1790s | A History of Colgate University, 1819-1969

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First Baptist Church of Hamilton established (p. 5)

Posted on March 15, 2012 by franny | Comments Off

town.

They may have learned about the region from a brother, Barnabas Payne, who saw service at Fort Stanwix, about ten miles west. They, themselves, were also veterans and conceivably could have been on duty in the area. In 1795 Elisha, and mutual friends from Whitestown and Connecticut, joined Samuel in his new location. Elisha bought a large tract of land north of that held by his brother and here founded Payne’s Settlement, so-called because of Elisha’s interest and activity in developing the village. The leading citizen of the community, he erected the first frame building, opened a tavern where the first town meeting was held, and served as one of the first judges of the Court of General Sessions for Common Pleas.

Their material needs provided for, the settlers turned to matters of religion. In 1796, only two years after Samuel Payne’s arrival, they met at his home to establish the First Baptist Church of Hamilton, for nearly a generation the only church in the village. Elisha Payne for some reason did not join until three years later yet he, Samuel, and their friend, Jonathan Olmstead, were its pillars. They and six of the others, who later formed the Baptist Education Society of the State of New York, helped to make it one of the strongest in the State and the “Mother Church of Colgate University.” The church could report in 1796 that with the aid of “divine providence” they were changing “the howling desert into a fruitful land….”*

Not content with providing a religious organization for themselves, the Hamilton Baptists in 1807 joined with other members of the denomination in the surrounding region to form a society to send preachers to the Holland Purchase area south of Lake Ontario and into the Canadian peninsula. The organization even provided a minister and teacher for their neighbors, the Oneida Indians. Probably no other agency was as influential in promoting the progress of Baptists in Western New York.

In 1795 the denomination had only about 500 members, fifteen churches, seven preachers, and one small meeting house in the upstate area. By 1817, however, there were approximately 28,000 members, 310 churches, and 230 ministers. Their preachers, though devoted and able were, for the most part, poorly educated. A contemporary who

* Ashbel Hosmer and John Lawton, A View of the Rise and Increase of the
Churches Composing the Otsego Association (Whitestown, 1800), 11-21.

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Posted in Chapter 1, Origin, p. 5, timeline

Tagged 1790s, First Baptist Church at Hamilton, Jonathan Olmstead, New York

Samuel Payne settles in Hamilton (p. 4)

Posted on March 15, 2012 by franny | Comments Off

Hebrew and Greek. New seminaries must be erected and endowed since Brown University, founded in 1764 under Baptist auspices, was no longer adequate for the needs of the denomination; no divinity was taught there and at that college as at “almost every other literary institution a large proportion of the students are destitute of the grace of God.” He believed that four seminaries should be set up, one in New England, one in the Middle States, one in the South, and one in the West. Indigent students should be supported by special funds. Until these institutions should be established young men should receive private instruction from settled pastors as heretofore.

Chaplin’s Corresponding Letter inspired Daniel Hascall, pastor of the First Baptist Church at Hamilton, New York, to consider Central New York an ideal location for the seminary in the West. Following the American Revolution this territory was laid out in townships open for settlement. The township later to be known as Hamilton, like most others, fell into the hands of speculators, among whom was Dominick Lynch of New York. Even before the speculators began to advertise their holdings in the newspapers, accounts of the extent and fertility of this land had penetrated New England through reports of Indian traders, missionaries, and soldiers who had seen service on the frontier during the war.

Among the first families to locate in Central New York was that of Hugh White of Middletown, Connecticut, who in 1785 founded Whitestown a few miles west of the present city of Utica. The soil’s fertility and amazingly cheap prices were not to be resisted. Settlers of Madison County wrote home to Rhode Island that wild land was from $4.00 to $7.00 an acre. One observer in Albany noted in 1792 that the emigrants appeared to be people of substance and moved to their new homes well equipped with household furniture, tools, and stock.

Within four years, 1791 to 1795, twelve of the original fourteen townships of Madison County had been opened. Settlers came from eastern New York and all the New England states, Connecticut furnishing pioneers for nearly every town. Hamilton was first settled in 1794 by Samuel Payne who bought a tract in this area from Dominick Lynch. Payne came of a prominent eastern Connecticut family, some members of which had moved to Cornwall, in the western part of the state, and later to Dutchess County, New York, prior to the Revolution. At its conclusion, he with his brother,Elisha, moved to Whites-

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Posted in Chapter 1, Origin, p. 4, timeline

Tagged 1790s, Daniel Hascall, First Baptist Church at Hamilton, New York, Samuel Payne