Clemson Cannons

Clemson Cannons. . These cannons, affectionately nicknamed “Tom” and “Jerry” by the Class of 1952, were originally mounted to point toward Clemson's rival; the University of South Carolina. The bronze cannons , one built in 1842 by N.P. Ames Foundry (Springfield, MA) and the other in 1861 by C. Alger and Co. (Boston, MA) , were issued in 1881 by the U.S. Army to Captain T. Pinckney Lowndes of the Marion Artillery in Charleston, and were turned over to the South Carolina Military Academy when the Marion Artillery disbanded. Although records are incomplete, the cannons were sent to Clemson College by the South Carolina Office of the Governor in the mid-1930s for Sculptor A. Wolfe Davidson to use as scrap metal for his statue of Thomas Green Clemson in front of the Main Administrative Building, later named Tillman Hall. Davidson, however, cast the statue in stone due to the lack of funds, and the bronze cannons were stored in the old machine shop of Freeman Hall. In 1951, as the old machine shop was replaced by a new shop and cleaned out, the cannons resurfaced and were moved to Bowman Field in an effort to further beautify the campus. In 2014, the cannons were relocated in front of Godfrey Hall and were placed on carriages to make their depiction more historically accurate. Pershing Rifles C-4 Company is considered the “guardian of the cannons,” and each semester their prospective members (“Rats”) guard the cannons for an entire week.