Education Society had been organized and more than a year before the Trustees located the Institution at Hamilton. Hascall took him into his home and taught him Latin, the instructor’s bedroom serving as a classroom. Before he graduated, Wade became convinced that he should go to Burma as a missionary. After studying Burmese a year he and his wife, a village girl whom he had met at church, were formally consecrated for their work by the leading Baptist ministers of Central New York. No missionary in the denomination, save Judson, achieved greater fame than Jonathan Wade.
Eugenio Kincaid, the second student, also became a well-known missionary to Burma. While teaching school in northwestern Pennsylvania, he became interested in the proper mode of baptism and on learning of a Baptist church at DeKalb, New York, went there to discuss the subject with the pastor. Soon after he joined the church he decided to become a preacher and to study with Hascall at Hamilton, 160 miles away. He set out on foot, his possessions in a handkerchief, and twenty-five cents in his pocket. On the way he chopped wood for his meals and lodging. When he reached Hamilton he found Wade already studying with Hascall and earning expenses by working on his farm, an arrangement he himself had hoped to make. The kind hearted Hascall, on hearing his story, responded “My boy, I will take you and we will do the best we can.” Kincaid’s student days were marked by constant struggle with poverty. Often he had to wait three months after a letter from his mother arrived at the post office because he lacked the 25¢ postage. Eight years after graduation, he followed Wade to the Far East.
The experiences of Jabez Swan, Class of 1827, also illustrate the Spartan life of the early students. Coming to the Seminary on horseback from Connecticut in 1824, he soon left for lack of funds, but the next year he came back with his wife. To earn his expenses he worked in the fields in the afternoons and on Sundays preached at a country church. Sometimes he bought standing timber which he converted into firewood for his own use and to sell One day when he and Justus H. Vinton, Class of 1833, were having trouble splitting tough blocks of hard maple, Swan went after a beetle and wedges. Returning, he found Vinton talking to Professor Kendrick who had happened by and split the wood for his students. Vinton, who had been amazed at the professor’s height, strength and skill, some time later remarked, “I never saw an axe lifted so near the heavens before.” Denison, 59-62
