Chapter XII – THE MERRILL PRESIDENCY 1899-1908
It was with heartfelt fervor that a great crowd of students sang to the tune of “Old Colgate Is the Place For Me”
(or “The Pope”
)
Oh, Prexie, we’re so glad you’re here,
We’ve waited for you many a year,
And now we greet you loud and true
Oh, Prexie Merrill, here’s to you
as the President-elect and his wife arrived on the 1:36 p.m. train at the Hamilton station on January 25, 1899. They were helped into a coach on sleigh runners to which the undergraduates had attached a long rope and were drawn in joyous procession to the home of Dean and Mrs. Burnham where they were to stay while they got acquainted with the University and town. Dr. George Edmands Merrill was not a complete stranger, however, since he had lectured on the campus the year before and had been a friend of the Dean’s since their student days at Newton Theological Seminary in the 1870’s; Dr. Burnham had been primarily responsible for bringing about his election as Colgate’s sixth president.
Dr. Merrill’s qualifications augured well for a successful term of office. He was fifty-three, a New Englander, a Harvard graduate (1869) and successful pastor. His tastes and attitudes reflected his scholarly and cultural interests and to them he joined considerable ability in business and architecture. He was a Biblical scholar and had traveled rather extensively in Europe. He enjoyed riding horseback and buggy driving. Always described as a “gentleman,” he had a “quiet firmness which was entirely consistent with his graciousness of manner” and “his purposes went forward surely but without noise.” He brought a “refining influence” to faculty and students who seemed to
