The snow that is dumped on Miami University nearly every winter leads to cancelled classes, disappearing dining hall trays and the occasional snow phallus built by the more juvenile first-years. The snow today leads to rather tame activities but the same cannot be said for the snow that fell on Oxford during the January of 1848 and led to the Snow Rebellion.
In 1848, Erasmus MacMaster was the president of Miami, though his popularity among students was dismal. A few years previously, MacMaster had managed to incite the ire of Miami's literary societies, forerunners to fraternities, by attempting to bring them under the control of the university. Anger over MacMaster's methods of running the university festered and led to some student unrest. One summer during MacMaster's term, students rounded up 23 cows and drove them into the campus chapel. However, that unrest soon became outright rebellion.
On the night of Jan. 12, 1848, a thick snow fell on Miami. Using this as inspiration, the men of Miami blocked the doors of Old Main (now the site of Harrison Hall) with several giant snowballs. They got out of the building using a rope, which they left dangling from an upper story window. When the school's custodian arrived the next morning, he had to use the rope to climb into the building and begin clearing out the snow.
MacMaster, furious at the students, called them into the chapel and vowed he "wouldn't rest" until everyone involved in the incident was thrown out of the university.
The students, however, were not intimidated. The next night, students nailed shut the doors and windows of Old Main and filled the building with the university's entire stockpile of firewood, old stoves, broken tables and benches. The college bell was also taken down and thrown into the well. The students did their work thoroughly. They barricaded Old Main Thursday night and the faculty couldn't enter the building until Monday.
Faculty tried to catch the students, but had little success at first as students said they were sworn to secrecy about the event. Eventually, however, it became clear that a large percentage of the student body had been involved. MacMaster and the faculty resorted to questioning the students one by one. Lessons were cancelled while the interrogations took place, so the boys stood out in the yard and cheered as boys were called in for questioning. If a student was suspended or dismissed, the boys would carry him around the campus on their shoulders.
In the end, four students were dismissed, 11 were suspended and two left. This meant that half of the senior class was gone and many others said they would not return to Miami.
The students, though rebellious and disruptive, were not stupid. Before their dissent, they talked to the president of Centre College in Danville, Ky. and were guaranteed a spot at that college should they be expelled from Miami.
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