The issue of location now apparently settled, the Trustees two days later empowered their Provisional Committee, i.e. executive committee, to take necessary steps to effect the transfer and appointed a special committee on a site and buildings in Rochester. At the last session Jacob Knapp, James B. Eldredge, and Lewis Wickwire, representing Hamilton citizens, appeared to present a new bond of $50,000 as a guarantee for obtaining the endowment. The Trustees, countering that they regretted their inability to accept the proposal, instructed the Provisional Committee “to converse with them upon the subject of retaining here an Institution of Learning, or of such arrangements as may conduce to the removal of all difficulties.”
The Education Society’s Board, many of whose members had been sitting with the University Trustees as regular members or by invitation, met hastily on the morning of Wednesday, August 15, to consider the latter’s resolutions. Formal action was necessary since the Society would assemble for its annual meeting within a few hours. The Education Society Trustees voted unanimously:
That we adopt the Resolution lately passed by the Board of Madison
University, respecting a removal to Rochester. That upon the consid-
erations therein contained, the Education Society release the Board of
Madison University, whenever said University shall be prepared to
quit Hamilton from the obligations of any contract between said So-
ciety and the University Board, so far as the same would obstruct that
removal.
The Education Society Board also resolved, Deacon Alvah Pierce and Archibald Campbell dissenting,
That this Board recommend to the Education Society under the
grave circumstances in which Divine Providence has placed them, and
considering the general wishes of the Churches throughout this State
as favoring a removal of this school of the Prophets to another location,
to take measures for the removal of their Institution to Rochester.
Adjournment followed at once to permit the members to attend the annual meeting which convened at ten o’clock at the Baptist Church.
Since several new Society members from Hamilton were present who only that day or shortly before had paid the annual fee of one dollar, the Removalists looked upon them as interlopers whose sole purpose was to thwart the University’s relocation. Later investigations revealed that a large proportion were Baptists in good standing and