Category Archives: The Removal Controversy, 1847-1850

p. 129 – The removal controversy, 1847-1850

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require that the Faculty allow to the Boards of the University and the Education Society the charge which the churches have committed to them, of managing the institution; and that this Board regard and interference of the Faculty, or any members of it, revising and thwarting the action of the Board as entirely unwarrantable.*

 

The Board also proceeded to appoint committees to arrange for moving the University to Rochester.

The Education Society Board, likewise in special session at Utica, concurred in the actions of the University Trustees and voted to hold the Society’s next annual meeting in Albany on June 12, instead of in Hamilton in August, as had long been the custom. Their purpose was to get unquestioned approval for removal without having the proceedings embarrassed “by mere local excitements.”

Because of the irregularities attendant upon the election of the Society’s Trustees in August 1848, the legality of the Board’s activities was in doubt, as even the Removalists tacitly admitted when they sponsored the forthcoming Albany meeting. Taking advantage of this situation, the friends of Hamilton, represented by Benjamin W. Babcock, Henry G. Beardsley, and Theodore Burchard, applied to the courts on May 25, 1849, to set aside the 1848 election and vacate all acts of the Board relating to removal. On June 7, five days before the annual meeting was to be held, the Supreme Court, acting on their application, postponed that gathering until further order. Neverthe­less, some members of the Society, most of them from Albany, it was alleged, assembled and organized themselves into an “Educational Convention” but not without a “pretty deep sense of injury” at the Anti-Removalist move.

As a compromise gesture the Hamiltonians presented to the “convention” a , Fraternal Address written by Professor Spear, in which they urged that the whole institution, and not merely the collegiate department, be transferred in the event that they lost the pending Havens and Wiley suit. The “convention,” however, maintained that the University only be moved and that “a literary and theological school, at least one of a shorter course” be preserved at Hamilton. As was to be expected,  the Anti-Removalists rejected the course suggested at Albany and resolved to await the outcome of the litigation.

Judge W. F. Allen of the State Supreme Court, who heard the Babcock case at Oswego late in July 1849, handed down a decision on

*Colgate University, Board of Trustees, Minutes, Apr. 12, 1849.

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p. 128 – The removal controversy, 1847-1850

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passage. The Removal Act of April 3, 1848, still stood.

Morale on the campus had rapidly deteriorated among faculty and students early in 1849 when repeal seemed a possibility and removal prevented. Both groups were anxious that the question be settled as soon as possible so that they could make plans for next year. Professor Eaton’s exertions in Albany and elsewhere, his Removalist colleagues regarded as most reprehensible. They censured him not only in faculty meeting but also publicly, in connection with Dr. Kendrick’s funeral sermon.

During the last years of his life Dr. Kendrick had become especially fond of Eaton, no doubt because both worked strenuously to prevent removal. Before his death in September, 1848, Kendrick asked that Eaton preach his funeral sermon, but it happened that Eaton was absent from the village when he died and Kendrick’s friend, the venerable Alfred Bennett of Homer, gave the discourse. Kendrick’s request, however, was known by several students, many of them having taken turns watching at night by his bedside, and, out of respect for the departed “Father in Israel,” the Students Association invited Professor Eaton to deliver a memorial sermon.

The Remavalist members of the faculty, apparently jealous of Eaton’s popularity with the students, feared he would make the sermon a vehicle for Anti-removalist propaganda, especially since it would be published and widely circulated. When the students 1earned that Professor Maginnis would give the sermon, “the deep waters were stirred,” as one wrote, and “The Great Rebellion” soon developed. Despite protest meetings and petitions Maginnis preached the sermon. The professors, viewing the students’ behavior as a revolt against authority, designated Dr. Conant to inform them of the reasons for faculty policy. At the end of his two-hour “exhaustive exposition” the thunder of feet and prolonged hisses drowned his voice. Disciplinary measures and even expulsions failed to restore an atmosphere of study, and soon some students transferred to other colleges and universities.

