Compensation Day is an annual College holiday, typically on November 1, or All Saints' Day.

In 1867, a member of the class of 1869 broke their leg during a customary football match between the freshman and sophomore classes. Because of the increasingly injurious nature of the games, Trinity administration forbade their continuation, and gave the students a holiday instead.

On Compensation Day in 1869, costumed members of the class of 1873 ceremoniously buried a football on the far edge of campus – akin to a funeral procession – complete with mourners, lively music, orations, and poems. After the ball was laid to rest, beer and crackers provided by the freshman class was the order of the evening.

The Tablet from 1870 included a challenge to the class of 1874 to take up their predecessors' follies in the continuation of this new Compensation Day tradition. While Compensation Day remained on the College calendar, the football burying tradition did not last long, and in its place arose a “bum,” a party for the entire College given by the Freshmen.

The History of Trinity College (1967) by Glenn Weaver, p. 165.

Trinity Tablet, 10/20/1870.

Trinity Tablet, 11/15/1869.

Trinity Tablet, October 1868.