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p. 150 – Recovery and expansion, 1850-1869

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them for funds for the University of Rochester. Both sides sought particularly to win over the wealthy iron merchant and philanthropist, Garrat N. Bleecker, who proved to be a decided Madison supporter; his check for $3,000 was the largest single contribution to the endow­ment. Other agents circulated among the upstate Baptist churches, and there, also, met rivals from Rochester. The solicitors for both institutions proved remarkably successful, thanks to the high level of agricultural prosperity then prevailing in the region. By August 1851, the friends of Madison, having exceeded their goal of $60,000 by $7,000, were ready to lift it to $100,000, a sum they did not achieve.

The University endowment drive naturally cut into the Education Society’s income since its patrons had first to pay their endowment pledges, and consequently the latter organization had a deficit of about $15,000 for several years. The Society had originally incurred most of its indebtedness by attempting to support more beneficiaries than funds permitted. Then, the growing apathy of the churches to the cause of ministerial education in the late ’50’s and the demands of charities attendant on the Civil War greatly reduced annual contributions. The University treasury likewise experienced stringency, forcing the Trustees in 1861 to cut salaries.

To Professors Spear, Eaton and others, invested funds seemed the answer to financial worries. Despite his $2,000 contribution to the endowment in 1850, Deacon Colgate resolutely opposed this means of support, citing Scriptural caution against “anxious care for the morrow” and “distrusting our Lord for the future.” As Dr. Eaton wrote years later, “This had been good advice, had all been like-minded with him and been as ready to give according to their ability.” Fortunately for the University, the Deacon’s friend, Garrat Bleecker, dissented, and in 1853 left the institution $12,000 which, with the $3,000 he had given in 1850, he directed to be used as the foundation for the University’s first chair, the Bleecker Professorship of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy.

Professor Spear, noting that the University’s invested funds had mitigated the effect of the Panic of 1857 on its treasury, urged Deacon Colgate’s sons, James B. and Samuel, to assist in raising $30,000 for its sister corporation, the Education Society, and, more particularly, to establish a Colgate professorship by adding $13,000 to the $2,000 their father had given to the original endowment, The latter idea did not

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p. 149 – Recovery and expansion, 1850-1869

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Old President’s House
Picture of house

experience. Knowing, however, that he already had the nod from the New York City Trustees and the sanction of dominant local sentiment, Dr. Eaton accepted the Board’s selection. The President-elect magnanimously sought him out, the morning after his public statement, to tell Eaton that he admired his frankness and was confident they could cooperate for the best interest of the University.

Finances from 1850 to 1869 are perhaps a more graphic index of the University’s recovery and progress than its administration. With the settlement of the Removal issue there were liabilities of over $30,000 and no funds. Professors Eaton and Spear and Treasurer Alvah Pierce of the Education Society at once set to work trying to raise the $60,000 endowment decided on in May 1850. They began in Hamilton where the residents subscribed approximately $21,000 with Professor Spear and his father jointly heading the list with $2,200 and Deacons Pierce and William Cobb with $2,000 each. Before classes resumed in the fall, Eaton and Spear conducted a two-and-a-half-week campaign among New York City Baptists. Starting with Deacon William Colgate, at whose gracious home they were “nicely domiciled,” they interviewed other friends and addressed public meetings, often encountering Professor Raymond, John N. Wilder and others who were competing with

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Ebenezer Dodge elected as University president (p. 148)

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three candidates, to accept, the Board in August, 1868, chose Professor Dodge. Eaton continued as President of the Seminary, a position he had held since its creation in 1861. In commenting on Dodge, one local observer described him as “one unexcitable, cool, and dispassionate, who could administer the required discipline of the school, with a determined hand.”

If Dr. Eaton had never taken the presidency of the University, his career would have been an unqualified success. He was a good teacher, popular with his students and well-regarded in the village and in the Baptist denomination. He liked human contacts and he and Mrs. Eaton dispensed generous hospitality at “Woodland Height,” which was one of the most attractive spots on the Hill, set as it was among beeches and hemlocks. A cedar hedge, sweet briar on the walls, a lilac path, and a “Lovers’ lane” of snowball bushes added to its charm. The Eatons entertained extensively, particularly at commencement, when visitors filled faculty and village homes, and their receptions at this season were gala occasions. In 1866 Mrs. Eaton prepared sponge cake and lemonade for a crowd of over 300 which gathered in the brilliantly lighted house and wandered about in the yard decorated with Chinese lanterns; the last guest departed at 2:00 a.m.

