The history of Colby College, Part 25

Author: Colby College
Publication date: 1963
Publisher: Waterville, Colby College Press
Number of Pages: 716

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Moses Lyford, born in Mount Vernon, Maine, in 1816, was a classmate of John B. Foster's at Waterville College in 1843, but unlike Foster he had prepared at Kents Hill, which would for more than a century be a keen rival of Waterville Academy and its successor, Coburn Classical Institute. After gradua-

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tion from college, Lyford taught for three years at Kennebunk, Maine, then for four years at Townsend Academy in Vermont. He then became principal of the Boys' High School in Portland, where his successor was James Hobbs Han- son of the Class of 1842, who later became known as the great administrator of Coburn. At Portland, one of Lyford's pupils was Thomas B. Reed.

In 1856 Lyford was called to his alma mater as Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy. In 1872, when a separate Department of Mathematics was established, he became Professor of Natural History and Astronomy, re- maining in that position until 1884. He then became a member of the Board of Trustees, from which declining health compelled his resignation in 1887. He died on August 4, 1889. Of the seventy-one years of his life, thirty-five had been spent as student, professor and trustee of his beloved college.

Comment has been made about the excellent handwriting of Professor Hall. Moses Lyford's hand was just as even, precise, and legible. Preserved is a letter which he wrote on July 29, 1856, in reply to the invitation that he join the college faculty. That letter reveals an understandable caution in regard to the finances of his alma mater.

In reply to your note of the 4th inst., I take this my earliest oppor- tunity to say to you and through you to the Trustees of the College, that, after mature deliberation with regard to accepting or declining the appointment with which I have been honored, I have come to this conclusion:

Taking it for granted that the proposed endowment will be secured and the 'Plan of Improvements' recommended by the Faculty will be car- ried out, I am willing to identify my interests with those of the College, and devote whatever energy or ability I may have to the advancement of those interests, provided I can rely upon a comfortable support in return for such services. It is felt by the present faculty and is ad- mitted by all who are familiar with the facts that the present salaries of the professors are quite too small and ought to be immediately in- creased by at least two hundred dollars. I may be permitted to state further that, even after such increase shall have been made, such is my position here that, to exchange it for the one at Waterville, will involve a large pecuniary sacrifice annually. This sacrifice, however, I am ready to make, but whatever I do beyond this must rely on the success of the proposed endowment.

Allow me, then, to propose as a condition upon which I am willing to accept the appointment, that the Trustees, in anticipation of the en- dowment, fix the salary at one thousand dollars, it being understood that I am ready to subscribe toward the endowment fund a sum equal to the amount of the proposed increase, for two years. If this proposi- tion shall meet the views of the Trustees, I shall be ready to enter at once upon the discharge of the duties of the office. Should the result be otherwise, I trust my interest in the prosperity of the College will not be lessened, but will seek some other mode of development no less serviceable to the institution but less objectionable to its friends.

At their annual meeting in 1856 the Trustees accepted the Lyford proposal and voted that "the salaries of the professors be henceforth one thousand dollars per annum with the condition that each contribute two hundred dollars annually for two years to the subscription now being solicited."

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The chair of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy was second only to those of Sacred Theology and of Languages at Waterville College. It had been es- tablished in 1827 when Thomas J. Conant had been brought in by Chaplin to take charge of Latin and Greek, necessitating a change of appointment for Avery Briggs, who was then made Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy. The man who did so much to keep the College going during its early years of struggle, George Keely, was Briggs' successor in the professorship, which he held from 1829 to 1852. Then for four years such work as was done in mathematics and physical science was distributed among the other professors and tutors until, in 1856, Moses Lyford was called to the position.

Lyford was truly devoted to the newly developed science of physics, though it would be many years before work in that subject at Colby would be known by any other name than natural philosophy. He joined ranks with Hamlin in pressing for appropriations and contributions to provide scientific apparatus. In the gradual building of laboratory supplies and in the organization of courses, Ly- ford effectively paved the way for the great scientist, William A. Rogers, for whose internationally known research Col. Richard C. Shannon would erect the Shannon Physics Building.

