Editing Alpha Theta (section)

=== Coal furnace accident ===

Nine brothers of Alpha Theta chapter of Theta Chi died in a tragic accident on the morning of Sunday, February 25, 1934, when the metal [[chimney]] of the building's old [[coal]] [[Metallurgical furnace|furnace]] blew out in the night and the residence filled with poisonous [[carbon monoxide]] gas.<ref name="NYTimes-19340226">{{cite news |date=February 26, 1934 |title=Nine Dartmouth Students Die in Fraternity House from Monoxide Poisoning |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1934/02/26/archives/9-dartmouth-students-die-in-fraternity-house-from-monoxide.html |journal=[[The New York Times]]}}</ref><ref name="TimeMagazine-19340305">{{cite news |date=March 5, 1934 |title=Education: Dartmouth's Saddest |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,747133,00.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070317031802/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,747133,00.html |archive-date=March 17, 2007 |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]}}</ref>

The bodies were not discovered until the afternoon of the same day, when M. B. Little, a janitor, entered the chapter house and found the students dead in their beds. A pet [[collie]] was also found dead in one of the bedrooms. This is still the most fatal accident ever to occur at Dartmouth College.

At the time the chapter had 35–40 members (reports vary), and seventeen of them lived in the chapter house. Eight residents escaped death because they had left campus for the weekend. The deceased were: 
* William F. Fullerton '34
* Edward F. Moldenke '34 (president)
* William M. Smith Jr. '34
* Edward N. Wentworth Jr. '34
* Americo S. De Masi '35 (vice president)
* Harold D. Watson '35
* Wilmot H. Schooley '35
* John J. Griffin '36
* Alfred H. Moldenke '36 (Edward's younger brother)

Following the tragedy people asked if the members would move out of the house, but faculty advisor Professor William H. Woods said: "Of course they will move back, we have men with blood in them." The surviving members met at the Hanover Inn shortly after the disaster. John Trickey Jr. '33 T'34, past president of the chapter and a student at the [[Tuck School of Business]], was elected to replace Moldenke. The surviving members moved back into the house after the furnace that caused the accident was replaced. But membership did suffer after 1934, and eventually the chapter house was razed in 1940 and a new building, the current chapter house, opened in 1941.