The University profited from the social leadership which the President and his wife provided. Its distinguished visitors were assured a warm welcome at their home and callow students, whether they came to court the attractive Eaton daughters or on more serious business, found an environment which taught them manners and poise. The University also profited from the cordial town and gown relations which the Eatons fostered as they moved in village society. The citizens remembered gratefully that the President and Professor Spear had been the two most stalwart defenders of the Hamilton location in the Removal Controversy.

With the inauguration of President Dodge in 1868, old memories had dimmed. When he had come to the campus fifteen years before, the University was already well on the way to recovering from the effects of the troublesome ’40’s. Soon a highly valued member of the faculty, Dodge had quietly built a reputation for original teaching but it was the Presidency, especially after 1869, however, which was to disclose his full stature. Eaton, alone of his colleagues, had publicly opposed the appointment on the ground that Dodge lacked administrative

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p. 147 – Recovery and expansion, 1850-1869

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sistence, and sagacity, Dr. Eaton found uncongenial. He preferred rather to represent the University at public assemblies or, in his ornate style, to discuss abstract ideas from the platform or pulpit. The dogged, methodical Professor Spear took over many of the less colorful duties, including those as Librarian, but his.. special interest was finances. Others, the Trustees themselves often managed. Aversion to administration and a desire to give full time to his theological professorship explain Eaton’s enthusiastic efforts to induce ex-Governor George Nixon Briggs of Massachusetts, a prominent Baptist, to become “Chancellor” of the University. Interestingly enough, Eaton began this abortive movement in 1859, only three years after he had taken office, and was joined in it by the entire faculty.

Strained relations between the President and the faculty appeared in 1862 when they refused to support him on a question of honorary degrees. Mrs. Eaton recorded in her diary that a professor told her that one member had been so impudent to the President at a faculty meeting that, had her informant been in Dr. Eaton’s place, “he would have pitched him out the window.” His two foremost critics were Alexander M. Beebee Jr., and Ebenezer Dodge. Beebee, the son of the editor of the Baptist Register, a member of the Class of 1847, and graduate of the Seminary, had joined the faculty in 1850 as Professor of Logic and English Literature. Dodge, an alumnus of Brown University, and Newton Theological Seminary, had replaced Professor Turney in 1853. Appointed under the Colgate family’s sponsorship and enjoying their confidence, he was in a strong position.

The stresses of office impaired Dr. Eaton’s health, and on medical advice in 1853 he went to Europe for a change and to rest. His trip was a moderate success but he complained bitterly that the Trustees failed to provide him with sufficient funds, unaware that James B. Colgate had arranged with a London banker to honor all his drafts. He also worried and fretted about University matters. His return in May 1864, was the occasion for cordial and enthusiastic welcome by students, townspeople and faculty, who had gathered at his home“Woodland Height.”

The year 1864-65 saw no material improvement in conditions and with the Civil War over an opportune time had come for the President to resign. He did so in July 1865, but, at the request of the Trustees, continued to serve until his successor was selected. Failing to induce

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p. 146 – Recovery and expansion, 1850-1869

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President George W. Eaton, 1856-58, A0999-3, p146

plinary committee. Since Eaton was also the senior professor of the
Seminary, no conflict developed as in Taylor’s time, concerning his
authority over students in that department, and in 1861 its own
instructors took responsibility for their conduct. Though the faculty
was disinclined at first to assist the President in what had heretofore
been a function of his office, members did sit on the disciplinary
committee until Lucien M. Osborn, Professor of Mathematics and
Natural Philosophy, took over its duties in 1865. Two years later,
however, the faculty relieved him of the disagreeable task.

