Category Archives: Origin

14 accepted for ministerial training (p. 14)

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Meanwhile, the Executive Committee had been receiving several applications for assistance from young men desiring ministerial training. By May, 1820, fourteen had been accepted as beneficiaries of the Society, that is, all or part of their expenses were paid out of its treasury. Since the Society did not yet have its own institution, they studied with Hascall, Kendrick, Clark, and the Rev. Elon Galusha in Whitesboro.

With the selection of Hamilton as the site for the school, it became necessary to obtain a full-time instructor. The Executive Committee sought in vain to engage at least three of the most promising young men in the denomination, one of whom, Stephen W. Taylor, some years later, became an outstanding teacher and president of their institution as well as the first executive officer of Lewisburg (Bucknell) University. The Committee finally fell back on Daniel Hascall “whose services thus far have been acceptable.” With ten young men, he began formal instruction on May 1st, 1820. Meeting in the third story over the Hamilton Academy, erected by the citizens of the village as per their agreement, Hascall, his students, and classroom represented the embodiment of the ideal cherished by the founders of the Education Society since 1817.

Colgate University had now come into being, though in a form vastly different from that of 1969. The first stage in its development was over. Daniel Hascall, Nathaniel Kendrick and their associates on the Executive Committee could report that though they were conscious “of a want of wisdom, to manage with any correctness, the unadjusted and complicated concerns of this infant Institution” they had “been much encouraged in the belief, that God has hitherto made it the care of his fostering providence.”*

* Baptist Education Society, Annual Report, 1820, 3, 7.

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Charter passes (p. 13)

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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.

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Ebenezer Wakeley introduces a bill for incorporation (p. 12)

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The Baptist Education Society’s first year proved more prosperous than its founders had expected. Its agents had raised over $2,400 in donations and $55.00 in subscriptions. Already one student, Jonathan Wade, of Hartford, New York, had been received as a beneficiary and was studying Latin with Daniel Hascall. The sum of $27.12 for his board for fifteen and a half weeks at $1.75 per week was the chief expenditure. So sanguine were the members that they directed the Trustees to apply to the state legislature for a charter for the organization. A committee was also appointed to select a site for the new institution.

News of the founding of the Education Society had spread to New England, New York, and Philadelphia. William Staughton, Luther Rice, and the Board of the Triennial Convention, believing that the interests of the denomination could best be served by a concentration of effort, hoped that the Society would become an auxiliary organization of the Convention and send men and funds to its institution in Philadelphia; But no step was taken in this direction. Hascall, Kendrick and the others had clearly indicated in the Constitution that the Society was to have its own institution and one of the arguments urged for supporting it was that the school would be located in up-state New York.

As directed by the Society, the Trustees petitioned the legislature for a charter. Ebenezer Wakeley, a member who, was in the Assembly, in January 1819 introduced a bill for incorporation and headed the select committee to which it was referred. He later learned that General Erastus Root, a fellow assemblyman of great influence with the majority party, opposed the bill on the ground that it would charter a religious society. An extremely able man, scholarly, sarcastic, dissipated, and sometimes uncouth and rough, Root could be a dreaded antagonist. When Wakeley called on him one evening in an attempt to explain the purpose of the Society and win him over he exclaimed, “What the devil do you want with an act of incorporation?” and swore that the bill should be defeated. The next morning as the Assembly went into the committee of the whole the Speaker called on Root to preside. Wakeley feared that the General would ask to be excused so that he could participate in the discussion, but after a moment’s hesitation he took the chair and thus eliminated himself as an opponent on the floor. As Wakeley presented the reasons for the bill, Root would frequently scowl at him. On its third reading it passed with 62

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p. 11 – Origin

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several sentences being identical. The object of the organization was “to afford means of instruction, to such persons of the Baptist Denomination, as shall furnish evidence to the churches of which they are members, and to the Executive Committee hereafter named, of their personal piety and call to the gospel ministry.” All persons who paid the yearly fee of $1.00 were eligible to membership. At the annual meetings a Board of Trustees was to be elected who, in turn, would choose both an Executive Committee of five and officers of the Society. To the Executive Committee fell the responsibility for direct supervision of the institution soon to be established by the Society, even to hiring instructors and determining the time students should devote to study.

The Address accompanying the Constitution emphasized that ministers, because of their prominence in society, should have a thorough knowledge of the language of the Scriptures so that they might correctly explain the words and doctrine of the bible. Rather than have them educated in existing schools and colleges, it was believed that a special school would be “better adapted to the little time many of them have to study, and the means of defraying their expenses, as well as, to the preservation of their morals and the promotion of their piety.” The institution was to provide both theological and literary instruction. Central New York Baptists were urged to emulate their brethren elsewhere in the northeast who were also advancing ministerial education.

