is an Ode to Warren G. Harding so much funnier than an Ode to Millard Fillmore? Is it the “G”? Go figure.

So we won’t dwell on Nassau Hall, despite its pedigree and its BCQ.* Instead, we point to the seminal question: Why name the preeminent academic building in the Western Hemisphere after a guy 5,000 miles away who had been dead for 54 years? The answer lies in the modesty of our honoree for today, His Excellency the Royal Governor of New Jersey, Jonathan Belcher h’1748 honorary classmate ’70.

A colonial administrator whose colorful Massachusetts past included a Harvard degree and allegations of bribery, possibly unrelated, Belcher arrived on the scene in bucolic New Jersey (this really was a long time back) just as the furor over the College’s original 1746 charter reached a fever pitch. Whether or not to tweak his New England nemeses is unclear, but he became an instant partisan of the fragile College, issuing an unassailable new charter and donating his personal library in 1748, and in return receiving its first honorary degree.

When it later needed breathing room, he suggested Princeton as the ideal location. The trustees not only took him up on that idea, but declared the intention to name the resulting grand college building Belcher Hall in his everlasting honor. Perhaps he grasped the inherent PR problems (Sir Toby Belch was already an established image), or perhaps he really had a thing for King William III of Britain, but selfless Jonny B. countered with the proposal of “Nassau Hall.” Now, here’s a potential honorand who had been dead since he fell off his horse in 1702, whose House of Orange-Nassau was kaput, who already had half a college in Virginia named for him, who never even heard of the Great Awakening that gave rise to the College of New Jersey. Fabulous choice.

A cynic might wonder if it was intended for the trustees to respond, “Now, selfless Jonny B., that’s very royal and all that, but by rights it really must be Belcher Hall.” Well, they didn’t, and the result is multitudinous coffee table books that don’t mention the name Belcher. Hence we honor him here, in Celebration of 250 Years of Not Belcher Hall.

Tune ev’ry heart and ev’ry voice,
Bid ev’ry care withdraw.
We’ll celebrate a Noble Choice:
Jon Belcher’s in the PAW!

*Oddly, the “Bicenquinquagenary” publicity that roared through campus 10 years ago in honor of the University’s 250th anniversary thus has far been eerily absent in regard to Old Nassau. In 1996, the official moment of BCQ oversaturation was reached when the bottled water on campus started showing up with “BCQ” – and no other text – on it.

*Oddly, the “Bicenquinquagenary” publicity that roared through campus 10 years ago in honor of the University’s 250th anniversary thus far has been eerily absent in regard to Old Nassau. In 1996, the official moment of BCQ oversaturation was reached when the bottled water on campus started showing up with “BCQ” – and no other text – on it. Neither the “BCQ” nor the “Quadramillenniel” camp has yet been heard from this time around. 

Gregg Lange ’70 is a member of the Princetoniana Committee and the Alumni Council Committee on Reunions, an Alumni Schools Committee volunteer, and a trustee of WPRB radio.