The routine administrative chores requiring attention to detail, per

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George Eaton elected as president (p. 145)

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showed characteristic practicality in appraising the value of education. He pointed out that college training was only the foundation for a career and that industry, health, and common sense were equally important for success. No “ivory tower” theorist, he urged his hearers to study human nature in life as well as in books. “Your liberal education,” he told them, “supersedes none of the advantages common to the educated and uneducated; but it qualifies you to apply them all with superior skill and power in the discharge of your duties to God and man.”

Within two years of taking office, President Taylor suffered a severe spinal disease from which he never recovered. His fine physique was emaciated and stooped, and though his vitality ebbed he still possessed wonderful energy and an iron will which enabled him to carry on his duties to within a few weeks of his death. Emily, his pretty black-eyed daughter, was his amanuensis, and student watchers sat by his bedside during the nights of pain. He died January 7, 1856, and three days later, after a funeral service in the chapel hung with crepe, he was buried in the University cemetery.

Under Dr. Taylor the University recovered the position and strength which it had lost during the Removal Controversy. His administration demonstrated that the institution’s powers of endurance and recuperation justified public confidence in its future. In the resolutions occasioned by his death, the University Trustees mourned him as “a respected and efficient President, a successful Teacher, and able Executive Officer, a man of great promptness and energy, of large experience, of singular tact, a man of Science and of true devotion to the cause of Religion and learning.”

After Dr. Taylor’s death, Professor Eaton as senior member of the faculty served as chairman until his election to the Presidency in August 1856. He was reluctant to take the office because his chief interest was theological instruction. There was doubt, moreover, as to his qualifications. He stood in marked contrast to his predecessor who exemplified the popular conception of the time that a college president should be primarily a disciplinarian. Eaton disliked enforcing order among the students and gave them the impression that he experienced pain and distress equal to that of the culprit himself.

At the outset of the new administration the Trustees directed the faculty to select two members to act with the President as a disci-

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p. 144 – Recovery and expansion, 1850-1869

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As might have been expected, Dr. Taylor maintained that responsibility for the conduct and discipline of all parts of the University rested with the President. The Seminary had, however, enjoyed a certain degree of independence resulting from its prestige, age, and the mature character of its students who represented a powerful group united by close ties of vocational interest. Professor Edmund Turney and, to a lesser extent, Professor Eaton held that the Seminary faculty, rather than the President, should be responsible for the theological students. Turney, a graduate of the Class of 1838 and a former theological student himself, had joined the faculty in 1850 as Professor of Biblical Criticism and Interpretation in the Seminary and Evidences of Revealed Religion in the College. Conscientious and generally popular with students and townspeople, he steadily fought Dr. Taylor’s views in a long series of faculty meetings and before the Trustees.

The point at issue was so fundamental to the relationship of the Education Society and University that joint action by both Boards was required for its resolution. On February 9, 1853, they adopted four articles of Agreement, referred to as the Second Compact, which placed with the University Trustees ultimate responsibility for maintaining and managing all three departments of the institution under one faculty and one code of laws. Though authority for the government and discipline of the college and academic departments centered in the President of the University, he and “the senior Theological Professor” were “associated as peers” for preserving order in the Seminary. In these provisions the Trustees upheld Turney’s views in limiting the President’s power, but the bitter friction between the two men resulted in Turney’s resignation a few months later.

With the question of jurisdiction clarified, the faculty and trustees were then able to complete the revision of the Laws. As chief disciplinary officer the President was vested with parental authority and “expected in governing, to prefer the mildest effectual measures” in punishing “all crimes and offenses committed by students.” He was also directed “to deliver for the benefit of his pupils, familiar lectures in regard to their physical health, personal habits, manners and morals” and “constantly to endeavor to promote a salutary mutual influence among the several officers, classes, and departments.”

Students thought Dr. Taylor “a brusk, stern, yet kindly man” and an enthusiastic teacher. In his address to the graduating Class of 1853, he

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p. 143 – Recovery and expansion, 1850-1869

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President Stephen W. Taylor 1851-56, Alumni Files, p143

 

a salary of $1,000 per year. The definition of his duties and prerogatives they left to a committee of five of their own members and professors to determine. Three months later, Dr. Taylor accepted the offer, much to the distress of the Lewisburg Board, who deeply appreciated his exertions and sacrifice in establishing their university. The President-elect, appreciating the extraordinary and challenging responsibilities he was about to assume, wrote with reference to the Madison Trustees:

I crave & expect an interest in their prayers for constant purity of motives and all needful supplies of wisdom and strength; I crave a large share of their fraternal charity which covers a multitude of sins, &, in good degree, gives, to a fellow laborer, cheerfulness, &, success; &, finally, I crave & expect their own generous and constant cooperation.

