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A minority of Chipman's readers thought that he had still not proved his case. They pointed out that in the documents and in a few extant letters, the promoters of the plan used rather loosely the terms college, seminary, and insti- tution; hence it was impossible to tell from the mere use of terms just what the founders intended. Fortunately the present writer has found a letter which proves beyond doubt that Chipman was right. On December 11, 1811, Caleb Blood wrote to William King the following letter:
The petition embraces a request for the charter of a college or uni- versity with such powers and privileges as in such cases are, by law, made and provided. We wish it to be named the Associate University. It is also our wish that the trustees may always be of the Baptist de- nomination; and that no person shall be appointed president of said seminary unless he be of the same sentiments.13
Before the legislature assembled in January, 1812, Daniel Merrill had agreed to present the petition to the House and William King promised to support it in the Senate. On December 23, 1811, Merrill wrote to King:
Your volunteering your services has prompted me to recommend to Elder Blood of Portland, to whom the care of the petition is committed until it shall come before your honorable body, that he ask you to sponsor the petition in the Senate and be our advocate in that body.14
The legislature referred the petition to a joint committee of which Senator King was chairman. The committee reported on January 25, 1812:
The committee of both houses, to whom was committed the petition of Daniel Merrill and others-has had the same under consideration, and report that the petitioners have leave to bring in a bill embracing the objects prayed for.15
The Senate Journal on the same day recorded:
Leave to bring in a bill on the petition of Daniel Merrill and others read and accepted. Sent down for concurrence. Came up concurred.16
6
HISTORY OF COLBY COLLEGE
A bill was at once introduced, the text of which the reader will find in Appendix B. It met with little opposition in the Senate where it had the in- fluential backing of William King, but it encountered difficulty in the House. Called up for a second reading on February 22, the bill met resounding defeat when by a vote of 224 to 60 it was voted to strike out the enacting clause, thus shelving the whole bill.17
Previous to the final action, the House had adopted two crippling amend- ments to the bill. The first provided that the legislature could at its pleasure grant any further powers, or could alter, limit, annul or restrain any of the powers granted by the present act. As we shall see, when we discuss William King's part in getting the new Maine charters for the college, in 1820 and 1821, that amendment had political as well as educational ramifications, but on Washington's birthday in 1812 it had the obvious effect of setting up an institution whose con- tinued existence would be at the whim of each successive legislature.
A second amendment provided that in the corporation there should never be a majority of members of the same religious denomination. Such a provision would entirely defeat the purpose of the petitioners, which was to have a college under Baptist control. When, in addition to the earlier amendment, this one was also passed, the sponsors gave up the battle, and the vote to strike out the enacting clause was easily foreseen.
What had happened? With such high hopes and with such substantial sup- port in the initial stages, why were the Baptist ministers who sought to found a college in Maine so soundly beaten? It is a story in which politics and religion both played conspicuous parts.
In the first place, the trustees of Bowdoin College were opposed to a second institution of collegiate rank in Maine. They had experienced considerable diffi- culty getting their own college under way after its incorporation in 1794, and neither in respect to enrollment nor in regard to financial support had it reached a secure footing when the Baptists presented their petition in 1812. Furthermore Bowdoin was a college of the "standing order," and its supporters could not view with equanimity such obvious competition from a dissenting sect. Finally, the majority of the Bowdoin trustees were Federalists, whereas the leading Baptists of Maine represented what, in 1812, was the prevailing party in Maine, the Jef- fersonian Democrats.
In fairness it should be emphasized that the outstanding motives for Bow- doin opposition to another college were neither political nor religious. That opposition was chiefly prompted by what the Bowdoin supporters felt to be sound common sense. The census of 1810 showed only 228,000 people in the entire district of Maine. In fact, ten years later, when Maine became a separate state, the population had not yet reached 300,000, and there was no community in the entire state that counted as many as 10,000 inhabitants. Portland had 7200 people and Falmouth 4100. The third largest town in Cumberland County was that in which Bowdoin College was located, Brunswick, with 2682 people. There was considerable validity in the Bowdoin argument that the population of Maine was too small and too widely scattered to support a second college.
