Tag Archives: Seneca B. Burchard

p. 141 – Recovery and expansion, 1850-1869

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Village and Campus, c. 180. First Baptist Church in foreground, A1000-64, Folder 33, p66

Tower who concurrently served as Treasurer from 1847 to 1864. A Waterville, New York, distiller and merchant, sagacious and dignified, he had been a member since 1846 and an Education Society Trustee since 1838. Though he had favored Removal and served as one of the original Trustees of the University of Rochester, no Board member exceeded him in service to the Hamilton institution. Tower’s successor in the presidency was James B. Colgate of New York, son of Deacon William Colgate, who was to serve in that capacity until his death 40 years later. Professor Spear followed Tower as Treasurer, remaining in office until 1888.

The Education Society’s Trustees represented the same shades of opinion as the University Corporation and many sat on both Boards. Its presidents were Deacon William Cobb (1849-58) and Deacon Seneca B. Burchard (1858-61), both from Hamilton, and Samuel Colgate (1861-97) of New York, also a son of Deacon William Colgate. Following their father’s death in 1857, both James B. and Samuel became very influential in the affairs of both Boards. Deacon Alvah Pierce, who had been Treasurer since 1837, retained that office until 1887.

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p. 115 – The removal controversy, 1847-1850

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needed, he asserted that it should be raised for the University in its present location. The Hamilton people, he stated, were ready to contribute $15,000 for a new building if patrons in the rest of the state would make up an endowment of $100,000.

Following the adoption of Eaton’s Candid Appeal, the Hamiltonians appointed committees to obtain subscriptions. On the first day $7,150 was raised in the village and by the end of the first week $8,300 had been pledged. Though these sums were small in comparison to what the friends of the Rochester location had collected, the Hamiltonians were hopeful. Deacon Seneca B. Burchard was “pleased to witness the excitement,” but Deacon Alvah Pierce thought the campaign would be “a heavy lift.” Dr. Kendrick did not feel free to publish his opinions though he naturally watched the progress of affairs with deep interest. To Zenas Freeman he confided that his greatest fear was that removal might

 

not be well for the education of the Baptist ministry…It may then have to encounter sectarian influences, more embarrassing to the free development of our [i.e. Baptist] peculiar sentiments…than anything we meet with here, &…the expense of supporting our indigent young men may be somewhat increased.

 

He added, however, “I have no prepossessions to any place, but prefer
to see the U[niversity] located where it can accomplish the most good.”

Both the Hamiltonians and the Removalists attached great importance to the views of the Baptist brethren in Albany and metropolitan New York because their endorsement, and especially financial assistance, was essential to whatever policy might prevail. As spokesman for the friends of Rochester, Wilder attempted to win the New York City Baptists for removal, but despite his eloquent pleas and many addresses in similar vein by William R. Williams, Elisha Tucker, and others at meetings held late in December 1847, and early in January 1848, unqualified approval was not forthcoming. Deacon William Colgate, in particular, could not make up his mind; and no one’s opinion carried more weight than his. The New Yorkers did go so far, however, as to state that an endowment of $150,000 must be raised whether or not the institution were moved.

To present the Hamilton point of view Professor Eaton decided to go to New York. When the removal question had been first raised he had tended to favor a new location, he wrote years afterward, but he

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p. 113 – The removal controversy, 1847-1850

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resources with the likelihood that it would never “abound in wealth, population, enterprise, and men of education to a sufficient extent for the demands of a great University;” the absence of manufacturing, commercial, and agricultural advantages in the surrounding area to support a denser population; and the presence of Hamilton College at Clinton, twenty miles distant, which would meet the needs of Central New York. In contrast, the advantages of Rochester were played up in glowing terms. Its youth and rapid growth, which would enhance real-estate investments, was further supported by the agricultural productiveness of the adjacent territory, the rapidly-growing number of wealthy, intelligent and enterprising citizens, the absence of a college in the region except for a small one which the Episcopalians had at Geneva (now Hobart), and the extensive railroad, canal, and lake navigation systems which made the city easily accessible.

News of a possible relocation of Madison University began to appear in the papers of Utica, Syracuse, Auburn, and Rochester, each putting forward the claims of its respective community as a site. Citizens of Rochester, businessmen, and ministers of several denominations, following speeches by Church, Wilder and others at a public meeting on October 28, 1847, unanimously approved the removal project and appointed a committee to raise subscriptions and further the enterprise. Alexander M. Beebee, editor of the Baptist Register of Utica and Sewell S. Cutting, editor of the New York Recorder, a Baptist paper in New York City, duly reported these developments, but discreetly declined to take sides. Cutting, however, expressed regret at no word on the issue from Hamilton.

The proposal to move the institution seems temporarily to have stunned the Hamiltonians, but finally they held a public meeting on November 25, 1847, and, on the motion of Deacon Seneca B. Burchard, appointed a committee to investigate the reasons for and against, the funds invested in University properties, and the prospects for raising an endowment in Madison County. The committee consisted of three lawyers, two businessmen, a physician, and the editor of the Democratic Reflector, none belonging to the Baptist Church:

A few days later an article by “A Citizen” in the Reflector pointed out that the loss of the University would injure nearly all members of the community. Noting that Syracuse, Utica, and Rochester wanted the University, the writer asked, “Is not the industry and activity of

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p. 104 – Administrative problems and incorporation, 1833-1846

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circles who became one of the first trustees of Madison University, used his influence to get favorable action.

