A Brief History of Bridge Jumping

By Chengyue Zhang ‘24

Disclaimer: Please do not jump down the Hill Bridge because the water is too shallow and you will hurt yourself.

During the summer before Exeter, I sat on the asphalt shingle roof of this house in Massachusetts and started reading A Separate Peace, a novella written by Exeter alumnus John Knowles based on his personal experience studying at Exeter. I was feeling obligated and hoping to learn a bit more of Exeter’s history and culture through this half-auto-biographical story. I finished the book in one sitting, captivated by the dramatic turns of events all incited by a tree/bridge jumping expenditure.

Nowadays, under the Student Information and Guidelines section of the E-book, it states very specifically: “jumping off Hill Bridge is prohibited.” (The Hill Bridge, for those of you who do not know, is the stumpy, cream-colored bridge by the outdoor track.) I became extremely curious about bridge jumping and, thus, did a little digging into the history of bridge jumping at the Academy.

THE GOOD OLD DAYS

In the 1970s and 80s, bridge jumping was a normal thing to do with friends, especially in the hot summer days. It is also a popular activity during an annual school-wide spring term event called “The Day.” During “The Day” in May of 1972, students gathered on the river bank. “[There were] a hundred frisbees in the air during the afternoon, and the river was full of canoes rented downstream and bodies swimming and jumping off the bridge. As many as twenty people jumped at once. There were helium balloons floating in the air, and from somewhere, someone had produced two truck tires which people rolled around in,” The Exonian reported. On “The Day” of 1977, the weather got so hot in the afternoon that “the bridge was thronged all day with divers, jumpers, pushers (of people) and pushees.” Mr. Kurtz (the Academy’s principal at the time) was even invited multiple times to bridge jump, the Exonian wrote, but he rejected the offer. During this period, bridge jumping and other non-prohibited water-related activities, such as “swimming, rafting and boating,” were allowed and regarded as common practices. According to a list of the “best” at Exeter, compiled through surveys taken at the dining hall published in The Exonian on April 17th, 1993, “Jumping off Hill Bridge is Best Thing about Spring.”

“Mr. Kurtz (the Academy’s principal at the time) was even invited multiple times to bridge jump, the Exonian wrote.”

The first mention in The Exonian of a student potentially getting in trouble from jumping off the bridge appeared in an humor article (the section was actually called ‘Around Campus’ at the time), on May 8, 1993. Author Drew Magary stated that “some students got kicked out [of the Academy] for “weekend activities,” although they probably did have a lot of fun before getting caught. When you finally find that special thing that entertains (bridge jumping), just keep doing it.”

The increasing consequences of bridge-jumping in the 1990s resulted in increasing The Exonian coverage and mentioning of the ‘tradition.’ Articles from issues of May 7, 1994, April 18th, 1996, June 9, 1996, June 7, 1998, and June 1, 2002 all described bridge jumping as something seniors must do before graduation, though it is technically banned. Multiple seniors referred to bridge jumping as some of the best experiences that highlighted their Exeter experiences. According to an unofficial survey by a staff writer for The Exonian in 2003, about half of the seniors (class of 2004) had bridge-jumped more than once at Exeter.

THE DANGER OF LAMPREYS and of the CAR?

Along with coverage about how fun bridge jumping is, starting from the later half of the 90s, we also started to get a series of superstitions and myths related to potential danger in bridge jumping. An article published on March 7, 1996, suggested people not jump off from the tennis court side of the bridge because “story has it that someone once drove a car into the river, and that it is now buried beneath the water on that side. In addition to the bad luck that supposedly lingers with the car, one is likely to be severely injured by the wreckage if they chose to jump off [that] side.”

Increasing mention of bridge jumping in The Exonian that potentially stemmed from the growing push-back from the school to prevent students from bridge jumping due to valid safety concerns. On May 14, 2004, Ryan McCarthy wrote an article, raising concerns about the danger of bridge jumping. Specifically, he wrote about a type of creature called Lamprey that his biology teachers have been teaching about in prep biology courses.

Again, in an article in issue of May 6, 2005, acknowledged the danger of bridge jumping. An Exeter Summer student landed in shallow water when bridge jumping and was “seriously injured,” and the “broken bottles and bike parts” in the river also increased the danger level. According to the article, students who were caught bridge jumping received disciplinary cases, and most faculties would ask students to step down if they saw them trying to jump from the bridge. Despite all the potential danger mentioned in the article, some students’ expressed that they enjoyed bridge jumping and were willing to take the risk.

SECURITY CAMERA!?

In 2006, there was a surge of articles written about bridge jumping, with a total of 26 mentions in all of The Exonian’s articles of the year, due to a security camera campus safety placed “above the press boxes in Phelps Stadium.” The camera was intended to be used to monitor and protect the new turf, but the security camera’s “wide viewing angles, high definition zooms,” and night vision allowed a clear view of students jumping off the bridge. Multiple Exonians were caught on sight and stopped.

