to Rochester provided that the Education Society concurred. The deliberations, in which the eloquent and excitable William R. Williams was the chief speaker, dragged on until two o’clock the next morning when an informal ballot was taken. Twelve voted for Barton’s resolution, six against, and one, Deacon Burchard, the Chairman, abstained. Those in opposition were William Colgate, Palmer Townsend, William Cobb, Hervey Edwards, Henry Tower, and George Curtis.
A majority vote of at least 15 trustees was required by the Act of April 3, 1848, and since an impasse had been reached, Deacon Burchard appointed Messrs. Colgate, Edwards, Wilder, and Williams a committee to devise “some means of harmonizing the views of the members.”
In the half-hour recess that ensued the Removalists appear to have told Deacon Colgate and those who sided with him that patrons of the University in Western New York and most Baptists in the State would cease supporting it unless the location were changed, leaving the Deacon himself to sustain the institution or see it go to ruin. When the members reassembled Deacon Colgate announced that he, Townsend, and Tower would change their votes “in deference to the judgement of their brethren on the Board, and to the wish of the denomination as it has been expressed in the discussions of the evening.”
Curtis and Edwards subsequently declared that they, too, would vote in the affirmative. After prayer by Deacon Colgate and further discl.1ssion, which lasted till four in the morning, the eighteen Trustees, Deacon Cobb having left, unanimously adopted the following resolutions:
Resolved (the Board of the N. York State Bapt. Education Society concurring that it is expedient to remove Madison University to the city of Rochester; the said removal to be conditioned, however, that legal difficulties interposed be found insufficient; and that Messrs. Seneca B. Burchard, Ira Harris, and Robert Kelly, be a Committee of this Board to examine such difficulties and hear arguments-upon their favorable report such removal to be unconditional. Resolved, that it is the intention of the Board, in the removal, to preserve the institution irrevocably under the control of the Baptist denomination. Resolved, that whenever such satisfactory report shall have been received, the officers of the Board be authorized to file, according to the provisions of the Statute, the following resolution in the office of the Secretary of State: ‘Resolved, that the Madison University do hereby elect, pursuant to authority given them, to remove to the city of Rochester.’