Tag Archives: Nathaniel Kendrick

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

Posted on March 28, 2012 by | Leave a comment

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)

Posted on March 15, 2012 by | Leave a comment

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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Posted in Chapter 1, Origin, p. 14, timeline

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p. 8 – Origin

Posted on March 15, 2012 by | Comments Off on p. 8 – Origin

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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Posted in Chapter 1, Origin, p. 8

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

Posted on March 15, 2012 by | Comments Off on A meeting at the home of Samuel Payne (p. 7)

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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Posted in Chapter 1, Origin, p. 7, timeline

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