Tag Archives: Landscaping

Memorial Chapel (p. 268)

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be well-organized appeals in the form of the annual alumni fund.

The early years of the Bryan administration saw renovation and adaptation of four old buildings. Work on the dormitories, West, and East Halls, which Dr. Merrill had planned and to which the growing enrollment of the College gave urgency, was completed-West in 1910 and East, with a Commons for feeding 100 in the basement, a year later. At the termination of Colgate Academy in 1912, its facilities became available for other uses. Administrative offices were moved from the Library to the academy building, henceforth known as the Administration Building, and Taylor Hall, which the Academy fraternities had occupied, was taken over for the post office and the YMCA.

The long recognized need for an infirmary was met in 1913 through the generosity of Mrs. James C. Colgate whose contributions enabled the University to acquire and equip the former Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house on East Pleasant Street for this purpose,

Though the College, Seminary, and Academy each had its own chapel, the College chapel had become so crowded by 1915 that only a part of the student body could be accommodated. Plans for a new building were drawn by Harding and Seaver, architects of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and a location chosen which would bring buildings together around the north quadrangle. The donor, Miss Mary Colgate, sister of James C. Colgate, who gave it in memory of their father, James B. Colgate, specified that it should be in the simple New England meeting house style. Construction began in the spring of 1917 and it was first used for the September 1918 convocation. Miss Colgate dedicated the building in June, 1920, and provided an endowment for its maintenance. Its symmetry and simple classical beauty have made a focal point on the Hill ever since.

By the early 1920’s the campus had grown into the park-like tract that its planners and creators, especially the landscape architect Ernest W. Bowditch, and Superintendent of Buildings and Grounds, James M. Taylor, had envisioned. The former died in 1918 and Dr. Taylor resigned two years later to be succeeded by Lt. Colonel James Ballantine, who had recently come to Colgate as Director of Military Instruction. Colgate’s buildings and grounds by 1922 had an estimated value of $1,100,000.

Though the size of the faculty had increased from 36 in 1908 to 48 in 1922 these figures are misleading since the first includes ,21 for the

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Posted in Chapter 13, p. 268, The Bryan Period 1908-1922, timeline

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Merrill House is built (p. 247)

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President's House (Merrill House) now Faculty Club, A1000-55 Folder 2, p247

admirably fitted for entertaining which the President and his wife had intended.

Taylor Lake and the Willow Path, which are among the most distinctive features of the Colgate landscape, may be said to date from 1905 though early in the ’90’s Professor Taylor had begun to drain the swamp area between the foot of the Hill and the Academy and convert it into a lake. Gifts from Hendrick S. Holden of Syracuse enabled him to bring his plans to fruition. Under the immediate supervision of the faithful Lant Gilmartin, a crew of Irish workers, armed with shovels and horse-drawn scoops, dug out the wet clay and spread it along a path over a sewer pipe which connected the Academy with the campus sanitation system. To relieve the bareness of the resulting embankment Dr. Taylor planted golden Russian willows, an

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Posted in Chapter 12, p. 247, The Merrill Presidency, 1899-1908, timeline

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p. 222 – Colgate in the 1890’s

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Colgate and his son made them up, quietly sending the Treasurer the sums required and having them credited on the books as from the Executive Committee. These deficiencies are explained by increased expenditures for improvements, new equipment, and new instruction. After the Compact of 1893 had been signed the University’s accounts included those of the Education Society and hence comparative statistics for total income and expenditure for 1890′ and 1899 give a somewhat distorted view. It is useful to note, however, that in 1899 real estate and equipment were valued at $700,000 and endowment, including the Dodge Fund, at $1,718,202.

At no time in the ’90’s did the payments from the Dodge Fund exceed $20,000 and in 1895 the figure reached a low of $11,800. Income from other sources declined also. When a Trustee Committee attempted to raise $10,000-among some 1,000 living alumni for a gymnasium and other improvements, they met with apathy and failure. It seemed clear that few alumni or Trustees felt any obligation to contribute. Many of the former, because their low salaries as pastors gave them little surplus, were unable to do so, but one suspects there was a general disposition to let the financial load rest on the Colgates alone. Raising tuition from $30.000 to $45.00 in 1892 and to $60.00 in 1896 and also tightening up on scholarship grants helped in some degree to reduce deficits.

