Hawthorne's family had aspirations that did not match its resources. So, when they decided to send the family intellectual to college, they sent him to Bowdoin, which they could afford, rather than Harvard, which they could not. There he counted among his classmates Franklin Pierce, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and a host of other future artists and statesmen. Good times were had by all.

From Brenda Wineapple's Hawthorne:

"I am very well contented with my situation," he wrote to [his sister] Ebe, "and like a College Life much better than I expected"--all the more since his studies allowed plenty of time for wine, cards, and other "unlawful occupations, which are made more pleasant by the fines attached to them if discovered." By spring President Allen had to contact Mrs. Hawthorne to ask her "to induce your Son faithfully to observe the laws of this Institution." Cushioning the blow, he suggested Nathaniel may have been unduly influenced by a wayward friend, recently dismissed from the college. Nathaniel took immediate umbrage. He alone was the author of his deeds, thank you very much.

He constantly broke the rules. He resented regulations stipulating how far one could walk on the Sabbath and that forbade smoking a "seegar" on the street or consuming alcohol. For if nothing else, the bone-chilling cold of a long Maine winter provided sufficient incentive to drink. Students smuggled alcohol into their rooms, loading extra lamp-fillers with liquor instead of oil. In 1826, the year after Hawthorne's graduation, twelve thousand gallons of liquor were drunk in the small village of Brunswick, population about two thousand, including women and children; one assumes the figures weren't altogether different during his residence.