When Moses Lyford joined the faculty another scientist, Charles E. Hamlin, had already been a member for three years. Of all faculty members in the Cham- plin administration, Hamlin has left the most permanent impression because there is so much preserved, both of his own writings, and of what was written either to or about him. He was the one man on the Champlin faculty to become well-known on both sides of the Atlantic. He alone of the men who composed that teaching force can be called a true research scholar in the modern sense of the term.

Charles Edward Hamlin was born in Augusta, Maine, on February 4, 1825, the oldest of five children, all boys. He prepared for college at the old Augusta High School under William Woodbury, a Colby graduate of the Class of 1841. Hamlin entered Waterville College originally as a member of the Class of 1845, but was forced to withdraw in July, 1843, because of ill health. He stayed out of college for nearly two years, but in May, 1845, felt able to resume his studies, and graduated with distinction in 1847.

After teaching at Brandon, Vermont, and at Bath, Maine, Hamlin came to Waterville College as Professor of Chemistry and Natural History in 1853. His predecessor and first holder of the chair had been Justin R. Loomis. Those two were Colby's only teachers of chemistry for thirty-four years. Chemistry has in- deed been a long-lived professorship at the College. In the one hundred and nine years between 1838 and 1947, only four men headed the Department; Justin R. Loomis for fourteen years, from 1838 to 1852; Charles E. Hamlin twenty years, from 1853 to 1873; William Elder thirty years, from 1873 to 1903; and George F. Parmenter, forty-four years, from 1903 to 1947.

We must not think of Hamlin as a chemist, however. In his day very few men specialized in that science, to say nothing of its modern sub-specialties of organic, inorganic, physical, etc. Hamlin had wide interests and considerable knowledge in various fields of science. Already in his time there had come to be some distinction between the natural philosophers and the natural historians. The former were interested in the physical phenomena which developed into the science of physics; the latter often turned their attention from living objects to the substances of gases, fluids and solids, and to their composition and relation- ships. Those who thus turned away entirely from plants and animals to "ele-

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ments" became the chemists. Those who confined their attention to living things became biologists, and even earlier the study of plants (botany) had been divided from the study of animals (zoology). There were those who were concerned with the earth itself, not the life upon it. They were the geologists.

At Colby Hamlin taught chemistry, botany, zoology, geology, paleontology, and mineralogy. Like most other members of the faculty, he was not permitted to confine his teaching to his field of science, but often had to take classes in Latin, Greek, mathematics, or rhetoric. Not until the very last years of his Colby teaching were his classes restricted to science.

Hamlin was a powerful and inspiring teacher. Although exacting in his de- mands, he was friendly and sympathetic with struggling students. But he would not tolerate slovenly work. Approximation was not enough; almost would not do. The result of any student's work must be thorough and exact. He carried this quality into all phases of his personal life. He was precise in his dress, in his speech, in his manners. His diaries and account books, and his meticulously kept records as secretary of the faculty, had an enviable neatness and exactness. His laboratory demonstrations were prepared by hours of painstaking work in advance of the class meetings.

All who knew him testified to the man's modesty and shyness. He was not anti-social. He did not fail to make strong and abiding friends. But he had a certain aloofness quite different from the extrovert qualities of "Johnny" Foster and "Eddie" Hall. It must have caused him mental agony to become a door-to- door beggar for college subscriptions, as he did many times between 1860 and 1870. Dr. Francis Bakeman said of Hamlin,

Extreme diffidence restrained him from all self-assertion, from child- hood to the very last. In a conversation with a former pupil as late as 1881, he referred to his own bashfulness and the repressing influence it had exerted over all his life. He had a morbid shrinking from posi- tions of responsibility. Twice he refused the presidency of the College, insisting that the office was quite inconsistent with his temperament and tastes.2

Hamlin's unconventional teaching methods soon gained him the opprobrium of his colleagues. Even Lyford, though cooperating with him in the quest for apparatus, thought Hamlin was odd. As for those teachers who were still har- nessed to the team of memoriter recitations, Hamlin's trips into fields and woods with his students were nonsense. The man found himself increasingly at issue with other members of the faculty. As early as 1864 he had begun to inquire about positions in other colleges, but Gardner Colby's gift and a personal con- versation he had with that Boston merchant led Hamlin to reject all offers to go elsewhere at that time. He explained that situation in a letter that he wrote four years later to his close friend, the Waterville Baptist pastor, George D. B. Pepper: "My courage did not fail in the dark days before Mr. Colby came so nobly to the rescue. Then I expected to see every man here leap into life. But since the failure of my last resort seems inevitable I must confess that I despair."