Landscaping made a notable advance in 1891 with the hiring of Ernest W. Bowditch, landscape architect and engineer of Boston. He at once proceeded to make a detailed and meticulous survey of the entire campus which was to serve as the basis for all future plans. A major part of its cost the citizens of Hamilton contributed as an expression of their interest in the University. Under the direction of Professor James M. Taylor, Superintendent of Buildings and Grounds, a long-term program of grading, planting, and building new roads was begun and carried out, principally by his crew of Irish groundsmen. In 1893 a sewer system connecting all the buildings was constructed though it was not until 1895 and 1896 that electricity and water from the village began to be available in one building at a time.

The major building erected in the ’90’s was the long-desired gymnasium. Funds accumulated slowly and F. H. Gouge, a Utica architect, drew up plans for a three-story structure in a modified Romanesque style, which echoed the lines of the Library. Amid great

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p. 179 – Administration, Faculty, and Instruction in the Dodge Era

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The University, in accordance with its agreement of 1853 with the Baptist Education Society, paid operating expenses and faculty salaries for both the Seminary and College but left to the Society the responsibility of providing for the beneficiaries. Collection and disbursement of the Society’s funds and supervision of its investments were the major duties of its Treasurer. Agents assisted in making collections in the Baptist Churches throughout the state as they had done since 1817. The Madisonensis editor in 1872 objected that some of them often exaggerated stories of student privations to play on the emotions of potential donors and that such an approach cost the University a loss of respect and standing. The agents competed with their opposite numbers from the Rochester Theological Seminary but by the late 1870’s a plan “for the equitable tilling” of the field had been drawn up.

The increase of tangible assets is a useful measure of growth in the Dodge regime. The major items are, of course, land and buildings though this heading also covered the contents of the library and museums and instructional apparatus and equipment. Valued at $91,000 in 1869, they were worth $312,000 in 1890.

The campus of the 1870’s and the early ’80’s was in deplorable condition. Professor James M. Taylor described it as a “third class farm” Envious of other institutions, students published their frequent criticisms in the Madisonensis, noting the overgrown fields kept as a pasture for the janitor’s cow, the large unsightly tree stumps, ash heaps outside the dormitories, ancient fences, and tumbled down barns, and sarcastically urged that something be done to make the buildings and grounds “look less like a county poor-house, and more like a University.” Any improvements made represented the labor of students and faculty, usually on a volunteer basis; most of their efforts were devoted to tree-planting. In 1877 the faculty petitioned the Trustees to employ a landscape architect to draw up an over-all plan. The Board responded by asking Professors James M. Taylor and Lucien M. Osborn to make a topographical survey as a first step, but here the matter dropped. President Dodge was averse to bringing in outside experts and Treasurer Spear opposed any changes.

The final impetus for campus improvements came from an outbreak of diphtheria among the students in November and December, 1882. This focused attention on the unsanitary conditions in the janitor’s barns and in the dormitory, East Hall. To ensure an objective investigation, Professors Taylor and Alexander M. Beebee were instrumental

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p. 151 – Recovery and expansion, 1850-1869

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seem to appeal to them but in 1863 these gentlemen and their brother, Robert, proposed that the University and the Education Society attempt to raise $70,000 and offered to match any sum collected up to $30,000. Of the total amount secured, about $15,000 was used to cancel the Society’s debt, $5,000 invested for the use of the library, and the balance, some $43,000 added to the endowment.

The largest single donation was received in 1865 when James B. Colgate and John B. Trevor gave $70,000. They provided that $40,000 be designated the Trevor Education Fund, the income to be used for scholarships for Civil War veterans or their sons, and the remainder to be set aside as a fund for the expenses of the Presidency. The next year they made another gift of $10,000 to constitute an investment fund for campus improvements. Mr. Colgate and Mr. Trevor were partners in James B. Colgate and Company, a large brokerage firm with offices in New York, Baltimore, and Washington. They dealt also in precious metals, and during the Civil War Mr. Colgate assisted the Federal government in maintaining its gold reserve. In addition to contributing to Madison University, Mr. Trevor was a generous benefactor to the University of Rochester.

By 1869 the University had an endowment of more than $180,000 and no indebtedness. Contributions from the churches for current expenses of the Education Society increased from less than $1,000 in 1865 to nearly $13,000, some four years later. To augment the existing University funds and to provide for repairs and new equipment, Treasurer Spear and others, in 1868, launched a successful campaign for a $100,000 “Jubilee Offering.” There were now ample resources for future expansion.