When the University Trustees met in special session in Utica in April 1849, to accelerate measures for removal they gave particular attention to the disturbances and, to check Professor Eaton’s activities, though not mentioning him by name, they resolved:

 

 

that whilst this Board would not deny to the Faculty individually the free exercise and expression of their private judgment, yet the relations of the Faculty to the Board and the interests of the University

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p. 127 – The removal controversy, 1847-1850

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Judge Ira Harris and Robert Kelly, a wealthy New York merchant, both members of the University Trustees committee appointed in August to examine legal obstacles to removal, seem to have been convinced that there were no serious objections though the whole committee had not yet given an opinion. In October 1848, Harris had expressed his belief that the way was clear. When Kelly found himself unable to attend a meeting of the committee in Albany in January 1849, he recommended that the Board’s resolution for removal be filed with the Secretary of State even if there were legal obstacles. Deacon Burchard, the chairman, believed, however, that there should be a delay until expert legal opinion· might be obtained. Apparently his counsel went unheeded for the Secretary of State received the resolution on January 25. The next day, however, the Havens and Wiley injunction was served on the President of the Board and thus halted proceedings until the matter could be decided by the courts.

Hardly had the injunction been served when Professor Eaton and others tried to get the Act of April 3, 1848, which authorized removal, repealed. In his Memorial to the Legislature Eaton stressed that the Hamilton people, though certain that the courts would eventually decide in their favor, wished repeal so that they might avoid protracted litigation which would keep friends from contributing funds until the case might be settled.

To counteract this Anti-Removalist tactic, John N. Wilder, Smith Sheldon, and Ira Harris, aroused and indignant, made vigorous efforts to influence members of the 1849 Legislature to retain the Act. Professor Raymond came from Hamilton to join them. One of the most ardent advocates of removal from the inception of the idea and restless under the routine of the classroom, he enjoyed the excitement and the non-academic associations. He was assigned the task of drawing up a reply to Eaton’s Memorial, which he did in the form of a Remonstrance. Aside from reiterating already familiar arguments he pointed out that for the Legislature to repeal a law which had been enacted only the year before after mature’ deliberation would be inconsistent with that body’s proper dignity and good faith.

Most of the discussion on repeal took place in the Senate where Senator Thomas N. Bond, representing the district in which Hamilton was located, made a forceful and comprehensive speech against removal. When the final vote was taken on April 10th, the bill failed of

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p. 126 – The removal controversy, 1847-1850

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Nye, active participants in the week’s proceedings, whose assistance was to prove most valuable for the Hamilton cause in the litigation to come. Mason was a justice of the Supreme Court and Nye, a member of the Class of 1832, the County Surrogate and Judge.

The faculty, except for Professors Eaton and Spear, was more than ever convinced that Rochester was the proper site. Dr. Kendrick’s death on September 11, 1848, was a severe blow for the Anti­ Removalists, but Dr. Eaton stood his ground, confident that legal obstacles would bar relocation. Professor Spear, who had tried to maintain a neutral position prior to the August meetings, in October seriously questioned the wisdom of the action taken by the Boards and the Society. He wrote to a Rochester friend, “Men assume a great responsibility to pluck an old institution like this, before they are sure they can plant it. Any man can pull down an Edifice but it takes an Architect to build one.” He shrank from the prospect of protracted litigation and its attendant adverse effects on fundraising, patronage, and academic pursuits which were inevitable whether or not removal eventually succeeded. Rather than subject the University to these trials he urged the “western brethren” to “strike for a New Institution.”

By January 1849, the Hamilton citizens were ready to initiate legal action. Confident of success in the courts, they abjured “all recriminative and acrimonious language” toward the Rochester friends for whom, they stated, they cherished no ill-feeling. On the contrary, they would rejoice to see a university grace that city provided that Madison were left undisturbed.

A few weeks later Peter B. Havens and Thomas Wiley of Hamilton, with James W. Nye as their attorney, filed a complaint with the State Supreme Court, then in session at Morrisville, the county seat, asking for an injunction to prohibit the Trustees of the University and Education Society from acting. Though neither Havens nor Wiley was a Baptist, they considered themselves entitled to bring suit because they had been among the original subscribers to the $6,000 which Hamilton citizens had paid to the Education Society in 1823 on condition that the institution be located in the village. The plaintiffs had also contributed to funds for construction of buildings on the campus. Justice Philo Gridley, who had practiced law in Hamilton in the 1830’s and hence must have been familiar with many aspects of the case, granted them a temporary injunction on January 23, 1849.

