Tag Archives: Nathaniel Kendrick

p. 60 – The expanded program, 1833-1846

Posted on May 1, 2012 by | Comments Off on p. 60 – The expanded program, 1833-1846

made him famous as a teacher. Conservative and independent in his views, once he had formulated them, he was not a man to be “persuaded otherwise,” nor did he hesitate to express his opinions, let the chips fall where they would. These, characteristics made him a formidable adversary whenever he chose to do battle. Since his position was considered second to that of Dr. Kendrick, he had hardly taken up his duties when he began to act as Chairman of the Faculty in the absence of the former.

As early as 1830, in response to student demands for instruction in science, the Executive Committee,”having long had an eye upon a brother of much promise,” selected Joel Smith Bacon as Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy. He had graduated from Hamilton College in 1826 and was then studying at Newton. It was not until 1833, however, after completing a brief period as president of Georgetown College in Kentucky, that he accepted the offer. A year later, in accordance with a previous understanding with the Board, he exchanged his chair for that of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy. After a teaching career of only four years, he resigned in 1837 to go to Massachusetts for the settling of his father-in-law’s estate. From 1843 to 1854 he was president of Columbian College.

George Washington Eaton came to the faculty in the fall of 1833, probably through the influence of Bacon who wanted to be relieved of his work in mathematics and natural philosophy in order to teach intellectual and moral philosophy. As professor of Greek and Latin, Eaton had been associated with him at Georgetown College. After Bacon resigned the presidency there, Eaton, despairing of the college’s future, was glad to leave. After his appointment seemed certain, he wrote Mrs. Eaton: “I think…that this of all the places in the world is the place for us. We Can both be happy and useful here…”Thirty-eight years of devoted service bore out his initial response to the life of the Institution and village.*

A native of Pennsylvania, Eaton had grown up in Ohio where he attended Kenyon College and Ohio University at Athens. After a year’s interruption during which he was a private tutor in Virginia and studied briefly at Princeton, he resumed his education at Union College to which President Eliphalet Nott’s fame attracted him. Graduat-

*George W. Eaton to Eliza B. Eaton, Lee, Mass., Nov. 15, 1833.

Comments Off on p. 60 – The expanded program, 1833-1846

Posted in Chapter 4, p. 60, The Expanded Period, 1833-1846

Tagged , , , ,

p. 57 – The expanded program, 1833-1846

Posted on May 1, 2012 by | Comments Off on p. 57 – The expanded program, 1833-1846

Chapter IV – THE EXPANDED PROGRAM 1833-1846

The Hamilton Literary and Theological Institution gained recognition as a nursery of religion and learning thanks to the wise planning and heroic labors of its faculty. They became known for scholarly attainments and good teaching as well as for their position and influence in the denomination. By “pressing forward with the ardor of youth to render their course of instruction most efficient,” they achieved a fine reputation for the school throughout the United States. When lack of funds demanded retrenchment in the ’40’s the Board considered replacing, some of the faculty with cheaper and less experienced men. However, such a measure “so threatening to’ the stability and prosperity of the Institution” they prudently tabled in the belief that, “as if is just entering upon the age of manhood, it should not be thrown back … to its former infancy.”*

Seth Spencer Whitman, who had been Professor of Hebrew and Biblical Criticism for six years, left in 1835 and within a few weeks of his departure Thomas Jefferson Conant succeeded him. Member of a prominent Vermont Baptist family, Conant had graduated from Middlebury in 1823 and taught at Columbian, and Waterville (Colby) Colleges. His mastery of the languages of the Old Testament, which he acquired by private study, was to enable him to become one of the leading Biblical scholars and translators ill the country. In 1840 he published a translation from the German of Gesenius’s Hebrew Grammar with the additions of Roediger, which was long the standard text in its field In England arid the’ United States. His wife, a daughter of Jeremiah Chaplin, first president of Colby, was a scholar in her own right. In addition to be bearing and raising ten children she edited a

*Baptist Education Society, Annual Report, 1842, 8; a843, 9.

Comments Off on p. 57 – The expanded program, 1833-1846

Posted in Chapter 4, p. 57, The Expanded Period, 1833-1846

Tagged , , , ,

p. 50 – Teaching and learning, 1820-1833

Posted on May 1, 2012 by | Comments Off on p. 50 – Teaching and learning, 1820-1833

A.M. 5-5:30 chapel
5:30-6 private devotions
6-6:30 reading and studying
6:30-7 breakfast
7-8 exercise by manual labor
8-8:30 private devotions
8:30-12 studies and recitations
12-12:30 dinner

P.M. 12:30-1:30 exercise by manual labor
1:30-5 studies and recitations
5-5:30 chapel
5:30-6 supper
6-6:30 private devotions
6:30-9 meetings, reading, and writing
9-9:30 devotions in room
9:30-4:30 sleep*

Relations between students and faculty were open and cordial. Whenever there was misunderstanding or disagreement among them, Kendrick was always the one to present the faculty viewpoint. Occa­sionally he failed to give the main reason which dictated faculty action, in which case, though the students grumbled, his prestige and moral appeal always disarmed them. The faculty never seems to have acted as policemen and student indiscretions were few. That the Executive Committee could be aware there might be some, appears in their statement in 1823 that “persevering attempts have been made to . . . suppress whatever might appear like youthful imprudences,” though they fail to reveal just what the “attempts” were. They later “Resolved that no Student belonging to the Seminary be permitted to smoke in the Seminary, without special license for that purpose, and that those who chew Tobacco shall furnish themselves with spit boxes in the Chapel and in their study rooms to avoid polluting the house.”

