been separated from the Institution a little more than nine years,” he
lamented in 1845,
but I have not forgotten it nor is my attachment lessened by time and distance. I seem to myself like one buried alive. I hear some distinct reports concerning those I love but hold no direct communication with them…When connected with the institution its joys & sorrows, hopes & fears were mine. And they remain so still with the additional circumstance that I can do nothing for its benefit.*
Within three years, however, he was once more to share actively in “its joys & sorrows” as he heroically and successfully fought the attempt to remove it to Rochester.
John Fram Richardson, a native of Vernon, New York, and a member of the senior class, seems to have taken over some of Hascall’s work a few months before graduating in 1835. He acted as a “tutor” until 1838 when he was made Professor of the Latin Language and Literature. He was the first graduate to become a member of the faculty. He was also Secretary of the Faculty and the clear, neatly-written minutes attest his competence in that sphere. His friends remembered him as a refined, gentle and unobtrusive man and a fine teacher and scholar.
When Barnas Sears vacated the important chair of Biblical Theology in 1835, the Board, after several fruitless attempts to get a Baptist of equal eminence and ability, appointed John Sharp Maginnis in 1838. Born in Pennsylvania, of staunch Scotch-Irish immigrants, he spent his childhood in Ohio. When in his ‘teens he joined the Baptist denomination and for a short time assisted the indefatigable preacher and friend of the Institution, Joshua Bradley, in his church in Pittsburgh. To train for the ministry he studied at Waterville, Brown, and Newton. Prior to his appointment to the faculty he held pastorates at Providence, Rhode Island, and Portland, Maine. Maginnis’s ardent piety and logical thinking had commended him to the Board as likely to be the kind of professor they sought and his career on the Hill justified their selection. Spare, dignified, high-strung, and dyspeptic, he tempered the austerity of his harsh Calvinism with a gentle simplicity and friendliness and a keen wit which endeared him to students and colleagues. He delighted to detect errors in reasoning and his skillful use of the Socratic method, combined with his lucid theological lectures,
*Daniel Hascall, West Rutland, Vt., to George W. Eaton, July 8, 1845.
