This photograph depicts students of the International YMCA Training School, now Springfield College, waiting to go on the Chestnut Hunt, an annual event that happened a few weeks before Thanksgiving day. The photograph shows a large group of men, students, on a field by a railroad tracks. The tracks can just be seen in front of them. There is a sign behind them that says Railroad crossing. All the young men seem to be wearing hats. The 1904 yearbook describes the chestnut hunt in this way, "As frost begins to appear all look forward with eager interest to the annual chestnut hunt on the Wilbraham Hill, ten miles to the east. The trip is usually made in springless ice wagons with or without seats, or perchance an electric car is chartered which leaves the party within a mile of its happy hunting ground. The men dress in their old clothes, ready for a good time in any way, shape or manner. Songs, rough and tumble, tramping, and eating apples, together with apple and water fights, add the
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Publisher:
Springfield College
Notes:
A handwritten caption on the verso of the photograph reads, "1904-1905?".