Tag Archives: Joel W. Clark

p. 22 – Administration, Setting, and Staff, 1820-1833

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country, especially for “young men from the interior, bro’t up to hard labour; without the advantages of a common school education” and unaccustomed to city ways and often desperately poor. The opportunities at Hamilton for them to supply “destitute churches” on Sundays he stressed as valuable in providing preaching experience and a small financial return. He tactfully called attention to arrangements for cooperation already worked out with the Vermont education society and stated, “If you deem this method calculated to promote the general interest of our common cause … you will accept the assurances of a firm disposition on our part, to enter cordially into such a connection [with you] and be fellow helpers in the same good work.”*

Negotiations dragged on till March 24, 1823, when the Trustees of the New York Baptist Theological Seminary, giving up the idea of maintaining their own school, voted that it was “expedient to send to the Seminary at Hamilton such an annual sum as may be conveniently Spared and such students as may to this board appear Expedient.” Within a month they turned over to agent Joel W. Clark $350 and soon after shipped $100 worth of books to Hamilton. Their first student, William G. Miller, “a member in good standing of the Abyssinian Church,” joined the Class of 1826. Henceforth, the New York Baptist Theological Seminary was a paper organization only, its sole purpose being to assist the Hamilton institution. The Board justified abandoning their own school on the ground of inadequate funds, but the unfailing help which they and other Baptists in New York City, now released from supporting a strictly local enterprise, were to give to the up-state seminary was many times to save it from ruin.** When the Education Society had been chartered in 1819 the New Yorkers had regarded it as a rival The Rev. John Stanford had said, “‘I wonder if the people away off in the woods, a hundred miles west of Albany, are so silly as to suppose that young men licensed [to preach] in the city of New York would think of going away there to obtain an education.” ***But four years later he had changed his opinion.

William Colgate, a wealthy soapmaker and philanthropist, had been

* Baptist Education Society, Executive Committee, to New York Baptist Theo-
logical Seminary, Board, July 29, 1820.

** New York Baptist Theological Seminary, Record Book, 1813-48, passim.

*** New York Baptist Register, July 27, 1848.

 

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p. 21 – Administration, Setting, and Staff, 1820-1833

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became the policy of the Society its resources were opened up for the Institution and Clark Kendrick was made its chief agent in Vermont. His efforts in collecting funds and selecting students made his death in 1824 a severe blow to the struggling Board and Executive Committee. Assistance from the Baptists of the Green Mountain State continued until 1830 when they formed themselves into a branch of the Northern Baptist Education Society (originally the Massachusetts Baptist Education Society) because many of their young men were under its patronage. What interest in education remained was diverted into founding denominational academies within the state.

The Baptists of Connecticut, too, participated in the movement to provide an educated ministry and in 1818 founded an education society. Noting the possibilities of tapping resources in this quarter as they had done in Vermont, the New York society sent Joel W. Clark and Jonathan Olmstead to Connecticut in 1822. They bore a diplomatic letter of introduction and were authorized to broach the question of a union of forces behind the Hamilton institution. A few months later the Connecticut society by a unanimous vote agreed to cooperate. The relationship lasted until 1827 or 1828 when “with friendly dispositions and from local considerations of convenience” the Connecticut society decided to send no more students or funds to Hamilton. Henceforth their energies were devoted to establishing their own academy and assisting the Northern Baptist Education Society.

Since the Executive Committee had come to believe by 1831 that New York State alone was large and prosperous enough to maintain the Seminary, they agreed not to interfere with the plan of the Northern Baptist Education Society to extend her auxiliaries in New England. The support which the Institution had found among Baptists of the Empire State, especially those of New York City, made it possible for the Committee to come to this decision.

The earliest contact between officers of the Institution and metropolitan Baptists seems to have been in 1820 when Joel W. Clark and Elon Galusha went to New York to solicit books for the library. Their visit prepared the ground for discussing the possibility of consolidating the New York Baptist .Theological Seminary, which was not proving a success, with the school at Hamilton. After their return to Hamilton, Kendrick took up the question in a letter to the Board of the New York Institution. He pointed out the superior benefits of a seminary in the

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Posted in Administration Setting and Staff 1820-1833, Chapter 2, p. 21

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First issue of New York Baptist Register (p. 19)

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and his brother editors announced their support of the Institution, a policy which their successor, Alexander M. Beebee, steadily maintained for thirty years after he took over the paper in 1825. Since the periodical was widely read, its continued assistance was a valuable asset.

The Register prepared the churches for visits from agents of the Society who collected contributions and testified to the genuine piety and purpose of the Seminary. The Executive Committee had stated in 1820:

There remains no doubt but a liberal patronage will be afforded this Institution, from the flourishing region of the country bounded east by the Green Mountains, west by the Niagara River, north by Lake Ontario and the river St. Lawrence, including, perhaps, some portion of Pennsylvania on the south. Within these limits are nearly five hundred Baptist churches; about three hundred of which are in the state of New York, west of the Hudson River. But a small number of these churches have been visited, or even become acquainted with this Society.*

The contacts the agents made not only produced a large part of the annual income but also won over many Baptists hostile to the training of ministers. When the needs of the Seminary required special exertions, and that was fairly regularly, the Trustees appointed full-time paid agents. Among the most successful were Joel W. Clark and Elon Galusha. Occasionally, friends of the Institution were induced to make collections in their own areas and often Kendrick, Hascall, or other faculty members “accepted an agency.”