The opposition was by no means restricted to those who wanted to protect the college at Brunswick. There were many men in the legislature who didn't like to see degree-granting institutions set up by dissenting religious denomina- tions.
Section Seven of the Baptists' bill declared the college should be empowered to confer such degrees as are usually conferred by universities established for
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THE BEGINNING
education of youth. So strong was the opposition toward granting such authority to the proposed college that this alone might have defeated the bill even if the crippling amendments already referred to had not been passed.
The struggle behind the scenes, revealed by a few extant letters of the time, shows clearly that the opposition did not extend to the point of refusing to recog- nize a new theological school. To permit the Baptists or any other sect to train their own clergy was considered their right, even in the minds of many of the staunchest supporters of the "standing order." But to allow such a sect to operate a bona fide college and confer academic degrees was quite another matter. As Chipman says, "Had they (Merrill and others) now submitted a bill for a strictly theological school, there is every reason to believe it would have been speedily passed."18
Merrill and his fellow Baptists were determined, however, to secure a col- lege charter. When the legislature reconvened in June, 1812, Merrill was him- self Sedgwick's representative in the House. He presented again the identical petition of the previous January, signed by himself on behalf of the Lincoln Association with its forty-eight associate churches, by Robert Low for the twenty churches of the Bowdoinham Association, and by Sylvanus Boardman, Thomas Green, and Caleb Blood for the Cumberland Association with its twenty-four churches. The Senate referred this June petition to a committee, which recom- mended that further consideration be postponed until the winter session of the legislature. On February 19, 1813, both houses voted to allow the petitioners to bring in a bill allowing Daniel Merrill and others to be incorporators of "a literary seminary in the District of Maine with the usual powers and privileges, and for a grant of land to enable them to carry into effect the object of their petition."19
Here we encounter a significant change in phrasing. The proposed institution is no longer referred to as a college, but as a "literary seminary." The full text of the presented bill, before important amendments essentially altered several provisions, will be found in Appendix C.
Section Seven of this new bill, like the same section in the bill of the pre- ceding year, empowered the institution to confer the degrees of Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts. A previous section (Section 3) set up an organization of fellows, as well as trustees: "that the trustees be hereby empowered to elect nine persons of education to be fellows of the said institution, and who shall be stiled the learned faculty, whose duty it shall be to determine the qualifications of all candidates for degrees, which shall be given only by their authority."
The legislature insisted upon striking out the section concerning degrees, and it denied the right to appoint fellows. It did not, however, restrict the institution solely to theological instruction. Literary studies were to be permitted. As Ed- ward W. Hall put it, "The name Literary and Theological Institution was at that time a favorite designation attached to many schools of a higher order in which collegiate and theological classes were united."20 The text of the finally adopted charter appears in Appendix D.
Whatever Daniel Merrill and his co-workers may have intended, it is clear that the Maine Literary and Theological Institution had to start without the im- portant collegiate authority to grant degrees, and was expected by the legislators to be only a training school for Baptist ministers, in which literary as well as theological studies would not be out of place.
CHAPTER II
Choosing A Site
HY did five years elapse before the Trustees of the Maine Literary and Theological Institution were able to implement their hard-won charter? Why did not instruction start within a year?
The chief reason for delay was that the nation was again at war. During the War of 1812, the District of Maine was hit hard. Already impoverished by the Embargo Act, Maine shipping was subject to constant attack and capture. For half a century its principal exports had been lumber and potash, the former going in large shiploads to the British West Indies, the latter to the wool factories of England. "Mr. Madison's War" suspended that trade, just as had the Revolu- tion, nearly fifty years earlier. Maine people simply did not have the money to start a new school.
Massachusetts' absorption in war activities also delayed the location of the land grant awarded in the charter: "that there be and hereby is granted a township of land, six miles square, to be laid out and assigned from any of the unappro- priated land belonging to this Commonwealth in the District of Maine, the same to be laid out under the direction of the Committee for the Sale of the Eastern Lands, within three years after the expiration of the present war with Great Britain." The final words of that grant show clearly that the legislature intended that nothing should be done until the war was over, and that even then the land committee and the Institution's Trustees should have three years to locate the grant.
