The January 28, 1898 issue of The Indian Helper had something to say about the incident:
“Our Mr. Frank Cayou, ’96, has passed through some College Freshman trials this week. On Tuesday night the Dickinson College Freshman held a class banquet. On Sunday night as Mr. Cayou was coming from church with two of our ladies he was spirited away by the Sophomores. A crowd of them was standing around the church door as the three came out.
“Before they knew it the ladies were left without escort, and were obliged to come out from town alone. Not a ‘Soph’ offered to come with them. It is said that Cayou fought like a lion for the honor of his class, but ten or a dozen Sophomores were too much for him. They placed him in a buggy and drove him toward the mountains, and at this writing, Wednesday morning, he has not appeared. The Sophomores tried to steal several more of the Freshmen so as to break up the banquet, but did not succeed. Such things are so ‘funny’ that the Man-on-the-band-stand can scarcely write about them. He would like someday to have a new kind of a joke to laugh at if the bright young college gentlemen could only THINK of something not quite so stale.
“ LATER: Mr. Cayou has returned and tells a story of good treatment at the hands of the Sophomores. His time was spent in the North Mountain, at Sterretts Gap Hotel, and at various other places. Some of the time he was tied to a Sophomore so as to prevent the slightest chance for escape. The Sophomores did not get the prize they thought they had, for Mr. Cayou was not toastmaster, as they surmised and had no part in the banquet program, and he was the only one absent. There is considerable excitement among the college men at this writing and a strong class feeling exists. All sorts of rumors are afloat as to what is to be done by those in authority, but we have nothing definite.”
The 1900 Microcosm included Dickinson College students’ takes on the affair in the Daily Chronicle section:
November 27th
Cayou goes to church alone.
Miss Beitzel goes to church alone.
January 14th
Cayou absent from chapel.
Miss Beitzel absent from chapel.
January 23rd
Docky warns Sophs to return Cayou.
(Apparently Docky was students’ pet name for President Rev. George Edward Reed)
Blanche Una Beitzel was listed as a Junior, a member of the class of 1900, with the motto:
‘Tis not that I love Dickinson less, but the Indian School more.
The football team photo on page 146 lists F. M. Cayou, but the player looks exactly like Ed Rogers. Cayou and Rogers were enrolled in Dickinson College proper and the law school, respectively at that time. Both played for Dickinson against Penn State in the Thanksgiving Day game held after the Indian School’s season ended.
One can only wonder how such a kidnapping would be viewed in 2008.
Tags: Blanche Beitzel, George E. Reed
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