With the Constitution and Address there was published a comprehensive and diplomatic Address of the Executive Committee, the specific object of which seemed to be to allay the old criticism of an educated clergy. The committee stated clearly that while they had “no idea of making ministers” they believed that learning greatly increased a minister’s usefulness. They pointed out that many young men were deterred from entering the ministry by the realization of their lack of training. Though the Baptists were as numerous as any other denomination in the state they had “not a single President, or Professor, in any of the Colleges.” The Committee concluded with an appeal for funds for their enterprise.*

*Baptist Education Society of the State of New York, Annual Report, 1818, and
Circular [c. 1818].

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p. 10 – Origin

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Jonathan Olmstead's house, p10

founding such a society and soliciting support in its behalf. Both documents were accepted and five hundred copies of each ordered printed for distribution. Those present agreed to pay an annual membership fee of $1.00 and then elected a board of trustees which, in turn, chose Roots, President; Clark, Secretary; Olmstead, Treasurer.

The Constitution of thirteen articles bore a striking resemblance to one for a Massachusetts society of a similar nature, the preamble and

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p. 9 – Origin

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elisha-payne-pg-9Robert Powell, p9

 

 

County and Hartwick in Otsego County. Six were clergymen: Roots, Bostwick, and Kingsley, in addition to Hascall, Kendrick and Clark; one was soon to enter that calling, Powell; three, Samuel Payne, Olmstead and Osgood, were farmers; Cox was a merchant and tailor; Hull was a physician; and Elisha Payne a farmer and inn-keeper. Most of them were leaders in their communities. Nine had been born in New England. Most were middle-aged, save Powell who was twenty-seven. Hascall and Roots were probably the only two Baptist preachers west of the Hudson in 1817 who had attended college. Roots, Class of 1789 at Dartmouth, was perhaps the most widely known because of his extensive missionary tours under the auspices of the Massachusetts Baptist Missionary Society, many of which were fully reported in that organization’s magazine.

Robert Powell remembered the meeting as a solemn and impressive occasion. The brethren were seated mostly on the south side of the room, Hascall and Kendrick next to each other. Bostwick was made moderator and Hull, clerk. After the purpose of the meeting had been indicated, a period of profound silence followed which Kendrick broke by a prayer in which all joined. The committee appointed at the May meeting then submitted a Constitution for the Baptist Education Society of the State of New York, which they proposed to form, and also an Address to the Baptists of the state, explaining the reasons for

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p. 8 – Origin

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daniel-hascallPresident Nathaniel Kendrick, p8, p17jonathan-olmstead

 

 

Clark was pastor at Sangerfield, a few miles east of Hamilton, and Hull was a physician and a member of Kendrick’s church in Eaton. Though Hascall, Kendrick and Clark must have sought support for the enterprise among the associations whose meetings they attended prior to the date set for gathering at Hamilton, their efforts appear to have been disappointing. The Otsego Association seems to have been the only one to respond, devoting its entire Circular and Corresponding Letter for 1817 to the topic of ministerial education. When the date for the Hamilton meeting arrived, Otsego was the only association, aside from Madison, to be represented. It is possible that many men who may have given the project their blessing informally, declined to travel to Hamilton over muddy September roads. Further explanation for the attendance of only thirteen at the meeting is found in the prevalent hostility to an educated clergy. Finding their number so small, those present convened, not at the “Baptist Meeting-House” as advertised, but in the north parlor of Jonathan Olmstead’s home about a mile south of the village.

In addition to Olmstead, Hascall, Kendrick, Clarkand Charles W. Hull, there were: Samuel Payne, Elisha Payne, John Bostwick, Thomas Cox, Samuel Osgood, Amos Kingsley, Peter Philanthropos Roots, and Robert Powell. Nine were members of the Hamilton church, two of the Eaton church, and one each of the churches of Sangerfield in Oneida

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A meeting at the home of Samuel Payne (p. 7)

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England Baptists with whom he was in touch, and from similar activities of the Baptists in New York City and elsewhere. Thus, when he read the eloquent Corresponding Letter of the Boston Association for 1816, he was encouraged to dream of an educational institution in the West urged by Jeremiah Chaplin. When he broached the idea to his old friend, Nathaniel Kendrick, who visited the vicinity in the fall of 1816, he found a sympathetic listener. Kendrick, pastor of the church at Middlebury, Vermont, though not a college man, had studied with the Rev. Samuel Stillman of Boston and other able divines. When in 1817 he settled at Eaton, a few miles over the western ridge of hills from Hamilton, further detailed discussion was possible.

The first step toward forming an education society was taken in May, 1817, when five or six “Ministers and Brethren” met in Hamilton at the home of Samuel Payne “to consider the propriety and importance of affording assistance to young men, in obtaining a competent education, who are called of God to preach.” A committee of four reported further:

After prayerful deliberation on the subject, it was the unanimous opinion of those present, that to promote the future usefulness of those whom God is raising up to be Ministers of the New Testament, some provision should be made for their instruction.