Kendrick and the other officers experienced considerable irritation because of the “youthful imprudences” of a member of the Class of 1826, and of the Class of 1827. They dismissed the first because he had “conducted himself unworthy [sic] of a beneficiary … by neglecting his studies, manifesting a spirit of insubordination, frequently propos-

*F. B. Spear, In Memoriam,  Philetus Bennett Spear, D.D.  (Marquette, 1901), 33-34. Morning Chapel varied from six in winter to five in summer, probably so that students might take advantage of daylight.

Comments Off on p. 50 – Teaching and learning, 1820-1833

Posted in Chapter 3, Teaching and Learning 1820-1833

Tagged , ,

p. 46 – Teaching and learning, 1820-1833

Posted on May 1, 2012 by | Comments Off on p. 46 – Teaching and learning, 1820-1833

Education Society had been organized and more than a year before the Trustees located the Institution at Hamilton. Hascall took him into his home and taught him Latin, the instructor’s bedroom serving as a classroom. Before he graduated, Wade became convinced that he should go to Burma as a missionary. After studying Burmese a year he and his wife, a village girl whom he had met at church, were formally consecrated for their work by the leading Baptist ministers of Central New York. No missionary in the denomination, save Judson, achieved greater fame than Jonathan Wade.

Eugenio Kincaid, the second student, also became a well-known missionary to Burma. While teaching school in northwestern Pennsylvania, he became interested in the proper mode of baptism and on learning of a Baptist church at DeKalb, New York, went there to discuss the subject with the pastor. Soon after he joined the church he decided to become a preacher and to study with Hascall at Hamilton, 160 miles away. He set out on foot, his possessions in a handkerchief, and twenty-five cents in his pocket. On the way he chopped wood for his meals and lodging. When he reached Hamilton he found Wade already studying with Hascall and earning expenses by working on his farm, an arrangement he himself had hoped to make. The kind­ hearted Hascall, on hearing his story, responded “My boy, I will take you and we will do the best we can.” Kincaid’s student days were marked by constant struggle with poverty. Often he had to wait three months after a letter from his mother arrived at the post office because he lacked the 25¢ postage. Eight years after graduation, he followed Wade to the Far East.

The experiences of Jabez Swan, Class of 1827, also illustrate the Spartan life of the early students. Coming to the Seminary on horseback from Connecticut in 1824, he soon left for lack of funds, but the next year he came back with his wife. To earn his expenses he worked in the fields in the afternoons and on Sundays preached at a country church. Sometimes he bought standing timber which he converted into firewood for his own use and to sell One day when he and Justus H. Vinton, Class of 1833, were having trouble splitting tough blocks of hard maple, Swan went after a beetle and wedges. Returning, he found Vinton talking to Professor Kendrick who had happened by and split the wood for his students. Vinton, who had been amazed at the professor’s height, strength and skill, some time later remarked, “I never saw an axe lifted so near the heavens before.” Denison, 59-62

Comments Off on p. 46 – Teaching and learning, 1820-1833

Posted in Chapter 3, p. 46, Teaching and Learning 1820-1833

Tagged ,

p. 35 – Administration, setting and staff, 1820-1833

Posted on May 1, 2012 by | Comments Off on p. 35 – Administration, setting and staff, 1820-1833

in a seminary situated in an area recently frontier and drawing many of its students from simple country homes. Born on a Vermont farm near Bennington in 1782, he began “keeping school” at the age of eighteen, meanwhile reading in preparation for entering Middlebury College to which he was admitted in 1803 as a sophomore. At this new and undeveloped institution, founded only three years previously, he earned all his expenses. He was a member of the Philomathesian Society, a secret literary group, and at his graduation in 1806 participated with five of his classmates in “A Dialogue on the Means of Advancing Human Felicity” and also delivered “An Oration on True Greatness.” His own privations and struggles for an education enabled him to appreciate the hardships of many of his students. He stood before them as an example of what they might achieve through dogged perseverance and hard work.

Slightly under six feet, compact and wiry in build, he had blue eyes, light hair, a fair complexion, and symmetrical features. He impressed his students with his energy, simplicity, and devotion to the Institution. They were drawn to him by his cordiality, lack of affectation, and humility. The stories of his directing men building the Cottage Edifice as he sat at the window of West Hall hearing the recitations of a class, or, once the hour was over, leading his students to the stone quarry or the hay field where he took the lead in the work at hand, help to make clear his hold over them. Hascall was not a great scholar-as were few college teachers of the period were-but he was an independent, logical thinker who could express himself in a fresh and direct style. One friend called him a man “of the Doric order:’ His theology, though strongly Calvinistic, differed from Kendrick’s in that he refused to accept the doctrine of Particular Atonement which Kendrick firmly believed. This difference of opinion failed to cloud their close and affectionate relationship.