“Multiple Exonians were caught on sight and stopped.”

Even though bridge jumping was already against the school rule, the new security cameras allowed bridge jumping to be effectively prevented in large quantities. Students were indigent, stating that the cameras “[violates the students’ right] to be able to make [their] own decisions” and “[ruin] a time-honored pastime.” In a commentary titled “Lights, Cameras, Jump!” Tom Mandel, a senior at the time and also one of the students caught on camera bridge jumping, wrote “Students, I call upon you. Go bridge jumping. Go early and often. Go late and often. Go when it‘s sunny; go when it‘s rainy, Don‘t be mean to security just because they‘re doing their job, But hopefully we can get this new totalitarianism reversed, The Constitution guarantees all citizens governed by its laws the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, People forget that last one, Let‘s pursue happiness and hopefully catch it. That‘s all.”

In reaction to these sentiments, Campus Safety officers Gilmore and Dean of Students Ethan Shapiro emphasized that the purpose for installing cameras was not to catch kids bridge jumping. Shapiro specifically said “I didn‘t even know there were cameras. They weren’t put in there in conjunction with the Dean of Students office or else I would have known about them… Obviously students aren’t supposed to jump off the bridge. It’s a safety issue. When they do jump off the bridge, security tends to chase them away, but they don’t send the names to me.” Their response was surprising to me. It seemed that the students got the upper hand, and that at the time the school was not too keen in enforcing the no-bridge-jumping rule. “Many students agreed that the teachers don’t seem to be unduly troubled by bridge jumping, and that its proscription is based mostly for litigation reasons,” an article in The Exonian titled ‘Breaking Rules to Preserve Traditions’ published on May 11, 2006, stated. However, the faculty quotes in the same article presents a different perspective: faculty genuinely would like students to stop bridge jumping due to safety concerns.” Students focus on the rule, there‘s no discussion of why the rule exists,” Dean of Residential Life Russell Weatherspoon at the time said, “the rules exist to try to say, here are some things that may happen if you’re not careful, so please avoid doing these things.”

The little security camera “drama” slowly died down. In the following years, students wrote several humor articles in The Exonian about a campus safety officer going bridge jumping after work, a parent of an Exonian discovering the fun of bridge jumping after family weekend, and even Ed Harkness, the person who started the Harkness teaching method at Exeter, bridge jumping after being resurrected on his 133rd birthday. Bridge jumping continued to be mentioned or featured in several senior reflections over the years.

REMOVAL OF THE DAM

Bridge jumping took its final halt when the Great Dam of Exeter was removed in 2016.

Talk about removing the dam initiated around 2007, and on March 11, 2014, the town of Exeter approved a proposal to remove the Great Dam on the Exeter River. According to atlanticfishhabitat.org, “the dam removal provided eight miles of free-flowing river, eliminated a barrier to fish passage, improved habitat and water quality, and provided for natural sediment movement through the system.” The Great Dam was officially removed in 2016.

Due to the removal of the dam, the river depth decreased significantly (around six feet or even more), making it unsafe for bridge jumping. Acknowledging the new danger now involved, students finally accepted the rule of no bridge jumping, however heartbreaking the change was. “All I can do is hope that students find another way to get their youthful energy and desire for adventure and risk out in away that is not completely self destructive,” Brooks Saltonstall ’15 stated in an article published in February 2016.

“Acknowledging the new danger now involved, students finally accepted the rule of no bridge jumping, however heartbreaking the change was.”

WHAT NOW?

Above is the history of Bridge jumping at Exeter, a past honored tradition of the Academy too dangerous to be continued nowadays.

Though no longer practiced, this tradition appealed to me on an intellectual level(causing the article to be written). To me, bridge jumping sounds very, very ‘Exeter’ — crazy and straight-up fun. To me, it represents what Exeter should be like: a place where I “suck out all the marrow of life,” not only by sitting consecutive hours by my desk crunching numbers or history reading, but also by acting stupid and irresponsible at times—climbing a tree, rolling down a snow-covered little hill, and pulling out high-pitched lip trills for no reasons in particular. I want Exeter to be (and to some degree it already is) a place where craziness, quirkiness, liveliness is celebrated.

When going through the Exonian archive researching for this article, one senior reflection stood out to me. Dev Patel, class of 2012, wrote his senior reflection “The day I took my place on the edge of the bridge despite the work clustering my schedule, the day I joined the ranks of Exonians past simply because I wanted to, represents the biggest transition of my life.”

“I learned to define happiness for myself, not through the arbitrary standards established by others,” Patel continued. “Springing from the stone ledge of the bridge for the first time signaled my leap into a world in which I determined my own sense of worth.”

So here I propose to my fellow Exonians: Have fun! Live life! Be silly! (And read/write for The Exonian.)