The original incorporators of the Maine Literary and Theological Institu- tion were twenty-one men of the Baptist faith, all residing in the District of Maine. We have already referred to four of them: Daniel Merrill of Sedgwick, Caleb Blood of Portland, Sylvanus Boardman of North Yarmouth, and Benjamin Tit- comb of Brunswick. Of the remaining seventeen, ten were ministers: Thomas Green of Yarmouth, Robert Low of Readfield, Thomas Francis of Leeds, Ran- som Norton of Livermore, Daniel McMasters of Sullivan, Samuel Stinson of Wool- wich, John Haynes of Livermore, Samuel Baker of Thomaston, Joseph Bailey of Whitefield, and Phinehas Pillsbury of Nobleboro.
As numerous as were the clergy on the governing board of the school, lay- men played very prominent parts in the corporation. There were seven of them: General Alford Richardson, leading member of Portland's Federal Street Baptist Church, a man who proved more than once to be a thorn in the side of his pas- tor Caleb Blood and who was to get into public altercation with his fellow trustees over the Institution's finances; John Neal, leading citizen of Litchfield; Moses Den- nett, prominent merchant of the town of Bowdoin; John Hovey, well known
10
HISTORY OF COLBY COLLEGE
lumber operator of Mount Vernon; David Nelson of New Gloucester; Judge James Campbell, dynamic lay leader of the Baptist church at Cherryfield; and Hezekiah Prince of Thomaston, who twenty years earlier had made his famous horseback ride from Maine to Virginia and had since become a leading citizen of what is now Knox County.
These twenty-one men lost no time organizing for their formidable task. Through John Woodman, a justice of the peace at Buxton, they issued in Feb- ruary, a call for their first corporate meeting, "to be holden at Bowdoin in the County of Lincoln, at the dwelling house of Moses Dennett, Esq., on Tuesday, May 18, 1813, then and there to choose a moderator, clerk and treasurer, and such other officers, agents and committees as may be necessary to manage the prudential concerns of the said Institution, and to transact such other matters and things as the said trustees may judge necessary."1
So it came about that a private house in the town of Bowdoin was the site of the first meeting of the corporation that is now the President and Trustees of Colby College. The meeting elected Benjamin Titcomb as moderator and John Haynes as clerk, then proceeded to choose more permanent officers: Ebenezer Delano as Treasurer, Sylvanus Boardman as Secretary, and Daniel Merrill, John Neal and Hezekiah Prince as a standing committee.
The meeting concerned itself chiefly with the prospective township of land. John Neal was appointed to represent the Board to "run out a township of land in conformity to the act of the Court granting the same." Even before a site should be chosen, the Trustees made plans for its surveying and lottage. There is no question that they intended to build the college on the granted land, for at that first meeting in May, 1813, they voted that "no person shall have liberty to purchase more than two hundred acres within one mile and a half of the Institu- tion." Besides the lots that were to be reserved for the Institution's buildings, the Trustees decided that "there shall be four lots of one hundred acres each, within two miles of the Institution, reserved for the perpetual use of the Institu- tion for fuel."
The charter had empowered the incorporators to create a Board of Trustees never greater than thirty-one and never less than twenty-one in number. So, at their first meeting, the Board elected John Tripp, Cyrus Hamlin, Andrew Fuller, and Benjamin Eames as additional members. They also passed a vote that later caused them much difficulty: "Voted that no person shall ever be a member of this board who does not possess a fair moral and religious character, and is a member of the regular baptized church and in regular standing."2
The Board's second meeting, held in Mount Vernon on September 23, 1813, saw the election as a Trustee of the most prominent man who was to have a part in the early history of the College, General William King of Bath. Elected with him was Benjamin Shepard. King was elected a member of the Standing Com- mittee.
