Tag Archives: Joshua Bradley

p. 59 – The expanded program 1833-1846

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.

p. 15 – Administration, Setting and Staff, 1820-1833

Chapter II – ADMINISTRATION, SETTING AND STAFF, 1820-1833

Responsibility for maintaining and directing the newly established Institution* rested with the Trustees of the Baptist Education Society. These ten (later twelve) ministers and laymen included many of the denominational leaders in the state. The first President of the Board, the widely-traveled home missionary, Peter Philanthropos Roots, it will be recalled, was one of the founders of the Society. The clergymen succeeding him for brief terms were John Bostwick of Hartwick, likewise a founder; Joshua Bradley, dynamic pastor of the First Baptist Church of Albany, who later helped to found several seminaries in the Mississippi Valley; and Obed Warren of Morrisville, whose integrity and character gave him much influence in removing the fears and prejudices of many against the institution. Serving later as President were the Reverend Clark Kendrick, one of the chief Baptist leaders in Vermont; and the Elbridge, New York, pastor, Sylvanus Haynes, noted for his paternal friendliness to young preachers. Squire Munro, prominent member of Haynes’s church, a wealthy farmer and land speculator, was the first layman to become President of the Board. Jonathan Olmstead, his successor, whose term was extended from 1831 until he died in 1842, had been host to the group who founded the Society. He took such an important part in the Board’s activities that the Trustees inscribed on his tombstone they erected in the University Cemetery a tribute to “his wise and liberal counsels, and his personal benefactions.”

The Trustees, though ardent in their religion, were essentially conservative and practical, and almost without exception men of limited education. By background and experience they were fitted to preside

* Usually known formally as the Hamilton Literary and Theological Institution until 1846 though it had no “official” name.