Chapter VIII – RECOVERY AND EXPANSION 1850-1869
As the embers of the Removal Controversy cooled, the friends of Madison University turned their energy to repairing the serious damage which that intense and bitter conflict had done. Under Stephen W. Taylor’s vigorous presidency, 1851-56, they achieved for it a large measure of recovery. His successor, George W. Eaton, who served from 1856 to 1868, though not so strong a leader, brought the institution through the Civil War years with comparatively slight dislocation. During Eaton’s tenure also, resources and facilities so expanded that the university in 1869, under President Ebenezer Dodge, had every expectation of prosperity and usefulness greater than it had experienced during its first half century.
In the interim between August 1850, when the Anti-Removalists gained control of the University and the Education Society’s Boards, and Taylor’s assumption of office a year later, Professors Eaton and Spear acted as temporary executives. The one “kept his hand upon the helm and his eye upon the starless heavens, the other stood guard over the treasury and cargo.”
Final authority and responsibility, of course, rested with the Trustees. Professor Spear, Secretary of both Boards, complained that the Removalist Trustees delayed resigning until August, 1850, even though the injunction against removal had been granted three months previously, because until they should do so and permit the friends of Hamilton to have control, no arrangements for the next year could be made.
The new Trustees, all solid, substantial business men from Hamilton or vicinity, represented the conservative element among the Baptists loyal to Madison University. They and their associates could be expected to perpetuate it with little deviation from the pattern followed hitherto. The President of the Board from 1850 to 1864 was Henry