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p. 125 – The removal controversy, 1947-1850

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ple had brought in a number of aged members residing in the village to insure an adverse majority. Had the resolution been put to vote at this time it would have lost overwhelmingly. The spirited discussion was terminated, however, by adjournment until seven in the evening so that participants might attend the college commencement.

The most flagrant maneuvering of the week occurred at the ad­journed evening session of the Society. During the day the Removalists had learned that Jacob Knapp and others intended to present their bond guaranteeing that $50,000 would be raised. To insure that the aged members present in the morning should not outvote the friends of Rochester, about thirty Removalists and a few of their opposers, who suspected sharp practice, assembled in the chapel fifteen minutes before the session was scheduled to begin. Their watches set and in their hands, the Removalists ratified without discussion and in great excitement the Board’s resolution for removal, defeated a motion to reconsider, agreed to refund the membership fees of those whose votes had been rejected the day before, empowered the Society’s Board to handle all future questions relating to relocation, and adjourned. Amid applause from students in the gallery and the general confusion of dispersal someone reminded Dr. Tucker, the moderator, that it was customary to close with a prayer, whereupon he made one, his final “amen” blending with the sounds of the village clock striking seven, the announced meeting time. The friends of Rochester had, of course, over-reached themselves and the motions were illegal.

During these proceedings a few Removalists stationed at the doors of West Hall, where the chapel was located, had purposely detained in conversation the friends of Hamilton as they arrived. By the scheduled meeting-time at least a hundred were in front of the building or were making their way up the Hill. Astonished at being too late, they attempted to organize their own meeting, but were forced to adjourn because of the disturbance made by students. When they returned to the village, a large and excited group of Hamilton citizens gathered at the Eagle Hotel to learn what had happened and speculate on new measures to retain Madison University.

Since resort to the courts seemed the only alternative left, the villagers, gathering in the Baptist Church the evening following then last session of the Society, appointed a committee for that purpose. Its members included the two local lawyers, Charles Mason and James W.

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p. 124 – The removal controversy, 1847-1850

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that Dr. Kendrick himself had suggested they pay the fee and attend the meeting to counteract the Rochester influence.

The first important item of business was a proposed Removalist amendment to the Society’s Constitution providing that Trustees should be of three classes, the first to serve three years, the second two, and the third, one, instead of having the whole Board elected annual­ly. When the amendment had been passed and a list of nominees presented, Removalist strategy was disclosed in that the majority of those chosen for the two-and three-year terms were friends of Rochester. This move roused the ire of the Anti-Removalists and turned the meeting into a scene of wild confusion which even a “season of prayer” by the venerable Fathers Alfred Bennett and John Peck failed to quiet. The arbitrary ruling in election procedure by Elisha Tucker, the moderator, and his refusal to accept the votes of the new “members” intensified the discord. After electing their slate the Removalists then voted to withdraw the names of the new “members” and to return their money. Pandemonium again broke loose with applause from Rochester supporters and hisses from Hamilton friends.

When the resolution to release the University from its contract with the Education Society, which the Society’s Board had passed that morning to invalidate the First Compact, came up for ratification, William R. Williams was its leading advocate. In his speech he took occasion to make several harsh remarks about the local citizens, to which James W. Nye, a local attorney, replied. After protracted discussion the Removalists carried the resolution by a vote of 54 to 19. On the warm dry evening after this boisterous session some of the village boys, with parental permission, sprinkled the dusty streets with the fire engine. In sport, it was alleged, they played the hose on several dwellings. Zenas Morse, a Removalist University Trustee, former classics instructor on the faculty, and then principal of the Hamilton Academy, lived across from the Baptist Church. On reaching his house the boys, exclaiming, “we go for removal by water,” flooded this unpopular citizen’s hallway. The prank perhaps lost some friends for Hamilton but the local interests excused it as an expression of youthful spirit.