When the Trustees attempted to hold their third meeting, at Bowdoin on January 11, 1815, the day was so stormy that a quorum could not be mustered, and the group decided to adjourn until the fourth Wednesday in the following September. But in the spring, four months before the September date, some- thing happened to cause a special meeting to be called. John Neal and the Committee on the Eastern Lands had come to an agreement, and to the Maine Literary and Theological Institution was assigned Township No. 3, on the west side of the Penobscot River, in what later became the organized towns of Argyle and Alton. (See Appendix E) Immediately the Trustees were summoned into
11
CHOOSING A SITE
session on May 16, 1815, for the purpose of "devising means for lotting the township of land." At this meeting it was voted to have a committee "proceed to the township, with a view to ascertaining its quality and situation, and the expediency of erecting buildings thereon." The committee was instructed to re- port the place on the township most eligible for erecting the buildings, the mode in which the township should be lotted out, and how the roads should be laid out.
The time had now come to get the Institution started. So the same com- mittee was instructed "to obtain such pecuniary aid by subscription from the people near Township No. 3 or elsewhere as can with conveniency be obtained." The Trustees also wanted the committee to ascertain the going price of land to settlers in that part of Maine, and to act as the Board's legal agents in contract- ing sales with prospective settlers.
When the Trustees next met, on September 27, 1815, the committee made a discouraging report. They said that the situation of the township did not at all meet their expectation, because it had a large bog and other disadvantages which rendered it not an eligible site for the Institution. The committee's report says nothing about the remoteness of the location, although that in itself seemed sufficient to cause the Trustees to seek a better site. When Professor C. E. Ham- lin, collecting subscriptions for the College, visited the region in 1864, he reported that inhabitants were often kept awake on winter nights by the howling of wolves, though all doors and windows were closed.
The Trustees put up no argument with their committee. In a forthright fashion that was to characterize their many difficult decisions, they acted at once. "Voted, that a committee of seven be chosen to inquire whether it will be in the Institution's interest that it shall be removed from the township granted by the legislature, and if so, to inquire what town would be the most eligible."
It was pointed out that, while the charter did not expressly locate the Insti- tution on the land grant, the plan presented to the Committee on Lands had clearly done so, and legal difficulties might ensue if express permission to locate elsewhere were not obtained from the legislature. In response to the Trustees' request, the Massachusetts legislature therefore voted to empower the Trustees of the Maine Literary and Theological Institution to locate and establish their buildings in any town within the counties of Kennebec and Somerset. (Appen- dix F)
From the time when the first petition had been presented in Boston, the founders had enjoyed the interest and support of William King. Though already a Trustee of Bowdoin, and generously interested in its welfare, he did not relish seeing it so strongly under Federalist control. He felt the college should be more susceptible to Democratic influences. But he respected the Bowdoin lead- ers, though he differed with them in politics, and he had no intention of neglecting the Brunswick college when he agreed to support the Baptist cause. He was glad to be a trustee of both institutions. Then in 1815 occurred an event which, for several years, embittered King toward Bowdoin and caused him to be the suc- cessful advocate of a Maine law to restrict the powers of all private educational institutions within the state. These aroused feelings of General King increased his interest in the new Baptist Institution.
General King's brother-in-law, Benjamin J. Porter, was treasurer of Bowdoin College. Early in 1815, Porter's personal finances became seriously involved. There was never the slightest suggestion that his trouble involved college funds, but understandingly the Trustees became increasingly anxious as Porter's diffi-
12
HISTORY OF COLBY COLLEGE
culties became public. Porter's surety for the Bowdoin funds was his wife's brother, William King.
