Long Tom's pilgrimage

Verse in thirty-two stanzas satirizing an unpopular tutor at Yale College. Written and recited in the college chapel by Auxcencio Maria Penã, a student from Mexico who was afterward expelled. Copies of the printed poem were said to have been concealed, in 1829, between the ceiling and the wood closet door in the front middle room, fourth story, north entry of old South Middle (later Connecticut Hall), where they were discovered after a fire in Dec. 1890. See Yale University, Manuscripts & Archives, where it is also noted that the tutor was said to be George Jones, BA 1823. "The late Charles Harvey Townshend, Esq., of New Haven about the year 1880 met Mr. Robert Livingston of New York while crossing the Atlantic. One day while Mr. Livingston was telling him of his experiences while a Yale student, he asked him, if he ever had the chance, to look in the front middle room, fourth story, north entry of old South Middle College, between the ceiling over the wood closet door. He said that in 1829 he placed there a bundle of printed sheets of 'doggerel verse,' a grind on a tutor of those days. These verses were recited by the composer, Peña, a Mexican (who was afterwards expelled) in the college chapel, on a Wednesday afternoon. Most of the class was expelled afterwards, for various reasons, and Mr. Livingston, who was one of them, said that his father always told him that he did perfectly right in not telling who wrote the verses. A fir [sic] broke out in Old South Middle in December 1890, and Mr. Townshend, with the permission of the then occupants of the room, searched the ceiling of the front middle room in accordance with Mr. Livingstons [sic] directions. He found there the bundle of verse, just as Mr. Livingston described."--Article in a Dec. 1890 issue of the Morning journal and courier (New Haven, Conn.), quoted by Philadelphia Rare Books & Manuscripts in a Web catalog description (their "Newest entries 12 October 2008"). Text in two columns; printed area, including ornamental border, measures 27.3 x 17.4 cm.