Tag Archives: George Washington Eaton

p. 170 – Recovery and expansion, 1850-1869

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the Grammar School. Professors Beebee and Dodge, though Dem­ocrats, were as ardent for the Union as President Eaton whose oratory was in frequent demand at public mass meetings.

At the commencement of 1864 Dr. Eaton refused to be depressed by “excitements and embarrassments of the hour” and confidently asserted that it was a serious mistake to suppose the University “to be going down on account of the temporary withdrawal of students for soldiers.” The losses, however, had been great and enrollment had fallen to approximately 100. The war had naturally prevented many from entering and large numbers had left the campus to join units from their home localities or had enlisted in those recruited from Hamilton. Though the actual count of students withdrawing from the University to join the army was only 40, it must be remembered that this figure was a large percentage of an enrollment which was never much higher than 200. In addition to 40 students, 70 alumni were also in service, many of them as chaplains. Thus 110 men, ten of whom were casualties, represented Madison University in the Union Army.

Since news of Lee’s surrender arrived during spring vacation, the University was unable to hold an appropriate demonstration. Students and faculty joined with the village, however, in celebrating the Fourth of July, 1865, which was the occasion for a public welcome of the returning local veterans. In anticipation of commencement, the Students Association had already asked Professor Osborn to deliver a memorial discourse on that occasion honoring those who had fallen during the war.

Commencements after 1850 continued to attract large crowds of guests intent on enjoying the week’s festivities, which, in Central New York parlance, have been described as a kind of “intellectual hop­ growers’ picnic.” The bill of fare included meetings of the Education Society, alumni, the Society for Inquiry, and the literary societies, and the College and Seminary graduation exercises. Beginning in 1857, the Grammar School, also, had a commencement. Some of the sessions took place in West Hall chapel where the Latin mottoes on the walls, “God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved” and “No weapon formed against her shall prosper”, reminded audiences of the unhappy Removal struggle. The Baptist Church, however, was usually the scene of the College and Seminary commencements until the auditorium in Alumni Hall was completed in 1861. The ceremony was sometimes

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Ebenezer Dodge elected as University president (p. 148)

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three candidates, to accept, the Board in August, 1868, chose Professor Dodge. Eaton continued as President of the Seminary, a position he had held since its creation in 1861. In commenting on Dodge, one local observer described him as “one unexcitable, cool, and dispassionate, who could administer the required discipline of the school, with a determined hand.”

If Dr. Eaton had never taken the presidency of the University, his career would have been an unqualified success. He was a good teacher, popular with his students and well-regarded in the village and in the Baptist denomination. He liked human contacts and he and Mrs. Eaton dispensed generous hospitality at “Woodland Height,” which was one of the most attractive spots on the Hill, set as it was among beeches and hemlocks. A cedar hedge, sweet briar on the walls, a lilac path, and a “Lovers’ lane” of snowball bushes added to its charm. The Eatons entertained extensively, particularly at commencement, when visitors filled faculty and village homes, and their receptions at this season were gala occasions. In 1866 Mrs. Eaton prepared sponge cake and lemonade for a crowd of over 300 which gathered in the brilliantly lighted house and wandered about in the yard decorated with Chinese lanterns; the last guest departed at 2:00 a.m.

The University profited from the social leadership which the President and his wife provided. Its distinguished visitors were assured a warm welcome at their home and callow students, whether they came to court the attractive Eaton daughters or on more serious business, found an environment which taught them manners and poise. The University also profited from the cordial town and gown relations which the Eatons fostered as they moved in village society. The citizens remembered gratefully that the President and Professor Spear had been the two most stalwart defenders of the Hamilton location in the Removal Controversy.

With the inauguration of President Dodge in 1868, old memories had dimmed. When he had come to the campus fifteen years before, the University was already well on the way to recovering from the effects of the troublesome ’40’s. Soon a highly valued member of the faculty, Dodge had quietly built a reputation for original teaching but it was the Presidency, especially after 1869, however, which was to disclose his full stature. Eaton, alone of his colleagues, had publicly opposed the appointment on the ground that Dodge lacked administrative

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George Eaton elected as president (p. 145)

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showed characteristic practicality in appraising the value of education. He pointed out that college training was only the foundation for a career and that industry, health, and common sense were equally important for success. No “ivory tower” theorist, he urged his hearers to study human nature in life as well as in books. “Your liberal education,” he told them, “supersedes none of the advantages common to the educated and uneducated; but it qualifies you to apply them all with superior skill and power in the discharge of your duties to God and man.”

