showed great energy in collecting endowment subscriptions. Dr. Kendrick, now definitely aligned with them because he had been alienated by the bitterness of the Wyoming Address, wrote numerous letters soliciting support. His appeals had unique poignancy because they came from a bed of pain. He informed one graduate, “I find myself wasting away. I know not that I shall live to see the removal question settled. I trust God will order it right. Help me with your prayers.”
Professor Eaton, the most active of the collecting agents, traveled widely to speak in the churches. He had anticipated that the Removalists might try to confine the money-raising campaign to Central New York or to hamper it in other ways and his apprehensions proved well-grounded. He had scarcely expressed them when the Madison Observer, published at the neighboring village of Morrisville, printed a communication entitled “Shall Hamilton village be endowed?”
The author, identified as John S. Holme, a member of the Senior Class, asserted that the people of Central New York had no obligation to contribute since the principal benefits would accrue to Hamilton. Professor Eaton made a heated reply and the editor of the Democratic Reflector flayed the student for being “forgetful of his proper place.”
Week after week the Reflector, the Baptist Register and the Recorder were filled with charges and counter-charges. Professors Raymond and A. C. Kendrick, writing under pseudonyms, urged against contributing to the endowment, while Professor Eaton, signing himself variously as “Christianus”
or “an Agent,”
undertook to meet their arguments. By August, when the Hamiltonians began to despair of raising the $50,000 within the time allowed, the editor of the Reflector pleaded with the villagers to cover the deficit with a bond. He asserted that, with the University gone, all business would be paralyzed.
The week of August 10-17, 1848, was the most turbulent period of the Removal Controversy. Excitement reached an intensity comparable to the temperature which prevailed on those hot summer days as clouds of dust, stirred by the carriages hurrying along dry roads, settled in the front parlors newly made ready for guests who had come to Hamilton for the Education Society’s annual meeting and the commencement. Foremost in the mind of everyone was the future location of the University, an issue overshadowing all else, even the orations of the graduating class.’
Attention focused first on the deliberations of the University Trus-