The objection raised in 1845 that there was no proper agent to receive the charter had been met by setting up an independent corporation, Madison University, which had the power to provide for its own succession. Of the twenty-seven men composing the first Board of Trustees, seventeen were at the same time trustees of the Baptist Education Society, thus making an interlocking directorate. All of them were Baptists and New York residents; six came from Albany, six from Hamilton, seven from New York City and Brooklyn, three from Utica, and one each from Rochester, Homer, Elbridge, Fayetteville, and Waterville. Twenty were laymen; among them, in addition to Ira Harris were William Colgate, Seneca B. Burchard, Friend Humphrey, Alvah Pierce, Henry Tower, John N. Wilder, and ex-governor William L. Marcy. The clergymen included Nathaniel Kendrick; Bartholomew T. Welch, well-known Albany pastor; Edward Bright, Jr., preacher and editor; William R. Williams, outstanding New York City minister, and Pharcellus Church, a member of the Class of 1824 and pastor of the First Baptist Church of Rochester.

The charter defined the purpose of Madison University as “promoting literature and science” but made no mention of training ministers. The character of the new Trustees was no doubt sufficient guarantee that this new function would not be neglected. Perhaps the omission of this point was used as a means of facilitating the passage of the act of incorporation. The charter authorized the Education Society to make whatever arrangements seemed proper for the transfer of all or part of its property to the University whose location was fixed at Hamilton. The right to grant degrees was stipulated, and the Trustees were empowered to appoint the faculty subject to removal by a majority vote of the total membership of the Board.

The Education Society Trustees believed incorporation would benefit the Institution in many ways without detracting from its efficiency as an agency for ministerial education. They saw the charter as a means of advancing its reputation, enlisting state aid, and increasing the number of tuition-paying students in the collegiate department. They rejoiced also that there now existed in the State a Baptist university which would provide “the education of our sons at college by teachers who hold the truth as we hold it.”

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p. 99 – Administrative problems and incorporation, 1833-1846

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tion;” no record remains, however, to show that it was awarded. Dr. Joseph Penny, a native Irishman who seems to have had some flair for landscaping and who had recently become President of Hamilton College, inspected the Institution in the summer of 1836, in company with Deacon Olmstead; whether he hoped to win the premium is not known. The natural beauty of the campus surpassed, the visitor believed, that of the majority of public institutions in the United States. He liked especially the grounds west of the buildings because of their varying smooth green slopes and shaded groves and dells. Cutting a few trees, he thought, would open fine vistas through to the buildings, and suggested new paths, the removal of fences which broke up the north surface of the Hill, and the planting of a few clumps of trees in that area. “The buildings,” he wrote, “though plain, are in good keeping with the objects for which they are designed; and this is the first requisite of good taste.” Covering them with a coat of pure lime and sand, followed from time to time by pure whitewash, he believed, would both provide protection and give an effective contrast to the green lawns.

Trustees and faculty approved Dr. Penny’s recommendations, and several of them Steward Edmunds put into effect. His labor supply was students who took their exercise with shovel or axe in hand. The young men were especially active in building paths and lining them with maples transplanted from the nearby woods; many are still standing. Most of the work was done under the direction of the Students Association and was usually without pay.

Until 1833 the buildings consisted of the present West Hall and the Cottage Edifice. The student body, meanwhile, had grown so large as to overcrowd them and applicants for admission had to be turned away. At its annual meeting in 1832 the Society voted to erect another dormitory. Since none of the bids was satisfactory, the Board accepted Deacon Burchard’s offer to purchase the materials, hire the workmen, and superintend construction, himself. Work was started in the summer of 1833, and by December the whole edifice was completed except for plastering and installing furnaces. Students contributed much of the labor. The total cost was approximately $6,000, nearly $2,000 less than the original estimate. Dr. Kendrick, reporting for the Board in 1834, wrote: “It is worthy of grateful acknowledgement, that the lives and limbs of the builders were providentially protected, and

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p. 94 – Administrative problems and incorporation, 1833-1846

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Chapter VI – ADMINISTRATIVE PROBLEMS AND INCORPORATION, 1833-1846

The Board of Trustees of the Education Society faced problems in the years from 1833 to 1846 which were no less serious or perplexing than those in the period from 1817 to 1833. Often, when no solutions were apparent, the members resorted to prayer, and after they rose from their knees with uplifted spirits, the answers came to them, they reported. To lighten the burden of the local Executive Committee, which had to grapple first with the problems, the Trustees met twice each year instead of only once, as had been their custom. In 1837 the Society enlarged the Board from ten to a maximum of thirty, seven constituting a quorum.