Hascall and Kendrick were well paired for conducting the affairs of the Institution. Where one was modest, diffident, and almost distrustful of himself, the other was bold and self-possessed but at the same time neither forward nor presumptuous. Kendrick first began teaching in the fall of 1820 when he came over to Hamilton from Eaton three times a week to give lectures on philosophy and theology. Two years later the Executive Committee elected him Professor of Theology and

Comments Off on p. 35 – Administration, setting and staff, 1820-1833

Posted in Administration Setting and Staff 1820-1833, Chapter 2, p. 35

Tagged , ,

West Hall completed (p. 31)

Posted on May 1, 2012 by | Comments Off on West Hall completed (p. 31)
West Hall.
West Hall

depression such as that on a cold January day in 1827 when he wrote to his friend and counsellor, Nathaniel Kendrick, then at Hartford, Connecticut, on an “agency.” Hascall reported that he had returned from a fundraising trip with little to show for his efforts. Though the building was progressing, he had difficulty in keeping the workmen in materials since the sawmills were shut down. Beset by family worries and in doubt as to whether he should continue as pastor, he continued, “I find myself in a strait place and no one to advise me in your absence. I shall not abandon the work of building until it is finished; unless Special Providence requires it.” This letter, one of the most human in the University’s archives, lights up with a warm glow the intimate relationship between these two men to whose herculean labors the Institution owed so much.*

Hascall’s experience in putting up the “building on the plain” must have been helpful when he came to erect West Hall. According to tradition, he had the gray limestone for the walls quarried from the  hill above the old golf course. Construction progressed so well that on May 28, 1827, a year before the contract stipulated, he turned over the completed building to the Executive Committee.

Formal dedication of the structure came on June 5th as part of the exercises of the week of “public examinations,” Commencement, and

* Daniel Hascall, to Nathaniel Kendrick, Hartford, Conn., Jan. 15, 1827.

Comments Off on West Hall completed (p. 31)

Posted in Administration Setting and Staff 1820-1833, Chapter 2, p. 31, timeline

Tagged ,

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

Posted on March 28, 2012 by | Leave a comment

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

→ Leave a comment

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

Tagged , , , , , ,

p. 20 – Administration, Setting, and Staff, 1820-1833

Posted on March 28, 2012 by | Leave a comment

philanthropist, Gerrit Smith, gave 10,000 feet of seasoned pine boards, 20 bushels of wheat, and $25.00 worth of “furnace ware.” Kendrick, Olmstead and Galusha on a trip to Albany obtained $20.00 from Governor DeWitt Clinton, $10.00 from Lieutenant-Governor John Tayler, and $2.50 from Chancellor James Kent. On commencement day, 1823, the Reverend Calvin Philleo of Westmoreland; a Trustee, gave 150 acres of military bounty land in Illinois. The best the Baptist Triennial Convention could do for the Institution, however, was to wish for its work “the blessings of heaven” because the interests of the national organization were centered in Columbian College, in Washington. Nonetheless, favorable sentiments of any kind must have been appreciated by Kendrick and other officers, who were always quick to note the state of public opinion towards the Seminary.

In areas where Baptists took kindly to their cause; the agents formed auxiliary or: branch societies to act as local, fund-collecting agencies for the parent society in Hamilton. This practice, then in common use for raising money for home and foreign missions, proved a convenient method for combining many small contributions into substantial sums. The women’s’ auxiliary’ societies were especially valuable’ because many of the members who were unable to give money contributed through these organizations the products of their spinning wheels, looms, knitting needles, and kitchens.

From 1820 to 1830 Vermont was an important reservoir of funds and students. The Corresponding Letter oil ministerial education sent out by the Boston Association in 1816, which had stirred Baptists of New York State to action, met with a similar response in Vermont. Here also an education society was founded, its constitution in many respects resembling those of the Massachusetts and New York societies. However, provision had been made in it for cooperation with other organizations with the same objectives.

When the Executive Committee of the New York society learned of the existence of the Vermont group they foresaw competition with it in the eastern counties of the Empire State. A correspondence between the two potential rivals led to Kendrick’s being sent to discuss matters with the president of the Vermont society, his cousin, the Reverend Clark Kendrick, and with other members of the board. These he found cordially disposed to cooperate with the New York State organization rather than found a school to compete with it. When their views

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Administration Setting and Staff 1820-1833, Chapter 2, p. 20

Tagged , , , ,

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

Posted on March 28, 2012 by | Leave a comment

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.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Administration Setting and Staff 1820-1833, Chapter 2, p. 19, timeline

Tagged , , , , , , ,

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

Posted on March 28, 2012 by | Leave a comment

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.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Administration Setting and Staff 1820-1833, Chapter 2, p. 18

Tagged , , , , , , ,