The undersigned were appointed to consult with Fathers and Brethren not present, and to obtain information from several Theological Institutions recently established by the Baptist denomination in other places; and advertise another meeting. These directions have been attended to, and the subject is assuming an interest with many, beyond what was at first anticipated.

We hereby give notice, that the next Meeting will be held at the Baptist Meeting-House in Hamilton, on the fourth Wednesday in September next, at ten o’clock A.M. at which time a sermon may be expected on the occasion.

The Ministers and Brethren from the several Associations in the country, as far as will be Practicable, are respectfully solicited to attend.

Joel W. Clark
Nathaniel Kendrick
Charles W. Hull
Daniel Hascall*

*American Baptist Magazine, I (November, 1817), 238. This notice was printed on the cover of the Western New York Baptist Magazine, II (Aug., 1817), though no copy with a cover is known to exist.

 

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Hamilton’s first newspaper, the Hamilton Gazette (p. 6)

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knew them well wrote that “in those important aids which human learning and intellectual culture afford to the servants of the gospel, they were comparatively deficient.” “So illiterate” was one “at the time he commenced in the ministry, that it was difficult for him to read a sentence intelligibly.” His experience of the want of education “and the privation and embarrassment he had suffered as a consequence” made him a warm advocate of ministerial education for the young men who were to succeed him.*

The time was ripe for taking action, not only because the need was recognized but also because economic conditions were favorable. The current boom in agricultural prices due to extensive crop exports to Europe and to the high cash prices recently paid for provisions in the state during the War of 1812 brought prosperity. Moreover, a new wave of revivalism strengthened the churches which were increasing in size and numbers; material and spiritual prosperity went hand in hand.

Payne’s Settlement shared in the “new impulse … which resulted in the up swinging of various enterprises.” Serving as the trading center of an agricultural community, the hamlet naturally throve when farmers received high prices for their products. Its business was probably augmented by the new Hamilton Skaneateles Turnpike. Also, its accessibility helped to make it a common meeting place for the militia of the vicinity. Several new buildings, many of brick, had been erected, among them a two-story structure for the recently established Hamilton Academy. The population had so increased by 1816 that it was possible to incorporate the settlement as a village called Hamilton. The same year saw the beginning of the first newspaper, the Hamilton Gazette. When the Baptist meeting house was burned to the ground in 1818 the church was sufficiently thriving that it could not only rebuild in less than eleven months but raise the salary of the preacher as well. Surely, no time could have been more propitious for the founding of the Baptist Education Society of the State of New York.

Daniel Hascall, an alumnus of Middlebury College, Class of 1806, had been pastor of the church since 1813. For a long time he had been  concerned about raising the educational standard of the Baptist clergy.  His interest received stimulus from the educational efforts of the New

* John Peck & John Lawton, An Historical Sketch of the Baptist Missionary Convention of the State of New York (Utica, 1837), 55, 203-204.

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First Baptist Church of Hamilton established (p. 5)

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town.

They may have learned about the region from a brother, Barnabas Payne, who saw service at Fort Stanwix, about ten miles west. They, themselves, were also veterans and conceivably could have been on duty in the area. In 1795 Elisha, and mutual friends from Whitestown and Connecticut, joined Samuel in his new location. Elisha bought a large tract of land north of that held by his brother and here founded Payne’s Settlement, so-called because of Elisha’s interest and activity in developing the village. The leading citizen of the community, he erected the first frame building, opened a tavern where the first town meeting was held, and served as one of the first judges of the Court of General Sessions for Common Pleas.

Their material needs provided for, the settlers turned to matters of religion. In 1796, only two years after Samuel Payne’s arrival, they met at his home to establish the First Baptist Church of Hamilton, for nearly a generation the only church in the village. Elisha Payne for some reason did not join until three years later yet he, Samuel, and their friend, Jonathan Olmstead, were its pillars. They and six of the others, who later formed the Baptist Education Society of the State of New York, helped to make it one of the strongest in the State and the “Mother Church of Colgate University.” The church could report in 1796 that with the aid of “divine providence” they were changing “the howling desert into a fruitful land….”*

Not content with providing a religious organization for themselves, the Hamilton Baptists in 1807 joined with other members of the denomination in the surrounding region to form a society to send preachers to the Holland Purchase area south of Lake Ontario and into the Canadian peninsula. The organization even provided a minister and teacher for their neighbors, the Oneida Indians. Probably no other agency was as influential in promoting the progress of Baptists in Western New York.

In 1795 the denomination had only about 500 members, fifteen churches, seven preachers, and one small meeting house in the upstate area. By 1817, however, there were approximately 28,000 members, 310 churches, and 230 ministers. Their preachers, though devoted and able were, for the most part, poorly educated. A contemporary who

* Ashbel Hosmer and John Lawton, A View of the Rise and Increase of the
Churches Composing the Otsego Association (Whitestown, 1800), 11-21.

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