Within two years of taking office, President Taylor suffered a severe spinal disease from which he never recovered. His fine physique was emaciated and stooped, and though his vitality ebbed he still possessed wonderful energy and an iron will which enabled him to carry on his duties to within a few weeks of his death. Emily, his pretty black-eyed daughter, was his amanuensis, and student watchers sat by his bedside during the nights of pain. He died January 7, 1856, and three days later, after a funeral service in the chapel hung with crepe, he was buried in the University cemetery.

Under Dr. Taylor the University recovered the position and strength which it had lost during the Removal Controversy. His administration demonstrated that the institution’s powers of endurance and recuperation justified public confidence in its future. In the resolutions occasioned by his death, the University Trustees mourned him as “a respected and efficient President, a successful Teacher, and able Executive Officer, a man of great promptness and energy, of large experience, of singular tact, a man of Science and of true devotion to the cause of Religion and learning.”

After Dr. Taylor’s death, Professor Eaton as senior member of the faculty served as chairman until his election to the Presidency in August 1856. He was reluctant to take the office because his chief interest was theological instruction. There was doubt, moreover, as to his qualifications. He stood in marked contrast to his predecessor who exemplified the popular conception of the time that a college president should be primarily a disciplinarian. Eaton disliked enforcing order among the students and gave them the impression that he experienced pain and distress equal to that of the culprit himself.

At the outset of the new administration the Trustees directed the faculty to select two members to act with the President as a disci-

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p. 140 – Recovery and expansion, 1850-1869

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Chapter VIII – RECOVERY AND EXPANSION 1850-1869

As the embers of the Removal Controversy cooled, the friends of Madison University turned their energy to repairing the serious damage which that intense and bitter conflict had done. Under Stephen W. Taylor’s vigorous presidency, 1851-56, they achieved for it a large measure of recovery. His successor, George W. Eaton, who served from 1856 to 1868, though not so strong a leader, brought the institution through the Civil War years with comparatively slight dislocation. During Eaton’s tenure also, resources and facilities so expanded that the university in 1869, under President Ebenezer Dodge, had every expectation of prosperity and usefulness greater than it had experienced during its first half century.

In the interim between August 1850, when the Anti-Removalists gained control of the University and the Education Society’s Boards, and Taylor’s assumption of office a year later, Professors Eaton and Spear acted as temporary executives. The one “kept his hand upon the helm and his eye upon the starless heavens, the other stood guard over the treasury and cargo.” Final authority and responsibility, of course, rested with the Trustees. Professor Spear, Secretary of both Boards, complained that the Removalist Trustees delayed resigning until August, 1850, even though the injunction against removal had been granted three months previously, because until they should do so and permit the friends of Hamilton to have control, no arrangements for the next year could be made.

The new Trustees, all solid, substantial business men from Hamilton or vicinity, represented the conservative element among the Baptists loyal to Madison University. They and their associates could be expected to perpetuate it with little deviation from the pattern followed hitherto. The President of the Board from 1850 to 1864 was Henry

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p. 135 – The removal controversy, 1847-1850

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capital. Brown and Judd had tapped a reservoir of emotion.

The transition of control in the University Board from the Rochester supporters to the Anti-Removalists was another dramatic episode of the 1850 commencement week. Thanks to the fact that Removal men had been appointed to vacancies, friends of Hamilton failed to constitute a quorum. In case the Removalists should refuse to meet, the University would be forced to suspend operations. That a quorum of any kind could be gathered after August, 1850, seemed improbable.

When the Trustees met on the 19th they were three short, and it was not until their third session, the afternoon of the 20th, that a quorum of nine was present. Knowing that a committee of Anti­-Removalists was prepared to negotiate with the Board, five Removalists present agreed to resign and resolved:

 

 

that we pledge ourselves to elect substitutes on the nomination of Dea. Wm. Cobb, of Hamilton, provided a written pledge be first given by responsible individuals, that the professors who shall resign shall be paid in full on or before the 10th of September next, and that the bill of the Legal Committee at Albany … be paid by 1st of November next.*

 

 

The condition meant that friends of Hamilton, already staggering under a heavy deficit and hard-pressed to raise the endowment, would immediately have to secure $2,700 for faculty salaries and $265 for lawyers’ fees incurred by the Removalists. Though willing to pay the salaries, they regarded the legal expense as unjust and declined the condition. As the Board was about to dissolve without having surrendered control to the Hamiltonians, Professor Spear volunteered to assume responsibility for providing the money and Deacon Cobb, Alvah Pierce and three others joined in signing the bond. The Board accepted the document and six members withdrew one by one as Anti-Removalists took their seats. The crisis was passed and it was now possible to proceed with arrangements for carrying on the work of the University.