On January 8, 1815, Porter wrote to King:
I have not heard a word on the subject of my affairs with the College since I wrote you. Will you have the goodness to inform me on what this business rests. I have written to Judge Ames to be my attorney in that action. Will you have the goodness to talk with Mr. Ames.3
What next happened is told in Nehemiah Cleaveland's History of Bowdoin College:
The private affairs of Dr. Porter were found to be hopelessly involved. As the college funds were believed to be in danger, Benjamin Orr, agent and counsel for the trustees, went to Bath, and spread an at- tachment over the entire property of William King, who was largely engaged in commerce, and this legal drag-net stopped everything, even his vessels ready for sea. He got rid of the impediment by securing the college; but his indignation against the immediate actors, in what he called a needless and malicious action, was vast and loud.4
On September 1, 1815, Porter again wrote to King:
Jacob Abbott and Samuel Davis called on me yesterday and said they were appointed a committee to settle and close the accounts of my late treasurership, and for that purpose had been making an intense audit, preparatory to settlement. They insisted upon a charge of in- terest in the Dix balance amounting to more than $2000. I observed that it was proper for me to retain at least $3000 of the balance as cash on hand at all times, to which they disagreed. I told them I was in the hands of the college and my bondsman. I requested Mr. Davis to show you their statement, as he refused to leave it with me. I pre- sume they cannot recover interest. I shall leave the ultimate decision to you and on your opinion I shall implicitly be guided.5
On November 18, 1815, Benjamin Orr, the college trustee and counsel who had aroused King's wrath, wrote a cold, lawyer's letter to King, telling him in effect to pay up and call it a day.
The Secretary of the Board of Overseers of Bowdoin College has put into my hand the enclosed note, and the papers containing the subject matter to which it refers. If the sum found due by the investigating committee be agreed to, please inform me in what manner you will render it avail- able to the college; if not, any mistake you may discover in this report, when made known to me, shall be rectified. But, in case no mistake can be found, it is due to the integrity of the committee that I should be governed by their report in discharging the trust reposed in me.6
Of the whole episode Cleaveland says:
Politically, Orr and King were unrelenting foes, both strong and dar- ing leaders. I can believe that Mr. Orr was thinking mainly of the college, and that he took what he regarded as the only certain course
13
CHOOSING A SITE
to save it from ruin. But Mr. King could not believe this. He be- came openly hostile to the college, which he looked upon as a Federalist institution, and especially to President Appleton and John Abbott, whom he wrongly regarded as Mr. Orr's prime instigators and abettors. Gen- eral King resolved that he would be avenged and bided his time.7
A later Bowdoin historian, Louis C. Hatch, has this comment upon the affair:
In 1815, Porter failed in business disastrously. A Bowdoin trustee, Benjamin Orr of Topsham, acting as counsel for the board, hurried to Bath and attached all King's property, even vessels about to sail. King quickly freed them by giving security to the college, but he felt he had been grossly insulted. Orr was a hard fighter and a violent Federalist, and King believed the Thomaston man had acted from political mo- tives. King, who was an unforgiving man, determined on revenge.8
Happily it can be recorded that a reconciliation later occurred, and William King continued as a valued Trustee of Bowdoin College for nearly thirty years. But in the heat of that episode in 1815, the vigorous Bath Democrat was eager to turn his attention and his services to the new Institution that as yet had no place to lay. its head.
Even before the Trustees of the Maine Literary and Theological Institution had received permission to locate their school elsewhere than on the Argyle grant, they had received overtures from the Trustees of Farmington Academy. In the records of the Institution's meeting of September 27, 1815, is found this minute: "The agent from the Trustees of Farmington Academy presented the copy of a vote of his trustees proposing a union of the two institutions, provided the union can be effected upon principles mutually beneficial. Voted, that this matter be referred to a committee of this board, for mature consideration, to report their opinion at the next meeting."
Meanwhile various trustees had been approached by two other towns, Bloom- field and Waterville. Meeting in special session on September 25, the Board voted to choose a committee "to visit the towns which have used their efforts and given encouragement to have the Institution located there; namely, Farmington, Bloomfield and Waterville, examine the situation and encouragements exhibited and report at the next meeting." A member of that committee was William King, to whom Secretary Boardman wrote on October 3: "I have only time to notify you of your appointment as a member of the committee to visit in behalf of the Board the places where exertions have been made to get the Institution placed, and that the third Monday is appointed to meet at Waterville where your at- tendance is requested."9
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