The College Mace

The College Mace of Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania was adopted at a special convocation ceremony there on Parents' Day, October 13, 1951. In the words of then President William W. Edel, the mace was to be "the symbol of the corporate authority of the College [to be] carried at the head of all academic processions on such formal and official occasions as commencements, matriculation services and regular and special convocations." At the dedication ceremony, Professor David I. Gleim of the chemistry department was chosen to be the first assistant marshal and mace bearer. The senior member of the faculty today bears the mace at official ceremonies.

Tradition-minded President Edel had conceived of this symbol during his travels to Europe, most especially through his close association with the officers of Carlisle, seat of the county of Cumberland in northern England. Adapted from the official mayoral mace of that city, the design incorporates long-established symbols of Dickinson College.

The mace, two years from conception to presentation, is thirty-eight inches long and weighs eight and one half pounds. The head of the mace bears the likenesses of John Dickinson, Benjamin Rush, and Charles Nisbet, along with the seals of both literary societies and the Alpha chapter of Pennsylvania of Phi Beta Kappa. A bronze image of the college mermaid surmounts the head, and four bronze dolphins couchant support it. Carved into the staff in a spiral are the twenty-six names of the principals and presidents of the Carlisle Grammar School and Dickinson College, from Henry Makinly to William W. Edel.

The body of the mace is carved from American cherry, but the two bosses encircling the staff and the acorn at its base are said to have come from a black walnut stump which had been preserved in the Tome Museum as the last remains of the fabled old tree under which George Washington reviewed the troops he was to lead against the Whiskey Rebellion. This tree stood near the present site of Denny Hall and is today the place of a Pennsylvania state historical marker.

The sculptor of the mace was Mary Ogden Abbott of Concord, Massachusetts, and Frank E. Masland, college trustee and member of the class of 1918, provided the necessary financial support for the project.