Category Archives: The Expanded Period, 1833-1846

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and ran south, the fine trees and the adjacent hills covered with fields and woods made an unforgettable impression on them. The residents, too, appreciated the natural beauty of their surroundings.

The professors on the Hill joined the village people in many community enterprises in addition to church affairs, where one would naturally expect to find them. They appeared on lecture series and made speeches at donation parties for local poor relief, and at temperance meetings arid Fourth of July celebrations. A. C. Kendrick, for example, debated before the Hamilton Lyceum with James W. Nye, a local attorney, on whether the career of Napoleon was productive of greater evil than good to mankind. Raymond and Eaton, who seem to have been the most sought-after speakers, along with Spear, Maginnis, and A. C. Kendrick, appeared on the program of lectures before a young men’s society “for improvement in literature.” Though there is evidence that some villagers felt that faculty wives “put on airs,” whatever town-versus-gown feeling there was, Hill and village participation in many common causes helped to minimize.

The antislavery movement of the 1830’s and ’40’s drew the faculty into its maelstrom much against their will. Though fundamentally opposed to Negro bondage, they considered the abolitionism of Gerrit Smith, Garrison, and their associates extreme and fanatical. When a group of radicals in the denomination, some of their friends among them, established the American Baptist Free Mission Society in 1840 as a protest against the failure of Northern Baptists to break with their Southern brethren over the slavery question, the faculty refused to be drawn in. Prominent in the affairs of the Baptist Triennial Convention, they appreciated the complexity of the problem and allied themselves with conservative Northern Baptists, such as President Francis Wayland of Brown, in trying to stave off the split. When it eventually did come they helped to found new Northern organizations for carrying on foreign and domestic missionary work.

The faculty was fearful of any disturbance that abolitionist agitation might raise among the students, village people, and the Baptist moderates who supported the Institution. They were no doubt aware of the serious trouble antislavery activity had caused at other colleges such as Hamilton and Amherst. From Colby they had first-hand information from Professor Conant who had seen the havoc wrought there. The resulting clamor had led to his resignation and that of his father-in-

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thirty miles to the northeast, the nearest contact with the outside
world, could be reached under favorable conditions only after a five-or
six-hour stagecoach trip. In the 1840’s coaches were advertised as
leaving Hamilton at 5:30 in the morning, arriving at Utica at 11:00,
leaving Utica at 3:00 in the afternoon, and returning to Hamilton at
9:00 in the evening. However, if road conditions were bad, the trip
might take as much as eleven hours. One-way fare was $1.00 and that
for a round trip the same day $1.75, prices high enough to discourage
all but those who had weighty reasons for travel. Once strangers
reached Hamilton, the village green, the wide street which circled it

Beech Grove, the Conant home

Picture of Beech Grove

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 Claremont, the Spear Home, A1000-64, Folder 2, p66

 

 

attractive, well-built stone houses on the Hill, “Claremont,” “Woodland Height,” and “Beech Grove” (also called “Inwood”). “Claremont” and “Woodland Height,” which were situated so as to command sweeping vistas through the woods toward the west and the village and the valley to the north, were among the most admired residences in the vicinity. Mrs. Eaton supplemented the natural beauty of her home by a fine garden of flowers and shrubs, some of which the eminent botanist of Union College, Professor Isaac W. Jackson, gave her. Down in the village, on Broad Street, the A. C. Kendricks and the Raymonds were for a few years neighbors, and other friends lived near by.

Kindred spirits, these young professors and their gifted and gracious wives dispensed a warm hospitality. Winter sleigh rides, summer rambles, picnics in the surrounding woods, and tea parties gave zest to their social life. One evening a week they spent at each other’s homes reading aloud translations from German authors or Shakespeare, Dickens, and other favorites. This reading group they called the “U. D. C.” (Utile Cum Dulce). For a few years the men formed a cooperative organization for supplying themselves with periodical literature. Happy memories of these free and cordial social contacts remained with the members of the group and their families long after they were scattered in later years.

Social life in Hamilton was necessarily influenced by the isolation of the community; its residents, like those of any country village, depended largely on their own efforts for diversion and amusements. Utica

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Crozer Theological Seminary. Richardson, Spear, and Raymond, alone of the tutors, became regular faculty members.