The newly constituted Board turned at once to the most urgent matter, that of reorganizing the faculty. Professors Maginnis, Conant, Raymond, A. C. Kendrick, and Richardson had resigned two days previously to accept appointments at Rochester, leaving only Eaton

*Colgate University, Board of Trustees, Minutes, Aug. 20, 1850.

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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. 115 – The removal controversy, 1847-1850

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needed, he asserted that it should be raised for the University in its present location. The Hamilton people, he stated, were ready to contribute $15,000 for a new building if patrons in the rest of the state would make up an endowment of $100,000.

Following the adoption of Eaton’s Candid Appeal, the Hamiltonians appointed committees to obtain subscriptions. On the first day $7,150 was raised in the village and by the end of the first week $8,300 had been pledged. Though these sums were small in comparison to what the friends of the Rochester location had collected, the Hamiltonians were hopeful. Deacon Seneca B. Burchard was “pleased to witness the excitement,” but Deacon Alvah Pierce thought the campaign would be “a heavy lift.” Dr. Kendrick did not feel free to publish his opinions though he naturally watched the progress of affairs with deep interest. To Zenas Freeman he confided that his greatest fear was that removal might

 

not be well for the education of the Baptist ministry…It may then have to encounter sectarian influences, more embarrassing to the free development of our [i.e. Baptist] peculiar sentiments…than anything we meet with here, &…the expense of supporting our indigent young men may be somewhat increased.

 

He added, however, “I have no prepossessions to any place, but prefer
to see the U[niversity] located where it can accomplish the most good.”

Both the Hamiltonians and the Removalists attached great importance to the views of the Baptist brethren in Albany and metropolitan New York because their endorsement, and especially financial assistance, was essential to whatever policy might prevail. As spokesman for the friends of Rochester, Wilder attempted to win the New York City Baptists for removal, but despite his eloquent pleas and many addresses in similar vein by William R. Williams, Elisha Tucker, and others at meetings held late in December 1847, and early in January 1848, unqualified approval was not forthcoming. Deacon William Colgate, in particular, could not make up his mind; and no one’s opinion carried more weight than his. The New Yorkers did go so far, however, as to state that an endowment of $150,000 must be raised whether or not the institution were moved.

To present the Hamilton point of view Professor Eaton decided to go to New York. When the removal question had been first raised he had tended to favor a new location, he wrote years afterward, but he

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p. 114 – The removal controversy, 1847-1850

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our mechanics; the increase and prosperity of our merchants; the social, moral and intellectual improvement of our society, which the institution will continue to bring, of as much value to us, as to either [sic] of those grasping cities?” He estimated that the officers and students of the University spent annually from $30,000 to $40,000 in the village and urged those who had profited to be the first to oppose removal by subscribing liberally to its endowment.

The Hamilton citizens committee submitted a report at an ad­journed meeting held in the Baptist Church on December 6. Written by Professor Eaton, it was unanimously adopted and 3,000 copies ordered printed and distributed. The report, entitled A Candid Appeal of the Citizens of Hamilton, to the Friends and Patrons of Madison University throughout the State of New York, was designed to answer the Rochester Circular. One by one, Eaton attempted to refute the “grossly libellous” objections to Hamilton, “the result of ignorance and overwrought zeal to get our noble University from us.” He then contended that the advantages of a rural village as a site for a college or university greatly exceeded those of a populous community. He stressed the quiet and seclusion, greater healthfulness, absence of urban temptations and vices, cheapness of board and lodging, the inexpensive style of living for both faculty and students, and the beauty of the landscape. To reinforce his arguments he pointed out that many of the most flourishing colleges such as Dartmouth, Amherst, and Williams were in country villages.

