Deacon Payne seems to have acquired a moderate amount of wealth in agriculture. He took a rather active part in the political life of the county and twice sat in the State Assembly. He belonged to the conservative wing of the Democratic-Republican party and, his solid figure and dignified presence must have been well known at caucuses and conventions. For many years he ‘was a Justice of the Peace and in 1832 a Presidential Elector. Mrs. Payne, a kind and pious woman, who made her home a place where the young men of the Institution could find understanding and cheer, was known as “the Students’ Mother.” In the early years before rooms were available in the “building on the plain,” students lived with the Paynes. Without children of their own, they gave to the school the love and affection they would normally have bestowed on a family.
The choice of a site for the new building, now to be on the Payne farm, the Executive Committee referred to a committee of six. Hascall, whose plan for the structure they had already approved, served as a member. He had represented the Institution at a meeting of the Board of the now auxiliary New York Baptist Theological Seminary in New York City whose members raised $2,000 by their own efforts for the building and later, when additional funds were needed, borrowed $1,000 more at 7 percent interest.
A gift of $1,000 from Nicholas Brown proved another important addition to the building fund. Brown’s pastor, the Rev. Stephen Gano of the First Baptist Church of Providence, Rhode Island, returned from a visit to Hamilton in 1825 enthusiastic about the Seminary and