Category Archives: Administration Setting and Staff 1820-1833

p. 18 – Administration, Setting, And Staff, 1820-1833

In addition to Kendrick, Clark, Olmstead, and Daniel Hascall, the personnel of the Committee included Elon Galusha, John Peck, and Seneca B. Burchard. Galusha, son of Jonas Galusha, a former governor of Vermont, was making a reputation at Whitesboro as one of the most eloquent Baptist preachers in the State. He was later to figure prominently in the antislavery controversy which would split the denomination in the ‘forties. “Father Peck,” the greatly loved and benign pastor of the Cazenovia church, subsequently became well known as a far-ranging agent for home and foreign missions. Burchard, one of the most important of the stalwart laymen intimately associated with the Institution, left a record of service matching that of Olmstead. A newly appointed faculty member in a confidential letter described Burchard and Olmstead as “two very grave and sober and considerate and economical Deacons. They are shrewd and judicious men, however, and are perhaps the fairest representation of the whole Bap. Community with whom we have to do.”*

The high point in the year was the Society’s Annual Meeting,usually held, the first week in June. The date was fitted into the schedule of “public examinations” of the students and the “public exercises” of the juniors and seniors. At this time the officers of the Society brought together all those interested in the Institution. The procedure on these occasions resembled that of the meetings of Baptist associations with which Kendrick and his associates were familiar. A sermon by a well-known preacher selected long in advance opened the program and no doubt attracted a crowd of rapt listeners who, it was hoped, would stay through the remainder and really more important part of the meeting. From the various reports then submitted they learned of the year’s achievements and the problems and hopes for the future. The last item of business was the election of Trustees, who in turn immediately chose their officers.

With the exception of the first two, all meetings convened in Hamilton, probably at the Baptist meeting house until the Society had halls of sufficient size in its own buildings. The Reports of the occasions, which were prepared almost entirely by Kendrick, constitute one of the most enlightening sources for the history of the Institution. Announcements and news about the Seminary also appeared in the New York Baptist Register, the State organ of the denomination published at Utica. In the first issue, February 20, 1824, Elon Galusha

Joel S. Bacon to George W. Eaton, Georgetown, Ky., Aug. 28, 1833.

p. 17 – Administration, Setting, And Staff, 1820-1833

the title only a year, though he performed practically all the duties
associated with the office until his death in 1848.*

 

In meeting the day-to-day and frequently burdensome problems,
Kendrick was assisted by the five-man Executive Committee chosen
annually by the Trustees. Most of them lived in Hamilton and often
were members of the Board. Their recorded activities ranged from
voting that students who chewed tobacco should provide themselves
with, “spit boxes” to arranging for faculty salaries.

Baptist Education Society, Board of Trustees, Minutes, 1834-41, Feb. 8, Aug.18, 1836.

Nathaniel Kendrick named President of the Institution (p. 16)

over the Seminary and to present its needs to the rank and file of Baptists, whose outlook on life they understood and usually shared. The laymen brought to the deliberations contacts in business, politics and agriculture which proved helpful in deciding many more or less secular questions relating to the Institution. Nearly all the Trustees lived within a fifty-mile radius of Hamilton, an essential arrangement if they were to travel to meetings over deeply rutted or snowbound roads.

Joel W. Clark, minister at Waterville, and Dr. Charles Babcock, New Hartford physician, were the first Secretaries of the Board. Their successor, Nathaniel Kendrick, who served from 1819 to 1848, developed the office into the most influential and responsible in the Society. His vigorous personality, his knowledge of the Seminary’s immediate problems, his extensive correspondence with Baptists throughout the country and his high standing in the denomination where he was an officer of the Triennial Convention and the Home Mission Society, made him the dominant man in the organization. “He  ruled in every position, not with an arbitrary power, but by natural authority,” one associate remembered.*

Like many other American colleges of the day, this school had found in Kendrick a leader able to unite the forces which had given rise to the Institution and fashion them steadily in such a way as to achieve a lasting result. He was the architect who shaped most of the foundations and also one of the builders who gave the edifice permanent form. His preeminent quality, “practical wisdom,” kept him from rash experiments. Reluctant to accept innovations, he yielded gracefully when outvoted by the other Trustees. Though a man of strong emotions, he had so disciplined himself that a slight compression of the lips or a glance of his eye were often the only traces. His dignity, which a thoughtful kindness mellowed, assured him an involuntary deference wherever he went.

Formal recognition of Kendrick’s leadership came in 1836 when at the request of the faculty “that their respected and reverend brother Nathaniel Kendrick, be recognized by the Board of Trustees as the President of the Institution,” the Trustees unanimously elected him to that office. He hesitatingly accepted the honor and seems to have held

Philetus B. Spear, Class of 1836, Spear MS., 1.

p. 15 – Administration, Setting and Staff, 1820-1833

Chapter II – ADMINISTRATION, SETTING AND STAFF, 1820-1833

Responsibility for maintaining and directing the newly established Institution* rested with the Trustees of the Baptist Education Society. These ten (later twelve) ministers and laymen included many of the denominational leaders in the state. The first President of the Board, the widely-traveled home missionary, Peter Philanthropos Roots, it will be recalled, was one of the founders of the Society. The clergymen succeeding him for brief terms were John Bostwick of Hartwick, likewise a founder; Joshua Bradley, dynamic pastor of the First Baptist Church of Albany, who later helped to found several seminaries in the Mississippi Valley; and Obed Warren of Morrisville, whose integrity and character gave him much influence in removing the fears and prejudices of many against the institution. Serving later as President were the Reverend Clark Kendrick, one of the chief Baptist leaders in Vermont; and the Elbridge, New York, pastor, Sylvanus Haynes, noted for his paternal friendliness to young preachers. Squire Munro, prominent member of Haynes’s church, a wealthy farmer and land speculator, was the first layman to become President of the Board. Jonathan Olmstead, his successor, whose term was extended from 1831 until he died in 1842, had been host to the group who founded the Society. He took such an important part in the Board’s activities that the Trustees inscribed on his tombstone they erected in the University Cemetery a tribute to “his wise and liberal counsels, and his personal benefactions.”

The Trustees, though ardent in their religion, were essentially conservative and practical, and almost without exception men of limited education. By background and experience they were fitted to preside

* Usually known formally as the Hamilton Literary and Theological Institution until 1846 though it had no “official” name.