When Hamlin wrote those words in 1868, he meant by "my last resort" his attempt to secure a science building. Dr. Potter of Cincinnati, from whom Hamlin had confidently expected the donation of a building, had recently died and had made no provision in his will for Colby University. Hamlin said to Pepper:

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With all the needs of the College for the completion of the Memorial Hall, renovating the dormitories and remodeling the chapel, it seems almost unreasonable to expect the well-plucked public to do anything for my department in my day. My chemical apparatus is meager, and for natural history I have not even an apology for a microscope. The college library furnishes so little for the natural sciences that I am spend- ing a hundred dollars a year from my small means for books and scien- tific periodicals to help me keep up with the times. My laboratory is a dog-hole, and there is no prospect of a better. Taking into account these facts, together with the failure to introduce the desired changes, I feel my way here is hedged up before me.

If Hamlin felt such frustration, why did he not accept the flattering offer from the Maine Agricultural and Mechanical College in 1868? They offered him a salary of $2000 and free rent of a house. They also agreed to build a chemistry building according to plans which he had himself submitted at their request, modeled after a new laboratory at Brown. Hamlin was deterred from acceptance because the Colby trustees did appreciate the man's value and promised him faithfully that he should have the cherished building. At their exultant annual meeting in 1870, they voted definitely to build, and in 1872 Hamlin saw in Coburn Hall the fulfillment of his dreams.

Having decided to stay in 1869, why did Hamlin leave in 1873, only a year after he had moved into the new building? By temperament and ability Hamlin preferred scientific research to teaching. The authority on Charles Hamlin's life is Clayton Smith, Colby 1931, a collateral descendant of Hamlin. Although Mr. Smith is cautious about coming to a definite conclusion about Hamlin's departure from Colby, his mere recital of the facts, in a letter to this historian in April, 1958, at least give some pertinent clues.

The professor had become interested in conchology via the route of paleontology. First, interest in geology led to a study of fossils, then to fossil shells. Conchology therefore was a necessary base for the understanding of the fossils. Louis Agassiz knew him and was well ac- quainted with his work. On one occasion the great Agassiz had visited Hamlin in Waterville, and had suggested projects that Hamlin could carry out in Maine, such as the study of the hibernating habits of cer- tain species of frogs and the collection of the birds of Central Maine.

Hamlin was the only member of the faculty, up to that time, who was ever known to spend long winter vacations in study at another institution. Too often he had to devote those vacations to collecting money for the College, but when that duty was not demanded he spent the winter with Agassiz at Harvard. In 1873 the persistent efforts of Agassiz resulted in the raising of a Harvard fund of $150,000 for his department's expansion, both in physical equipment and in personnel. He was thus able to reorganize his Museum of Comparative Zoology and Paleontology, and one step in that reorganization was to invite to his staff Charles E. Hamlin of Colby University.

Agassiz asked Hamlin to come to Cambridge as a conchologist, to work on the already large and constantly expanding collection of fossil shells. This was quite different from moving to another teaching position at Orono. It was exactly the kind of position Hamlin had always wanted-freedom for research, release from the frustrations of teaching and the annoyance of discipline. In spite of his new building at Colby, Hamlin accepted Agassiz' offer.

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In 1884 Hamlin completed his memorable work on the Harvard collection of fossil shells. He had previously done for Agassiz his superb collection of the birds of Central Maine. He had been a founding member of the Appalachian Club and was a recognized authority on the geology and vegetation of Mount Katahdin. He died at his home in Cambridge on January 3, 1886.

The wide range of Charles Hamlin's scientific interests is revealed by a journal which he kept during the 1860's. His curiosity was intense, and his de- termination to satisfy that curiosity was relentless. A few excerpts from the journal tell us much about the man.