By employing tutors and student assistants, the Trustees were able to keep down the cost of instruction. Though more full-time professors were needed, the faculty members concurred with the Board in its policy of making no such appointments and were willing to carry heavy teaching loads to keep expenses at a minimum. By 1836 their salaries had risen to $800 but they were still underpaid. Worse than being underpaid, however, was the frequent inability of the Treasurer to remit each quarter’s salary on time. Often the professors were forced to go deeply in debt to care for their families. Dr. Kendrick, keenly aware of their privations, reminded the Education Society that, since the faculty had been chosen to train young men for the ministry,

It is of utmost importance . . . that adequate provision be made for their support, in order that they may give themselves wholly to their appropriate labors, without being ‘distracted with private cares….*

Typical of the faculty’s spirit of sacrifice is Raymond’s statement to the Board that he had turned down-offers of more lucrative positions because of his “settled conviction of the permanent importance of this Institution” and his “attachment to’ the particular departments of instruction” over which he presided. When Professor Maginnis disclosed that because of inadequate recompense he was about to resign, the entire faculty went so far as to “express to the Ex[ecutive] Com[mittee] their full conviction that the continuance of Prof. Maginnis in the chair of Biblical Theology is of vital importance to the interests of the Institution” and to “assure the Com. that they will found no claim in their own behalf upon any arrangement which the Com. may deem it expedient to make in order to meet the pecuniary wants of Prof. Mag”[innis.]**

Even though often harassed by financial worries, the professors and their wives, formed “a circle, rarely surpassed … in its elements of congeniality, and in the rich sources of enjoyment which it opened to its members,” Professor A. C. Kendrick recalled forty years afterward. Three faculty families, the Spears, Eatons, and Conants, lived in

*Baptist Education Society, Annual Report , 1840, 18.

**John H. Raymond to Board of Trustees, Baptist Education Soceity, Jan. 12, 1843; Faculty Minutes, 1840-51, Mar. 25, 1841

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Asahel Clark Kendrick, the young cousin of Nathaniel Kendrick, who had taught both Greek and Latin since 1831 was relieved of the latter by Richardson in 1839. Free now to concentrate on Greek, his “first linguistic and scholarly love,” he published a grammar two years later. Though he had a competent knowledge of modern European tongues as well as those of the Old Testament, it was as a student and teacher of Greek that he made his name. He found language study an effective means of broadening the general culture of his students and his keen, versatile, and poetic mind made the Iliad and Odyssey, as studied in his Classrooms, living portrayals of real people. Like his friend and colleague, Raymond, he must have had considerable influence in polishing and refining the tastes and manners of the boys who sat under him.

As was true of so many other college presidents of the pre-Civil War period, Nathaniel Kendrick was the balance wheel responsible for the smooth functioning of the entire mechanism. His very presence penetrated every phase of the Institution’s activity. He continued to teach theology; but as his administrative duties increased, he “gave less attention to instruction and turned over routine academic matters to his faculty of younger men under the chairmanship of Professor Maginnis. In December, 1844, on his way down the Hill, he fell on a patch of ice and received a severe spinal injury which confined him to his home most of the time until his death four years later. Though forced to give up his teaching completely, he carried on much of the business of the Education Society from his sickroom. Students who watched with him during the long and sleepless nights and all others who had contact with him in this period of excruciating pain testified to his unabated devotion to the Institution’ and his calm reliance on the comforts of his religious faith.

In carrying the teaching load which a growing enrollment made heavier, the faculty was aided by eleven recent graduates of the collegiate department and several student assistants. Known as, “tutors” or “assistant teachers,” they seem to have met classes in Greek, mathematics, or whatever subject they were qualified to handle. Most of them served only a year or two until they finished the theological course. George Ripley Bliss, Class of 1838, who was a tutor in Greek, 1840-44, was so well thought of that he won highly Battering resolutions of appreciation from both students and faculty when he left. He subsequently had a notable career as a professor at Bucknell and

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the students presented him with a written tribute and held a special meeting to bid him farewell. After six years in which he was to take the principal role in founding and developing the University at Lewisburg (now Bucknell) he was to return to the campus in 1851 as president of Madison University.