Deacon Jonathan Olmstead presided over the Board from 1831 to 1842. No member was more conscientious. His fervent piety and deep religious faith, plus a sagacious and practical business acumen, made him a leader among his associates. If he sometimes was unduly quick to take offense they bore with him because they understood his moods and appreciated his true character. His wise counsel and generous benefactions were exceeded by no one.

Following Deacon Olmstead’s death in 1842, Seneca B. Burchard, a resident of Hamilton since the early 1820’s and a leading member of the Baptist Church, succeeded him and served until 1846. Deacon Burchard was well qualified for the office since he had been on the Board almost continuously since 1822, a member of the Executive Committee since 1826, and Treasurer from 1826 to 1837. He was a man not easily discouraged and, once he undertook a project, he was sure to complete it. His fellow Trustees counted him a valuable member of the board. Alvah Pierce, also a deacon in the village church and the son of one of the first settlers, became Treasurer in 1837; he had the distinction of remaining in office for fifty years. Systematic and frugal, he watched

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p. 71 – The expanded program, 1833-1846

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country for his violent and dramatic sermons which swayed thousands. His lurid admonition to the unregenerate that sinners would have to plow the hottest regions of hell with a shingle and two bobtailed rats is still remembered in Hamilton. Following his graduation from the Institution in 1824, he had introduced his revival methods among Baptist churches with great success. In 1835 he returned to the village to locate his family while he went out to preach wherever his services were requested. The large amount of property he was acquiring in the work of “saving souls” as well as his spectacular technique excited considerable comment and criticism among Baptists and non-Baptists alike. When he asked the local church in 1843 to grant him a letter of commendation that his standing might be assured in the denomination, the storm broke. Fiery Professor Maginnis, motivated by disapproval of Knapp’s preaching methods and for personal reasons, led those who objected to granting the letter. Out of this issue developed involved investigations and bitter discussions of Knapp’s character and behavior which were protracted over six months. When finally the church by a vote of 32 to 16 gave Knapp their approbation, all the faculty save Professor Taylor were found in the minority.

While the uproar was subsiding, Dr. Kendrick wrote ambiguously to a friend that the faculty had objected neither to Knapp’s success as a revivalist nor to the methods he employed so long as his meetings were “properly conducted.” The professors had tried to do their duty when the case was before the church and now that it was over they would “leave the whole affair with things that are behind.”*Some of the Trustees of the Education Society had “considered the propriety & practibility of forming a church in the Seminary” and a few months after the Knapp case the Board recommended that the faculty take such a step. Accordingly, in September 1845, they and their families withdrew in a body from the village church to establish their own on the Hill. Professor Taylor whose stand in the Knapp case had not differed from that of his colleagues had avoided the embarrassment by resigning in the spring.

The professors and their families, Deacon Seneca B. Burchard, President of the Education Society Trustees, and his wife, both of whom had also left the village church, and one student, gathered on a snowy Sabbath in Professor Raymond’s classroom, and formally orga-

*Nathaniel Kendrick to James Edmunds, New York, N.Y., Mar. 7, 1845.

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p. 27 – Administration, setting, and staff, 1820-1833

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enclosed on three sides with a fence of oak posts and hemlock boards. Subsequently the Trustees bought about four and a half acres adjoining the yard “for cultivation by the students and for building lots.”

No plans or descriptions of the interior exist but it is certain that the building was used both for classrooms and as a dormitory. Accommodations at the time of opening were ample since they were designed for forty students and only about thirty were registered. Seniors had rooms on the third and second floors, the “middle class” on the second, and juniors” on the first. As a means of encouraging donations for outfitting student rooms the Executive Committee agreed that any individual or group providing furniture worth $50.00 might give a name to the room. Articles contributed included chairs, tables, cots, candlesticks, snuffers, pitchers, sheets, pillow-cases, blankets, towels, shovels, tongs, brooms, and “save-alls.” The congregation of the “South Baptist Meeting House,” New York City, asked that the room they furnished be named for their pastor, Charles G. Sommers, who had been the first young man aided by the New York Baptist Theological Seminary. They also requested that it be occupied by Norman Bentley and Seth Smalley, both of the Class of 1826.

Only two years after the completion of the “stone academy,” enrollment had jumped to fifty. At a special meeting of the Board in August, 1825, called to discuss the overcrowding, the Trustees agreed that another building was needed and directed the Executive Committee and the agents to take measures for its erection “without interfering with the funds of the Society.” Perhaps the Board had in its mind Deacon Colgate, Gerrit Smith, or Nicholas Brown, the wealthy Baptist merchant of Providence, Rhode Island, when they further resolved that any person making a donation equal to the cost of a new building might select a name for it. At the request of the Executive Committee, Daniel Hascall prepared and presented a plan for a four-story structure, 100 feet long and 60 feet wide, to be completed in two years ‘at a cost of $6,500. His plan was accepted.

There is no evidence to show where the proposed building was to be placed though there is reason to believe it was to have been located near the “stone academy.” However, the Trustees may have had a different idea, for at a special meeting in February, 1826, they appointed Jonathan Olmstead, Seneca B. Burchard, and Samuel Payne “to enquire into the propriety of purchasing a farm to be

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

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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.

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