Word: transmittindum
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Actually, the history of the tradition reaches back to 1876, the year of Matthews' opening. The first occupant of the room, Harcourt Amory '76, bored a hole down into the top of his bedroom door and placed in it a set of documents intended to be a Transmittindum (which in Latin means "something which must be passed...
...passed on or at least not for a long. Winthrop Wetherbee '86, the originator of the successful Transmittindum, tells us on the first page that in his freshman year he became a member of the First Corps Cadets of Boston, and was assigned a company of which Harcourt Amory was the first sergeant. "In the course of conversation it transpired that Mr. Amory had formerly occupied 19 Matthews and related how he had bored the hole and prepared his document. Though a diligent search was instituted by the two occupants of the rooms, no trace of the papers could...
...anniversary of the College, asking for tickets to the literary exercises in Sanders Theatre. Attached to the letter is a scrap of paper which Wetherbee says was "tucked beneath the flap of the envelope as though it had been an afterthought," the message read--"Have you ever discovered a Transmittindum in your room, a parchment scroll with the names of all the occupants of the room, in an augur hole in the top of one of the doors. My brother occupied 19 Matthews in 1879 and it was there then...
...writer is obliged to write his facts in this slovenly manner ... On this day June 29, 1887, the Commencement Day of the Class of '87 misc. papers will be read to witnesses and then deposited in the door and the hole will be sealed. Any person discovering this Transmittindum in after years will confer a very great favor by communicating with the writer. May all luck be with each occupant of this old room...
...next discovery of the scroll came in the winter of 1952. Richard Basch '55 and David Poutas '55 contacted a Winthrop Wetherbee in Boston who turned out to be the original Wetherbee's son (class of 1926). He reported in his addition to the Transmittindum that his father often went to the room for Class Day or Commencement and when no one was around would sneak a look at the scroll to see if it had been found. "Although my father never made any effort to show me the Transmittindum," Wetherbee Jr. wrote, "it would have been a source...