The youngest member of the faculty was John Howard Raymond, born in New York City, who in 1837, at the age of twenty-three, acted as tutor in Hebrew even before he had completed the theological course. The next year he exchanged Hebrew for intellectual and moral philosophy and belles lettres and in 1840 became Professor of Rhetoric and the English Language. Raymond had studied three years at Columbia but, when expelled for some student prank, had attended Union from which he graduated in 1832. Following a brief period reading law he had decided to prepare for the ministry and entered the Institution for that purpose. He had at once impressed the faculty with his ability and promise. Admitted to the Class of 1836, he and three classmates proposed to go to Assam and there translate the Bible into the languages of the East. When this venture failed to materialize, he decided to devote himself to teaching.

Raymond’s natural bent toward language had shown itself when, as a schoolboy of nine or ten, he had avidly studied Goold Brown’s Grammar under the author’s direction. He called this book “the foundation of all the intellectual discipline I ever had.” As a student at the Hamilton Academy in 1824-25 he became as absorbed in Latin and rhetoric as he had been fascinated by English grammar. Brilliant and devoted to his teaching he threw himself into his work with great success. On at least two occasions when he was offered more attractive positions, Dr. Kendrick implored him not to leave since he felt the Seminary could scarcely recover from the blow. His sparkling and kindly wit, genial manner, and innate refinement must have helped to bring out the social graces and poise of his students just as his keen intelligence and industry developed their minds.

Philetus Bennett Spear, like his classmate Raymond, joined the faculty in 1837 before finishing the theological course. A native of Palmyra, New York, he was tutor in mathematics and then in Hebrew until he was made “adjunct professor” of that subject in 1842. Spear’s primary interests were administration and finance, and long service in these fields, rather than teaching, gave him his reputation.

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natural philosophy to ecclesiastical and civil history, intellectual and moral philosophy, or theology, as the needs of the curriculum dictated; he seemed to be at home with each. His tall commanding figure, kind, demonstrative nature, gracious manner, and ready anecdote or biting sarcasm attracted and held attention. A clear memory and natural eloquence made him an apt and forceful speaker, while his facile pen gave his ideas expression equally vigorous.

Students liked to have Eaton speak at their gatherings. One of his best addresses, The Duty and Rewards of Original Thinking, he gave at a literary, society meeting in 1841. In a practical and forthright approach to his subject he urged the members to throwaway intellectual crutches and think “independently of direct aid from other minds.” Anyone resigning his thinking to “authorities,” Eaton felt, dishonored God and his own lofty nature as a rational being. The student whose compositions were mere compilations from books and lectures was “nothing more than a cistern, if not a broken one; for the contents which he has gathered from outward sources can be exhausted and leave him empty and dry…” Original intellectual activity, he maintained, yielded rich rewards in personal respect and dignity and in power over other men. Even today most of the address would be stimulating advice for a college community.

Stephen W. Taylor, who had distinguished himself by bringing order out of chaos in the Preparatory Department after his appointment as principal in 1834, succeeded Eaton as Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy four years later. A native of Massachusetts and valedictorian, of the Class of 1817 at Hamilton College, he came to the Institution after several years’ experience as head of the Lowville Academy, Lowville, New York. By nature and inclination a poet, he suppressed his aesthetic tendencies in the interest of mathematics and science, fields which he thoroughly mastered. A born teacher, he had a way of dealing with boys by which he enforced discipline and yet at the same time retained their affection. One alumnus recalled:

I used to regard him as the most perfect model for young men forming a character, and I still think no one can imitate his regularity, promptness and rigid division & improvement of time without being a hundredfold better prepared for the stern duties of life….*

When he resigned in 1845 despite the unanimous wish of the Trustees,

*Ira, J. Stoddard, Nowgong, Assam, to Eastern Association, Aug. 11, 1851.

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Prof. George W. Eaton

ing as valedictorian in 1829, he became a tutor at Union and then principal of an academy at Belleville, New York, before going to Georgetown in 1831.