The campus in the 1850’s and ’60’s was still as rural as it had always been. Except for paths flanked by beautiful shade trees, every acre was either “plowed, mowed, or pastured.” An ugly unpainted board fence enclosed the grounds and broad stretches of meadow land which extended in almost every direction over the hills invited youths, disgusted with dull textbooks, for long walks on bright afternoons. In 1851 the students voluntarily laid a mile of hemlock plank walk from the foot of the hill to Broad Street and from the Boarding Hall to the Baptist meeting house and lined each side with maples. Their efforts, coming at a time when every gesture of confidence in the University strengthened morale, gained them the Trustees’ sincere appreciation.

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p. 98 – Administrative problems and incorporation, 1833-1846

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Bangkok two years after his graduation. The money was in payment of his student loan even though his notes had been canceled when he sailed for the mission field.

Since collections and gifts failed to meet the needs of the Institution, the Trustees resorted to other measures. Charges for tuition and board were raised in the mid-’30’s. Special subscription campaigns were launched for salaries and debts, but it is not clear, however, what the cash returns actually were since it often happened that subscribers paid only part of their pledges. In 1837 the Trustees decided that it would be expedient to start a drive for a $50,000 endowment fund. Such a venture required caution because many Baptists, William Colgate among them, opposed an endowment on the ground that income from such a source would make the Institution independent of the churches whose agency it was and who had been its chief support. Dr. Kendrick, who was thoroughly familiar with this objection and also with the condition of the treasury, wrote with some asperity in the 1837 Annual Report “There is a happy medium between a state of penury, which paralyzes [sic] all the energies of the Society, and cripples the Institution in its faculty and students, and such a profusion of funds as allures to luxury, and induces to forgetfulness of a daily dependence on the Father of mercies.” Even the most sanguine Board members had no expectation of a “profusion of funds,” but they did hope that enough might be raised from a regular income to defray a part of the annual expenses. In 1839 the goal was raised to $100,000, but five years later not more than $10,000 had been collected. It was not until 1850 that efforts to establish an endowment succeeded.

The beauty of the campus and the village in their setting of rolling hills, broad valleys, woods, and farmland invariably drew appreciative comments from visitors and students. By the middle 1830’s the campus included about 170 acres. Most of it was given over to cultivated fields and pasture which supplied the Boarding Hall with dairy products, meat and vegetables; 50 acres were occupied by the Institution’s buildings and Samuel Payne’s home. Near the buildings were walks and groves often used by the students for retreat and meditation.

Landscaping did not seem to awaken the Trustees’ interest until 1836 when they appointed a committee for laying out the grounds. They also offered a prize of $70.00 for the best plan which united “the greatest beauty and simplicity with the least expense in consumma-

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p. 33 – Administration, setting and staff, 1820-1833

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Besides the chapel, West Hall contained a lecture room, a library, and studies and sleeping rooms which could accommodate about seventy students, two to the room. Occupants were permitted to paint the walls of their rooms if they wished and furniture from the “stone building on the plain,” which groups and individuals had provided, was transferred to chambers in the new building bearing the names the donors had specified for those in the old one. Since lack of furniture made it possible at first to use less than half of the sleeping rooms, appeals went out for contributions of beds, bedding and other equipment. Outfitting quarters for students cost $50.00.

Extensive renovations have obliterated all traces of the original interior but externally the building is the same as it was in 1827. One observer then wrote that the structure was plain, well designed and constructed, and showed marks of strict economy. Today architects still comment on its simplicity and excellent proportions. In the general exterior design it resembles other college buildings of the period including Painter Hall at Middlebury, Hascall’s Alma Mater.*

Within a week after West Hall was dedicated, Hascall had completed, at a cost of $950, a “large convenient” boarding house, known as the “Cottage Edifice,” and a wood house; both were, of course, necessary complements to the new classroom and dormitory building. The boarding house, which stood between West and the present Alumni Halls, was 48 feet long and 34 feet wide and two stories high. The cellar and kitchen were in the first story, the dining room and living quarters for the steward and his family in the second.

The campus of the 1820’s and 30’s probably was bleak, bare of trees or shrubs, and without landscaping to enhance the natural beauty of the site. A new road down to the present College Street was opened and about ten acres to the north stretching to that highway were purchased. Hascall, acting as superintendent of buildings and grounds, cleared the space around the buildings and enclosed it with a fence. He also removed to the rear of the boarding house an old distillery, presumably once operated by Samuel Payne, for the students to use as a workshop. By 1829 Kendrick could report that the Education Society owned real estate worth over $12,000.

Hascall, Kendrick, and other faculty members to a lesser degree,

* The Trustees of the Hamilton Academy purchased the “building on the plain” for their boys’ department which occupied it until the academy was discontinued in the 1850’s. Hamilton Academy Record Book, Apr. 28, 1827.

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