Hebrew and Greek. New seminaries must be erected and endowed since Brown University, founded in 1764 under Baptist auspices, was no longer adequate for the needs of the denomination; no divinity was taught there and at that college as at “almost every other literary institution a large proportion of the students are destitute of the grace of God.” He believed that four seminaries should be set up, one in New England, one in the Middle States, one in the South, and one in the West. Indigent students should be supported by special funds. Until these institutions should be established young men should receive private instruction from settled pastors as heretofore.
Chaplin’s Corresponding Letter inspired Daniel Hascall, pastor of the First Baptist Church at Hamilton, New York, to consider Central New York an ideal location for the seminary in the West. Following the American Revolution this territory was laid out in townships open for settlement. The township later to be known as Hamilton, like most others, fell into the hands of speculators, among whom was Dominick Lynch of New York. Even before the speculators began to advertise their holdings in the newspapers, accounts of the extent and fertility of this land had penetrated New England through reports of Indian traders, missionaries, and soldiers who had seen service on the frontier during the war.
Among the first families to locate in Central New York was that of Hugh White of Middletown, Connecticut, who in 1785 founded Whitestown a few miles west of the present city of Utica. The soil’s fertility and amazingly cheap prices were not to be resisted. Settlers of Madison County wrote home to Rhode Island that wild land was from $4.00 to $7.00 an acre. One observer in Albany noted in 1792 that the emigrants appeared to be people of substance and moved to their new homes well equipped with household furniture, tools, and stock.
Within four years, 1791 to 1795, twelve of the original fourteen townships of Madison County had been opened. Settlers came from eastern New York and all the New England states, Connecticut furnishing pioneers for nearly every town. Hamilton was first settled in 1794 by Samuel Payne who bought a tract in this area from Dominick Lynch. Payne came of a prominent eastern Connecticut family, some members of which had moved to Cornwall, in the western part of the state, and later to Dutchess County, New York, prior to the Revolution. At its conclusion, he with his brother,Elisha, moved to Whites-