Dr. Eaton next turned to specific considerations against a change of location. He cited the institution’s success in carrying out the purpose of the founders and the denomination and the “sacred associations” of the campus, all of which he maintained, could not be transferred to “a great secular institution in another part of the state.” The suggestion that non-Baptists be admitted to the management of the university after its transfer to Rochester he found especially distasteful. More important, however, was the legal barrier against removal in the form of the original contract made in 1819 between the Education Society and the citizens of Hamilton, whereby the Seminary had been located in the village on condition that a building worth $3,500 be erected and $2,500 paid in board. Eaton stated that as a last resort the Hamiltonians would defend their rights “to the utmost extreme of litigation.”While agreeing with the Removalists that an endowment was urgently

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First Compact (p. 107)

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innovation contrary to the purpose of the Education Society. After the University charter had been granted in 1846, some of the Society’s trustees, fearful that secularization would go farther, even suggested the document be returned to the Legislature. Since both Boards at first were unable to adjust their relations to each other in such a way as to establish what were considered proper safeguards for ministerial education, they had tabled that troublesome question for a year.

In June and August, 1847, both Boards, the faculty, and the Education Society eventually worked out an arrangement, known as the First Compact, which became effective on the first of September. It provided that the Society should grant the University the use of its property and that the University should maintain a suitable course for “candidates for the Christian ministry” and allow beneficiaries to have rooms rent-free. The faculty was to be considered a single unit responsible to the University Trustees. As a means of retaining control of ministerial education the Society required the University Board to appoint and dismiss such theological professors as it should designate.

It was the question of faculty appointments which first produced serious friction. The professors in the collegiate department had been formally appointed under the new charter as a matter of course in June 1846. The University Board took no action on the theological professors, however, until a year later when they were then made members of the University faculty, but on a temporary basis until their duties and titles should be determined.

Meanwhile, some of the Baptists in Hamilton, among them Jacob Knapp, the evangelist, came to see in the formal appointment of the theological faculty an opportunity to remove Professor Maginnis from the chair of Biblical Theology. This aristocratic, tall, bent, and ailing man had aroused their enmity by his intellectual approach to religion and his uncompromising Calvinism. Knapp, of course, had not forgotten that Maginnis had been his chief opponent in the village church quarrel a few years before. When information on the Education Society Board’s meeting on August 19, 1847, leaked out, the strategy of Maginnis’s enemies was apparent. The Board had convened, with only 13 out of 31 members present, probably most of them resident Trustees, to nominate theological professors for final appointment by the University Board in accordance with the First Compact. Conant and Eaton were chosen unanimously but only four votes were cast for

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Faculty place antislavery publications in library (p. 69)

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law, Jeremiah Chaplin, founder and president of the college. Determined that no such conditions should develop in the Institution, they resolutely checked student enthusiasm in this direction.

The faculty’s position first became evident in 1834 when they abolished a recently formed student antislavery society on the grounds of “expediency” and three years later a second met with a similar fate. Regarding the latter, a student wrote in his diary that the professors viewed the organization as “a nuisance & labored zealously for its dissolution. They wished to compel no one’s conscience or restrain liberty in any respect save this; the society was noxious to the best interests of the institution and must be dissolved.” Three members withdrew from the Seminary in protest, two of them transferring to Hamilton College. Others immediately joined sympathetic local citizens in forming a society in the village where it at once encountered opposition from hostile elements of the community.*

Student interest in antislavery did not subside, but rather sought other outlets. A few months after the faculty stamped out the second society, they were asked to approve a “Free Discussion Society,” the chief subject to be discussed being, of course, antislavery. They denied the petition but did express a willingness to allow debate on the issue under faculty supervision.

In 1839 members of the Eastern Association gave much thought to the question of the support of missionaries “from the avails of slavery” and invited Beriah Green, the abolitionist, to discuss it with them. Shortly thereafter, no doubt on the advice of Dr. Kendrick and Professor Maginnis, they decided “to dismiss the subject, not that we loved slavery less but that we loved the heathen more.” For the third and last time the faculty suppressed an antislavery society in 1841 and as a check against renewed agitation they decided in 1842 to place a gift of American Antislavery Society publications on closed shelves in the library.

Criticism of so cautious a policy came from a few strongly ,abolitionist Baptist churches, One of which even suggested the faculty truckled to the pro-slavery patrons of the Institution in New York, Albany, and Buffalo. However, it was from Gerrit Smith that the hottest blasts came. Irascible and unpredictable, he nevertheless maintained friendly relations with the faculty, even lending Professor Eaton $300,

*Isaac K. Brownson, “Diary,” 1837-43, Aug. 4, 1837

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