members in favor and 35 against, Root contenting himself by voting with the latter. Wakeley wrote years later that he never knew whether the Speaker called the General to the chair by design or “whether it was a kind providence leading in a way to save the bill which would probably have been lost had Root been on the floor …” The Senate passed it, apparently without opposition; and on March 5, 1819, it became a law,* with the Council of Revision’s approval.
The charter gave the Society the usual privileges granted corporations but restricted it to ownership of property with an annual income of not more than $5,000 and prohibited the Society from making “any law or regulation affecting the rights of conscience.”
View Selecting a location for the Society’s institution in a larger map
Selecting a location for the Society’s institution was another matter of concern. The committee on this subject, chosen in 1818, was unable to agree though they had investigated the villages of Elbridge, Throopsville, Skaneateles, Fabius, Sangerfield, and Hamilton, noting in each place climate, soil, accessibility, economic conditions and the state of the local Baptist church. They also considered the bid of Peterboro but do not seem to have made a special visit there. A second committee revisited these communities and reported to the Executive Committee which decided on Skaneateles, provided the people of that village would raise $10,000. But when the Trustees learned that the citizens required that the seminary should operate as an academy and be open to local students, they felt it necessary to seek another site, since they believed that the Constitution of the Society authorized instruction only for prospective preachers. Confronted with the problem a second time, they wavered between Peterboro and Hamilton. The minutes of the meeting, November 3, 1819, read:
After mature deliberation, on receiving ample securities from Hamilton, that they will furnish by the first of May next, the upper story of the academy in the village of Hamilton, well furnished for
the use of the Society, and in four years procure the whole building or one equal to it, estimated at $3500, and $2500 to be paid in board at 12 shillings per week in five equal annual payments provided the
Society shall require it in that time or in a longer period.
Voted unanimously, that the Theological Seminary be permanently located in or near the Village of Hamilton, Co. of Madison and State of New York.**
* New York State Laws (1819) Chapt. 35.
** Baptist Education Society of the State of New York, Trustees, Minutes of
Meeting, Nov. 3, 1819, a loose ms.