its prospects. Sometime later, when the building was partially completed, Brown is said to have remarked to Gano at the end of a prayer meeting: “I have had no enjoyment of the meeting. My mind has been much exercised about Hamilton. I do not know but I have some duty there. I wish you would go and see what they are doing; and ascertain if they are in special need of assistance.” Hascall was on the point of discharging the workmen because they had no money to pay them. In this crisis, the story goes, he and his wife resorted to prayer. Within a few days Gano arrived to discover that Brown’s premonition had been correct and on his return Brown’s check was forthcoming.*
The hero of the building of West Hall, as the structure is now designated, was the indefatigable Daniel Hascall. He not only drew the plans and supervised the workmen but, at the same time, collected nearly the whole cost of the building, contributed one hundred dollars himself, carried his teaching load, ran the Payne farm, boarded students, and served as pastor of the local church. Possessing boundless energy and unselfishness, and gifted with a sagacity for anticipating problems and a practical approach for meeting them, he was the one man who could have built West Hall in those years when the Institution had so great a struggle for existence. His task was lightened somewhat by his straightforward honesty, which won him such confidence that, even though he became involved in large expenditures for the Seminary, his creditors refrained from troubling him.
Hascall’s character and devotion are revealed in some degree by a story told of his first meeting with a new student when the building was going up. On arriving in Hamilton the student stopped at Hascall’s home, a “free inn for all newcomers,” where in his host’s absence he was hospitably entertained by his wife, Sophia, long remembered as “The Students’ Friend.” About midnight the sleeping household was awakened by Hascall’s return in a driving rain. The student, asked to dress and come downstairs, was astonished to find a man in a slouch hat and old overcoat, thoroughly drenched and dripping from head to foot, who greeted him pleasantly and politely asked him to help in unloading a quantity of glass for the new building which he had brought from Utica. This was the great professor of whom the awestruck student had heard so much.
Hascall’s energy and activity did not prevent his having moments of
* The Young Minister’s Friend, I, (Feb., 1844), 5.