The Society, reconvening in the University Chapel at eight o’clock the next morning, Thursday, August 16th took up the Board’s second resolution which definitely recommended removal. The Hamilton peo-

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p. 123 – The removal controversy, 1847-1850

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The issue of location now apparently settled, the Trustees two days later empowered their Provisional Committee, i.e. executive committee, to take necessary steps to effect the transfer and appointed a special committee on a site and buildings in Rochester. At the last session Jacob Knapp, James B. Eldredge, and Lewis Wickwire, representing Hamilton citizens, appeared to present a new bond of $50,000 as a guarantee for obtaining the endowment. The Trustees, countering that they regretted their inability to accept the proposal, instructed the Provisional Committee “to converse with them upon the subject of retaining here an Institution of Learning, or of such arrangements as may conduce to the removal of all difficulties.”

The Education Society’s Board, many of whose members had been sitting with the University Trustees as regular members or by invitation, met hastily on the morning of Wednesday, August 15, to consider the latter’s resolutions. Formal action was necessary since the Society would assemble for its annual meeting within a few hours. The Education Society Trustees voted unanimously:

 

That we adopt the Resolution lately passed by the Board of Madison
University, respecting a removal to Rochester. That upon the consid-
erations therein contained, the Education Society release the Board of
Madison University, whenever said University shall be prepared to
quit Hamilton from the obligations of any contract between said So-
ciety and the University Board, so far as the same would obstruct that
removal.

 

 

The Education Society Board also resolved, Deacon Alvah Pierce and Archibald Campbell dissenting,

 

That this Board recommend to the Education Society under the
grave circumstances in which Divine Providence has placed them, and
considering the general wishes of the Churches throughout this State
as favoring a removal of this school of the Prophets to another location,
to take measures for the removal of their Institution to Rochester.

 

 

Adjournment followed at once to permit the members to attend the annual meeting which convened at ten o’clock at the Baptist Church.

Since several new Society members from Hamilton were present who only that day or shortly before had paid the annual fee of one dollar, the Removalists looked upon them as interlopers whose sole purpose was to thwart the University’s relocation. Later investigations revealed that a large proportion were Baptists in good standing and

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Trustees vote to remove Madison University to Rochester (p. 122)

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to Rochester provided that the Education Society concurred. The deliberations, in which the eloquent and excitable William R. Williams was the chief speaker, dragged on until two o’clock the next morning when an informal ballot was taken. Twelve voted for Barton’s resolution, six against, and one, Deacon Burchard, the Chairman, abstained. Those in opposition were William Colgate, Palmer Townsend, William Cobb, Hervey Edwards, Henry Tower, and George Curtis.

A majority vote of at least 15 trustees was required by the Act of April 3, 1848, and since an impasse had been reached, Deacon Burchard appointed Messrs. Colgate, Edwards, Wilder, and Williams a committee to devise “some means of harmonizing the views of the members.” In the half-hour recess that ensued the Removalists appear to have told Deacon Colgate and those who sided with him that patrons of the University in Western New York and most Baptists in the State would cease supporting it unless the location were changed, leaving the Deacon himself to sustain the institution or see it go to ruin. When the members reassembled Deacon Colgate announced that he, Townsend, and Tower would change their votes “in deference to the judgement of their brethren on the Board, and to the wish of the denomination as it has been expressed in the discussions of the evening.” Curtis and Edwards subsequently declared that they, too, would vote in the affirmative. After prayer by Deacon Colgate and further discl.1ssion, which lasted till four in the morning, the eighteen Trustees, Deacon Cobb having left, unanimously adopted the following resolutions:

 

Resolved (the Board of the N. York State Bapt. Education Society concurring that it is expedient to remove Madison University to the city of Rochester; the said removal to be conditioned, however, that legal difficulties interposed be found insufficient; and that Messrs. Seneca B. Burchard, Ira Harris, and Robert Kelly, be a Committee of this Board to examine such difficulties and hear arguments-upon their favorable report such removal to be unconditional. Resolved, that it is the intention of the Board, in the removal, to preserve the institution irrevocably under the control of the Baptist denomination. Resolved, that whenever such satisfactory report shall have been received, the officers of the Board be authorized to file, according to the provisions of the Statute, the following resolution in the office of the Secretary of State: ‘Resolved, that the Madison University do hereby elect, pursuant to authority given them, to remove to the city of Rochester.’

