Tag Archives: William R. Williams

p. 124 – The removal controversy, 1847-1850

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that Dr. Kendrick himself had suggested they pay the fee and attend the meeting to counteract the Rochester influence.

The first important item of business was a proposed Removalist amendment to the Society’s Constitution providing that Trustees should be of three classes, the first to serve three years, the second two, and the third, one, instead of having the whole Board elected annual­ly. When the amendment had been passed and a list of nominees presented, Removalist strategy was disclosed in that the majority of those chosen for the two-and three-year terms were friends of Rochester. This move roused the ire of the Anti-Removalists and turned the meeting into a scene of wild confusion which even a “season of prayer” by the venerable Fathers Alfred Bennett and John Peck failed to quiet. The arbitrary ruling in election procedure by Elisha Tucker, the moderator, and his refusal to accept the votes of the new “members” intensified the discord. After electing their slate the Removalists then voted to withdraw the names of the new “members” and to return their money. Pandemonium again broke loose with applause from Rochester supporters and hisses from Hamilton friends.

When the resolution to release the University from its contract with the Education Society, which the Society’s Board had passed that morning to invalidate the First Compact, came up for ratification, William R. Williams was its leading advocate. In his speech he took occasion to make several harsh remarks about the local citizens, to which James W. Nye, a local attorney, replied. After protracted discussion the Removalists carried the resolution by a vote of 54 to 19. On the warm dry evening after this boisterous session some of the village boys, with parental permission, sprinkled the dusty streets with the fire engine. In sport, it was alleged, they played the hose on several dwellings. Zenas Morse, a Removalist University Trustee, former classics instructor on the faculty, and then principal of the Hamilton Academy, lived across from the Baptist Church. On reaching his house the boys, exclaiming, “we go for removal by water,” flooded this unpopular citizen’s hallway. The prank perhaps lost some friends for Hamilton but the local interests excused it as an expression of youthful spirit.

The Society, reconvening in the University Chapel at eight o’clock the next morning, Thursday, August 16th took up the Board’s second resolution which definitely recommended removal. The Hamilton peo-

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Trustees vote to remove Madison University to Rochester (p. 122)

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to Rochester provided that the Education Society concurred. The deliberations, in which the eloquent and excitable William R. Williams was the chief speaker, dragged on until two o’clock the next morning when an informal ballot was taken. Twelve voted for Barton’s resolution, six against, and one, Deacon Burchard, the Chairman, abstained. Those in opposition were William Colgate, Palmer Townsend, William Cobb, Hervey Edwards, Henry Tower, and George Curtis.

A majority vote of at least 15 trustees was required by the Act of April 3, 1848, and since an impasse had been reached, Deacon Burchard appointed Messrs. Colgate, Edwards, Wilder, and Williams a committee to devise “some means of harmonizing the views of the members.” In the half-hour recess that ensued the Removalists appear to have told Deacon Colgate and those who sided with him that patrons of the University in Western New York and most Baptists in the State would cease supporting it unless the location were changed, leaving the Deacon himself to sustain the institution or see it go to ruin. When the members reassembled Deacon Colgate announced that he, Townsend, and Tower would change their votes “in deference to the judgement of their brethren on the Board, and to the wish of the denomination as it has been expressed in the discussions of the evening.” Curtis and Edwards subsequently declared that they, too, would vote in the affirmative. After prayer by Deacon Colgate and further discl.1ssion, which lasted till four in the morning, the eighteen Trustees, Deacon Cobb having left, unanimously adopted the following resolutions:

 

Resolved (the Board of the N. York State Bapt. Education Society concurring that it is expedient to remove Madison University to the city of Rochester; the said removal to be conditioned, however, that legal difficulties interposed be found insufficient; and that Messrs. Seneca B. Burchard, Ira Harris, and Robert Kelly, be a Committee of this Board to examine such difficulties and hear arguments-upon their favorable report such removal to be unconditional. Resolved, that it is the intention of the Board, in the removal, to preserve the institution irrevocably under the control of the Baptist denomination. Resolved, that whenever such satisfactory report shall have been received, the officers of the Board be authorized to file, according to the provisions of the Statute, the following resolution in the office of the Secretary of State: ‘Resolved, that the Madison University do hereby elect, pursuant to authority given them, to remove to the city of Rochester.’

 

 

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p. 108 – The removal controversy, 1847-1850

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Prof. John S. Maginnis, p108

Maginnis. Seven Trustees nominated Dr. William R. Williams of New York City to succeed Maginnis, and two abstained. In effect, this was an attempt to dismiss him. In taking this action it is possible that some of the Trustees felt that by dismissing the fiery Maginnis they might restore the harmony which had existed between the church and the University prior to the Knapp case in 1845. To cope with the extraor­dinary situation special meetings of the two boards were called for the first of September. Elisha Tucker, a member of both, expressed the reaction of several of his associates when he wrote in “astonishment to Dr. Kendrick:

 

Such a rejection of Bra Maginnis if persisted in, will dispose of friends that the institution cannot spare. Is it in the estimation of some of the board so trifling a matter to shut the door in the face of a pro­fessor that no intimation is necessary to the members of that board generally that important business is to be transacted [?]…before being rejected he has a right to know & the members of the board have a right to expect that they” will have some intimation, that the question will come up.*

 
The meetings, which lasted two days, were stormy. Dr. Williams, a University Trustee who supported Maginnis, was especially indignant and loosed his wrath on the Education Society Trustees. Before the Boards adjourned, however, they jointly adopted resolutions “expressing their undiminished confidence in the ability & competence & diligence of Prof. Maginnis, and their solicitude to retain for this Institution the benefit of his experience, influence, and high endow-

*Eisha Tucker, New York, N.Y. to Nathaniel Kendrick, Aug. 24, 1847.

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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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Posted in Administrative Problems and Incorporation, 1833-1846, Chapter 6, p. 104

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