The agents received donations of goods as well as money; and in their reports are found listed such items as cloth, articles of clothing for students, chairs, a saddle, a thermometer, a bed, and stoves. Some could be used and others sold. Contributions of food, such as an 18-pound cheese, a bushel and a half of dried apples or 565 pounds of pork, valued at $33.90, could be added to the larder of the boarding house or sold to merchants. The Reverend Spencer H. Cone, prominent Baptist preacher of New York City, sent 42 copies of his edition of Jones’ Church History to be sold for $219.50; he agreed to give a quarter of that amount to the Institution. General Abner Forbes, member of the Vermont legislature, donated 60 merino sheep including “one good size full blooded Merino buck.” The wealthy Peterboro

* Baptist Education Society, Annual Report, 1820, p. 6.

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p. 18 – Administration, Setting, And Staff, 1820-1833

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In addition to Kendrick, Clark, Olmstead, and Daniel Hascall, the personnel of the Committee included Elon Galusha, John Peck, and Seneca B. Burchard. Galusha, son of Jonas Galusha, a former governor of Vermont, was making a reputation at Whitesboro as one of the most eloquent Baptist preachers in the State. He was later to figure prominently in the antislavery controversy which would split the denomination in the ‘forties. “Father Peck,” the greatly loved and benign pastor of the Cazenovia church, subsequently became well known as a far-ranging agent for home and foreign missions. Burchard, one of the most important of the stalwart laymen intimately associated with the Institution, left a record of service matching that of Olmstead. A newly appointed faculty member in a confidential letter described Burchard and Olmstead as “two very grave and sober and considerate and economical Deacons. They are shrewd and judicious men, however, and are perhaps the fairest representation of the whole Bap. Community with whom we have to do.”*

The high point in the year was the Society’s Annual Meeting,usually held, the first week in June. The date was fitted into the schedule of “public examinations” of the students and the “public exercises” of the juniors and seniors. At this time the officers of the Society brought together all those interested in the Institution. The procedure on these occasions resembled that of the meetings of Baptist associations with which Kendrick and his associates were familiar. A sermon by a well-known preacher selected long in advance opened the program and no doubt attracted a crowd of rapt listeners who, it was hoped, would stay through the remainder and really more important part of the meeting. From the various reports then submitted they learned of the year’s achievements and the problems and hopes for the future. The last item of business was the election of Trustees, who in turn immediately chose their officers.

With the exception of the first two, all meetings convened in Hamilton, probably at the Baptist meeting house until the Society had halls of sufficient size in its own buildings. The Reports of the occasions, which were prepared almost entirely by Kendrick, constitute one of the most enlightening sources for the history of the Institution. Announcements and news about the Seminary also appeared in the New York Baptist Register, the State organ of the denomination published at Utica. In the first issue, February 20, 1824, Elon Galusha

* Joel S. Bacon to George W. Eaton, Georgetown, Ky., Aug. 28, 1833.

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Nathaniel Kendrick named President of the Institution (p. 16)

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over the Seminary and to present its needs to the rank and file of Baptists, whose outlook on life they understood and usually shared. The laymen brought to the deliberations contacts in business, politics and agriculture which proved helpful in deciding many more or less secular questions relating to the Institution. Nearly all the Trustees lived within a fifty-mile radius of Hamilton, an essential arrangement if they were to travel to meetings over deeply rutted or snowbound roads.

Joel W. Clark, minister at Waterville, and Dr. Charles Babcock, New Hartford physician, were the first Secretaries of the Board. Their successor, Nathaniel Kendrick, who served from 1819 to 1848, developed the office into the most influential and responsible in the Society. His vigorous personality, his knowledge of the Seminary’s immediate problems, his extensive correspondence with Baptists throughout the country and his high standing in the denomination where he was an officer of the Triennial Convention and the Home Mission Society, made him the dominant man in the organization. “He  ruled in every position, not with an arbitrary power, but by natural authority,” one associate remembered.*

Like many other American colleges of the day, this school had found in Kendrick a leader able to unite the forces which had given rise to the Institution and fashion them steadily in such a way as to achieve a lasting result. He was the architect who shaped most of the foundations and also one of the builders who gave the edifice permanent form. His preeminent quality, “practical wisdom,” kept him from rash experiments. Reluctant to accept innovations, he yielded gracefully when outvoted by the other Trustees. Though a man of strong emotions, he had so disciplined himself that a slight compression of the lips or a glance of his eye were often the only traces. His dignity, which a thoughtful kindness mellowed, assured him an involuntary deference wherever he went.

Formal recognition of Kendrick’s leadership came in 1836 when at the request of the faculty “that their respected and reverend brother Nathaniel Kendrick, be recognized by the Board of Trustees as the President of the Institution,” the Trustees unanimously elected him to that office. He hesitatingly accepted the honor and seems to have held

* Philetus B. Spear, Class of 1836, Spear MS., 1.