As a member of the Seminary’s faculty he quickly adapted himself to its ways and grew to be one of its most valued professors. His varied abilities permitted him to turn with ease from mathematics and

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made him famous as a teacher. Conservative and independent in his views, once he had formulated them, he was not a man to be “persuaded otherwise,” nor did he hesitate to express his opinions, let the chips fall where they would. These, characteristics made him a formidable adversary whenever he chose to do battle. Since his position was considered second to that of Dr. Kendrick, he had hardly taken up his duties when he began to act as Chairman of the Faculty in the absence of the former.

As early as 1830, in response to student demands for instruction in science, the Executive Committee,”having long had an eye upon a brother of much promise,” selected Joel Smith Bacon as Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy. He had graduated from Hamilton College in 1826 and was then studying at Newton. It was not until 1833, however, after completing a brief period as president of Georgetown College in Kentucky, that he accepted the offer. A year later, in accordance with a previous understanding with the Board, he exchanged his chair for that of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy. After a teaching career of only four years, he resigned in 1837 to go to Massachusetts for the settling of his father-in-law’s estate. From 1843 to 1854 he was president of Columbian College.

George Washington Eaton came to the faculty in the fall of 1833, probably through the influence of Bacon who wanted to be relieved of his work in mathematics and natural philosophy in order to teach intellectual and moral philosophy. As professor of Greek and Latin, Eaton had been associated with him at Georgetown College. After Bacon resigned the presidency there, Eaton, despairing of the college’s future, was glad to leave. After his appointment seemed certain, he wrote Mrs. Eaton: “I think…that this of all the places in the world is the place for us. We Can both be happy and useful here…”Thirty-eight years of devoted service bore out his initial response to the life of the Institution and village.*

A native of Pennsylvania, Eaton had grown up in Ohio where he attended Kenyon College and Ohio University at Athens. After a year’s interruption during which he was a private tutor in Virginia and studied briefly at Princeton, he resumed his education at Union College to which President Eliphalet Nott’s fame attracted him. Graduat-

*George W. Eaton to Eliza B. Eaton, Lee, Mass., Nov. 15, 1833.

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been separated from the Institution a little more than nine years,” he
lamented in 1845,

but I have not forgotten it nor is my attachment lessened by time and distance. I seem to myself like one buried alive. I hear some distinct reports concerning those I love but hold no direct communication with them…When connected with the institution its joys & sorrows, hopes & fears were mine. And they remain so still with the additional circumstance that I can do nothing for its benefit.*

Within three years, however, he was once more to share actively in “its joys & sorrows” as he heroically and successfully fought the attempt to remove it to Rochester.

John Fram Richardson, a native of Vernon, New York, and a member of the senior class, seems to have taken over some of Hascall’s work a few months before graduating in 1835. He acted as a “tutor” until 1838 when he was made Professor of the Latin Language and Literature. He was the first graduate to become a member of the faculty. He was also Secretary of the Faculty and the clear, neatly-written minutes attest his competence in that sphere. His friends remembered him as a refined, gentle and unobtrusive man and a fine teacher and scholar.

When Barnas Sears vacated the important chair of Biblical Theology in 1835, the Board, after several fruitless attempts to get a Baptist of equal eminence and ability, appointed John Sharp Maginnis in 1838. Born in Pennsylvania, of staunch Scotch-Irish immigrants, he spent his childhood in Ohio. When in his ‘teens he joined the Baptist denomination and for a short time assisted the indefatigable preacher and friend of the Institution, Joshua Bradley, in his church in Pittsburgh. To train for the ministry he studied at Waterville, Brown, and Newton. Prior to his appointment to the faculty he held pastorates at Providence, Rhode Island, and Portland, Maine. Maginnis’s ardent piety and logical thinking had commended him to the Board as likely to be the kind of professor they sought and his career on the Hill justified their selection. Spare, dignified, high-strung, and dyspeptic, he tempered the austerity of his harsh Calvinism with a gentle simplicity and friendliness and a keen wit which endeared him to students and colleagues. He delighted to detect errors in reasoning and his skillful use of the Socratic method, combined with his lucid theological lectures,

*Daniel Hascall, West Rutland, Vt., to George W. Eaton, July 8, 1845.