Sabrina

For several years, Sabrina, the beautiful 350-pound bronze statue donated to Amherst College by Governor Joel Hayden of Massachusetts in 1857, stood happily on a flowerbed halfway between North and the Octagon.  One day in 1860 changed everything.  An Amherst student, perhaps taking pity on poor Sabrina’s nakedness, stole some underwear from nearby Mount Holyoke to dress her in.  The student was caught and reprimanded by a faculty member.  Frustrated at being reprimanded, the student made a gash in Sabrina’s cheek with an axe.  And so a series of pranks played on the Sabrina statue began.
 
 
A few years later, upset that one of their classmates had been expelled, the class of 1870 covered Sabrina in white paint.  Over the course of the next ten years, students painted cloaks, shawls, and stockings on the Sabrina.  In 1878, Sabrina was found on top of the Octagon, holding a rag baby labeled, “’81”.  This was not the only time poor Sabrina was left somewhere uncomfortable.  After a win over the Williams basketball team, the class of ’83 threw Sabrina into the college well.  It took the college several days to fish her out.
 
 
Playing pranks on Sabrina became something of a post-victory tradition.  Several times Sabrina was found on Professors’ desks welcoming students to class in the morning.  The poor goddess was beginning to look a bit worn out.  The President of the college finally told the school janitor to break the statue and put an end to the pranks.  Taking pity on Sabrina, the janitor hid her under a pile of hay behind a barn. 
 
 
Two years later in 1886, the spirit of the goddess Sabrina left the palace of the river gods, and wandered onto the Amherst College campus.  She appeared to several Amherst College men in a vision, telling them that henceforth she was not just a statue hidden behind an old barn after years of abusive treatment at the hands of the student body.  She told them that she was the guardian of college life, and that they must go find her statue.  The students set out to find her, and dubbed her the goddess of the even classes.
 
 
Naturally, the odd classes were not too thrilled with this arrangement.  The class of 1890 had Sabrina as an honored guest at their sophomore banquet.  Four men were in charge of getting the Sabrina to the banquet.  Several freshmen from the class of 1891 followed them stealthily in the woods.  The four sophomores briefly left the statue by itself.  The class of ’91 seized the opportunity to steal it and throw it in the Connecticut River.   
 
 
Over the years, the even and odd classes continued to steal the statue back and forth.  Sabrina was hung out of a car and a plane, and even shot at in hot pursuit.  During World War II, Williams jerks captured her and cut off her head.  But don’t worry; her head was later restored to her body.  Gradually, the thefts of Sabrina began to decrease in number after the 1950s.  But in 2008, Sabrina was stolen from Amherst by the class of 2008.  Her whereabouts are currently unknown.  Watch out class of ’08.  ’12 and ’14 are coming…
 
 
Sources:
http://www3.amherst.edu/~rjyanco94/amherst/history/1910shoop-mp/toc.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabrina_Statue