 

 

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p. 121 – The removal controversy, 1847-1850

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tees, in session daily except Sunday for the entire week. At their second sitting the Board asked if the endowment fund had been obtained, so that they might know whether to take action on the removal question. The Anti-Removalists were unprepared to make a formal report, but two days later friends of Rochester offered subscrip­tions, a site, and a bond amounting in all to $100,000. There was also before the Board a letter from Robert R. Raymond, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Syracuse, which stated that, though his fellow­ citizens did not wish to compete with any other locality, they could be relied upon for $50,000 and a site if the University were moved there.

Following these proposals Daniel Hascall spoke extemporaneously against removal, stressing especially the Education Society’s contract with the original donors of whom he was one of the few survivors. He had recently settled near Hamilton after residing for a decade in Vermont, and now with great zeal gave his support to the Anti­ Removal cause. Professor Eaton also defended Hamilton in an able three-hour speech. John N. Wilder, Elisha Tucker and Pharcellus Church responded briefly for Rochester.

Soon after the Board resumed its sitting Monday August 14, the Hamilton report was ready. While a committee examined the document, the other members approved an allocation of time so that the issue might be decided before the Education Society’s annual meeting the next day. The Trustees also listened to further remarks from Elder Hascall whom some of the Removalists interrogated so sharply as to draw pointed rebukes from Deacon Colgate and others. Nathaniel Kendrick and Betsey Payne, who like Hascall were original donors, sent letters expressing anxiety lest the location be changed.

The most stormy session occurred on Monday evening when the members met at the Boarding Hall to take final action. Though the public was not admitted, a large number of local citizens gathered outside the open windows to listen. The committee on the Hamilton proposal had reported in the afternoon that the residents of the village offered subscriptions totaling $28,000, half of which the committee considered of questionable value; a bond of $30,000 guaranteeing the collection of subscriptions; and a signed promise to use their best efforts to raise the remaining $20,000 within a year. To bring discussion to a head David R. Barton of Rochester moved that it would be expedient to change the location of Madison University from Hamilton

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p. 120 – The removal controversy, 1847-1850

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showed great energy in collecting endowment subscriptions. Dr. Kendrick, now definitely aligned with them because he had been alienated by the bitterness of the Wyoming Address, wrote numerous letters soliciting support. His appeals had unique poignancy because they came from a bed of pain. He informed one graduate, “I find myself wasting away. I know not that I shall live to see the removal question settled. I trust God will order it right. Help me with your prayers.”

Professor Eaton, the most active of the collecting agents, traveled widely to speak in the churches. He had anticipated that the Removalists might try to confine the money-raising campaign to Central New York or to hamper it in other ways and his apprehensions proved well-grounded. He had scarcely expressed them when the Madison Observer, published at the neighboring village of Morrisville, printed a communication entitled “Shall Hamilton village be endowed?” The author, identified as John S. Holme, a member of the Senior Class, asserted that the people of Central New York had no obligation to contribute since the principal benefits would accrue to Hamilton. Professor Eaton made a heated reply and the editor of the Democratic Reflector flayed the student for being “forgetful of his proper place.”

Week after week the Reflector, the Baptist Register and the Recorder were filled with charges and counter-charges. Professors Raymond and A. C. Kendrick, writing under pseudonyms, urged against contributing to the endowment, while Professor Eaton, signing himself variously as “Christianus” or “an Agent,” undertook to meet their arguments. By August, when the Hamiltonians began to despair of raising the $50,000 within the time allowed, the editor of the Reflector pleaded with the villagers to cover the deficit with a bond. He asserted that, with the University gone, all business would be paralyzed.

The week of August 10-17, 1848, was the most turbulent period of the Removal Controversy. Excitement reached an intensity compara­ble to the temperature which prevailed on those hot summer days as clouds of dust, stirred by the carriages hurrying along dry roads, settled in the front parlors newly made ready for guests who had come to Hamilton for the Education Society’s annual meeting and the commencement. Foremost in the mind of everyone was the future location of the University, an issue overshadowing all else, even the orations of the graduating class.’

Attention focused first on the deliberations of the University Trus-

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