The wartime origins of Sachem Village

The Tuck School has a gallery of photos of Sachem Village, the married-student housing site south of Hanover.

One 1946 photo shows the earliest Sachem buildings when they still occupied their original location in Hanover, behind Thayer School. Some or all of the prefabricated buildings had begun as wartime housing for shipyard workers. The view from the west shows how the lower of the two types of buildings were arranged in a circle called Wigwam Circle. This quick composite of stills from a 1946 film linked from the Dartmouth Film Archive shows Wigwam Circle from the east looking west:

composite of stills from 1946 film showing Wigwam Circle west of Thayer School, Hanover, N.H.

The dorms that later occupied the site were initially called Wigwam Circle and later the River Cluster.

The two-story buildings visible in the rear of the 1946 photo linked at the top of this post appear again in a 1954 photo at the current location of Sachem Village. (I believe some of the other prefab buildings for married students ended up north of town at Rivercrest.)

Sachem Village has been redeveloped in recent years (see Trumbull-Nelson and Pathways Consulting), and I have no idea whether any of its wartime buildings remain. It seems unlikely.

To confuse matters, the name of the present Sachem Village appears to have come from Dartmouth’s other group of prefab buildings for married students — the counterpart to Wigwam Circle — which stood on Lebanon Street next to Hanover High. Here is a composite of stills from the same 1946 film showing this housing project, the original “Sachem Village”:

composite of stills from 1946 film showing Sachem Village, Lebanon Street, Hanover, N.H.

A 1947 film from the same collection has some good closeups of Wigwam Circle and the original Sachem Village on Lebanon Street at the 8:57 mark.

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[Update 11.23.2014: Images adjusted, cropped.]
[Update 11.21.2010: Link to 1947 film added.]
[Update 11.20.2010: Images and links to film added.]

One thought on “The wartime origins of Sachem Village

  1. This film has been Very helpful in making the 1950 Hanover, NH Census searchable for genealogy purposes.

    Thank you Very much for making this available!!

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