The definition of presidential duties and authority which Dr. Taylor had requested was postponed. until after he took office in September 1851. The Trustees probably decided that since this matter was actually a part of the revision of the Laws of 1840 which they already had directed the faculty to undertake, it would be wise to give the new President a chance to participate in the discussion. They also knew they could rely on his highly developed sense of order and discipline in bringing the University’s administrative policies up to date. To confront so strong-minded a man with a set of regulations which he found unsatisfactory would have invited trouble as soon as he set foot in the campus.

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Stephen W. Taylor become first formal president (p. 142)

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As their first step in rebuilding the University, the two sets of Trustees in August, 1850, jointly appointed new faculty members to work with Professors Eaton and Spear to ensure that instruction would be provided in the autumn without interruption and made announce­ments to that effect in the press. It was with much anxiety, however, that the friends of Hamilton awaited the new academic year. When faculty and students assembled on the 24th of October at the ringing of the chapel bell, both were conscious that this was no ordinary beginning of a fall term. To their great satisfaction, however, they discovered that thirty-three young men were present and that this group included representatives of all classes of the collegiate, theological, and academic departments. Immensely cheered, they listened to appropriate remarks by Professor Eaton and joined in a heartfelt prayer of thanksgiving. The auspices for recovery were more favorable than anyone had dared hope.

Though now assured of a student body and a faculty with which to resume operations, Madison University sorely needed a vigorous and wise executive, not only to direct affairs on the campus but also to restore the confidence of former patrons. There had been no such leader since illness and death removed Nathaniel Kendrick’s steadying hand. In Stephen W. Taylor, who was then, in effect President of the University at Lewisburg (Bucknell), the Trustees found a man mea­suring up to the requirements of the office.

Taylor’s career in shaping the nascent Pennsylvania institution had not belied his reputation for practical common sense and indomitable energy, gained as a member of the faculty at Hamilton from 1834 to 1845. On being invited in August 1850, to return as Professor of Mathematics and Natural History, he declined, but gave some hope that he would consider a call to the Presidency. Knowing that no formal provision existed for the office, he insisted that its duties and salary be specified and that he have unanimous Trustee and faculty approval. He had no intention of stepping into a situation where divisive elements were at work nor was he a man to tolerate them should they germinate. He understood rather completely the painful history of the last few years and recognized that united support for its leader was essential to the University’s recovery.

Agreeable to Dr. Taylor’s stipulations, the Trustees on February 6, 1851, created the office of President of Madison University and asked him to take it and the chair of mathematics and natural philosophy at

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p. 141 – Recovery and expansion, 1850-1869

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Village and Campus, c. 180. First Baptist Church in foreground, A1000-64, Folder 33, p66

Tower who concurrently served as Treasurer from 1847 to 1864. A Waterville, New York, distiller and merchant, sagacious and dignified, he had been a member since 1846 and an Education Society Trustee since 1838. Though he had favored Removal and served as one of the original Trustees of the University of Rochester, no Board member exceeded him in service to the Hamilton institution. Tower’s successor in the presidency was James B. Colgate of New York, son of Deacon William Colgate, who was to serve in that capacity until his death 40 years later. Professor Spear followed Tower as Treasurer, remaining in office until 1888.

The Education Society’s Trustees represented the same shades of opinion as the University Corporation and many sat on both Boards. Its presidents were Deacon William Cobb (1849-58) and Deacon Seneca B. Burchard (1858-61), both from Hamilton, and Samuel Colgate (1861-97) of New York, also a son of Deacon William Colgate. Following their father’s death in 1857, both James B. and Samuel became very influential in the affairs of both Boards. Deacon Alvah Pierce, who had been Treasurer since 1837, retained that office until 1887.

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