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Posted in Administration Setting and Staff 1820-1833, Chapter 2, p. 16, timeline

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14 accepted for ministerial training (p. 14)

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Meanwhile, the Executive Committee had been receiving several applications for assistance from young men desiring ministerial training. By May, 1820, fourteen had been accepted as beneficiaries of the Society, that is, all or part of their expenses were paid out of its treasury. Since the Society did not yet have its own institution, they studied with Hascall, Kendrick, Clark, and the Rev. Elon Galusha in Whitesboro.

With the selection of Hamilton as the site for the school, it became necessary to obtain a full-time instructor. The Executive Committee sought in vain to engage at least three of the most promising young men in the denomination, one of whom, Stephen W. Taylor, some years later, became an outstanding teacher and president of their institution as well as the first executive officer of Lewisburg (Bucknell) University. The Committee finally fell back on Daniel Hascall “whose services thus far have been acceptable.” With ten young men, he began formal instruction on May 1st, 1820. Meeting in the third story over the Hamilton Academy, erected by the citizens of the village as per their agreement, Hascall, his students, and classroom represented the embodiment of the ideal cherished by the founders of the Education Society since 1817.

Colgate University had now come into being, though in a form vastly different from that of 1969. The first stage in its development was over. Daniel Hascall, Nathaniel Kendrick and their associates on the Executive Committee could report that though they were conscious “of a want of wisdom, to manage with any correctness, the unadjusted and complicated concerns of this infant Institution” they had “been much encouraged in the belief, that God has hitherto made it the care of his fostering providence.”*

* Baptist Education Society, Annual Report, 1820, 3, 7.

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p. 8 – Origin

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daniel-hascallPresident Nathaniel Kendrick, p8, p17jonathan-olmstead

 

 

Clark was pastor at Sangerfield, a few miles east of Hamilton, and Hull was a physician and a member of Kendrick’s church in Eaton. Though Hascall, Kendrick and Clark must have sought support for the enterprise among the associations whose meetings they attended prior to the date set for gathering at Hamilton, their efforts appear to have been disappointing. The Otsego Association seems to have been the only one to respond, devoting its entire Circular and Corresponding Letter for 1817 to the topic of ministerial education. When the date for the Hamilton meeting arrived, Otsego was the only association, aside from Madison, to be represented. It is possible that many men who may have given the project their blessing informally, declined to travel to Hamilton over muddy September roads. Further explanation for the attendance of only thirteen at the meeting is found in the prevalent hostility to an educated clergy. Finding their number so small, those present convened, not at the “Baptist Meeting-House” as advertised, but in the north parlor of Jonathan Olmstead’s home about a mile south of the village.

In addition to Olmstead, Hascall, Kendrick, Clarkand Charles W. Hull, there were: Samuel Payne, Elisha Payne, John Bostwick, Thomas Cox, Samuel Osgood, Amos Kingsley, Peter Philanthropos Roots, and Robert Powell. Nine were members of the Hamilton church, two of the Eaton church, and one each of the churches of Sangerfield in Oneida

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A meeting at the home of Samuel Payne (p. 7)

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England Baptists with whom he was in touch, and from similar activities of the Baptists in New York City and elsewhere. Thus, when he read the eloquent Corresponding Letter of the Boston Association for 1816, he was encouraged to dream of an educational institution in the West urged by Jeremiah Chaplin. When he broached the idea to his old friend, Nathaniel Kendrick, who visited the vicinity in the fall of 1816, he found a sympathetic listener. Kendrick, pastor of the church at Middlebury, Vermont, though not a college man, had studied with the Rev. Samuel Stillman of Boston and other able divines. When in 1817 he settled at Eaton, a few miles over the western ridge of hills from Hamilton, further detailed discussion was possible.

The first step toward forming an education society was taken in May, 1817, when five or six “Ministers and Brethren” met in Hamilton at the home of Samuel Payne “to consider the propriety and importance of affording assistance to young men, in obtaining a competent education, who are called of God to preach.” A committee of four reported further:

After prayerful deliberation on the subject, it was the unanimous opinion of those present, that to promote the future usefulness of those whom God is raising up to be Ministers of the New Testament, some provision should be made for their instruction.

The undersigned were appointed to consult with Fathers and Brethren not present, and to obtain information from several Theological Institutions recently established by the Baptist denomination in other places; and advertise another meeting. These directions have been attended to, and the subject is assuming an interest with many, beyond what was at first anticipated.

We hereby give notice, that the next Meeting will be held at the Baptist Meeting-House in Hamilton, on the fourth Wednesday in September next, at ten o’clock A.M. at which time a sermon may be expected on the occasion.

The Ministers and Brethren from the several Associations in the country, as far as will be Practicable, are respectfully solicited to attend.

Joel W. Clark
Nathaniel Kendrick
Charles W. Hull
Daniel Hascall*

*American Baptist Magazine, I (November, 1817), 238. This notice was printed on the cover of the Western New York Baptist Magazine, II (Aug., 1817), though no copy with a cover is known to exist.

 

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