July 18, 1863-Salamander (spelerpes bibienata) found in Gilman woods, Waterville, under stone in brook. Several others seen, but having no net, I took but one.

July 9, 1864-While gunning east of Emerson Stream, found a fetid currant in fruit, which was ripe and hairy. Tasting it, I said, "You taste like a skunk." On returning home and consulting a book, I was amused to learn that one of its names was Skunk Currant.

June 29, 1865-Found in a field north of the railroad bridge west of Emerson Street a single specimen of Moth Mullein, seen and smelled for the first time. After evening prayers, Professor Foster called me into his front yard to see two specimens that were growing there among cultivated flowers.

An entry on July 30, 1864, reveals something of Hamlin's method of work.

Taking advantage of the unprecedented low stage of Emerson Stream, I spent many mornings exploring its bed and banks for shells and flowers. Took the morning as my only spare time, the half term of recitations in Botany having closed on July 2nd. The other spare time of the term, especially Wednesday afternoon and Saturdays, was busily em- ployed in collecting flowers and looking for birds' nests.

During the winter vacation of 1864-65 Hamlin traveled through eastern Maine soliciting funds for the College. Let us note what his journal says about experiences on that journey.

January 17-Took train from Waterville to Bangor, and after dinner was driven by C. E. Harden in his father's team to Mariaville, 21 miles, through Brewer, Eddington, Clifton and Otis. Young Harden says deer are so plenty in the forest here that it is very common to see them. He has known his brother to shoot three in one day. When he was at home, before entering college in 1860, a deer could always be had for fresh meat. Wolves have of late been driven away, but even yet they sometimes howl so loud and so near that they can be heard dis- tinctly at night in his father's house, where I stopped, even with all doors and windows closed.

January 25-Mr. Durfee took me to Ellsworth from East Trenton, over a trackless road. We were two hours making the six miles through the snow.

January 28-Spent the evening with a smart old gentleman who was in the coach as I got aboard at Harrington. I found him to be a Catholic

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priest who had been a professor at a college in Maryland. He had been all over the states and provinces and had visited Europe. He was now about to go to Colorado on a mission. We had much pleasant talk. He was the first priest I had ever met who was free from a stiff and bigoted air.

January 30- In the stage to Franklin was a dangerous mad man, whom a stout friend was taking to the asylum at Augusta.

It is the journal that assures us that, when Hamlin was approached by the authorities at Orono, it was not merely a professorship, but the presidency, that they had in mind.

March 12, 1868-Rev. S. F. Dike of Bath, a trustee of the Maine Col- lege of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, stopped at my house over night and communicated to me the invitation of his board to take the professor- ship of Chemistry in the new college, with a view to my final election to the presidency. I declined the latter part of the invitation, but agreed to consider the professorship.

Probably no one but Hamlin would have thought of the erection of Memorial Hall as an opportunity for zoological research.

July 3, 1868-After examining the freshmen in Botany, I went to the top of Memorial Hall, on which the topmost tier of granite was just being laid. Feeling something crawling on the inner side of my thigh, I went into the locomotive house and pulled out a specimen of Attacus Polyphemus, seeking a place to deposit her load of eggs. Took it home, identified and measured it. Spread 5.25 inches. A workman on Memorial Hall found another and kept it for me. This I prepared and pinned, the other having been too badly crushed.

Hamlin's scientific curiosity sometimes led him into gruesome areas. In the 1850's the town of Waterville had decided to abandon the old cemetery that lay just south of the Baptist Church. Before the Civil War some of the bodies had already been removed to the new Pine Grove Cemetery, but many still remained. Through the northern edge of the cemetery the town had built a new street, first called Church Street and later Park Street, joining the old north-south arteries, Elm and Pleasant streets. After the Civil War it was decided to turn the old cemetery area into a park and erect on it a soldiers' monument. That action necessitated the removal of the remaining bodies, and was the occasion for an entry in Hamlin's journal.

October 5, 1868-Last two weeks some seventy bodies have been re- moved from the old cemetery, now being cleared and converted into a park. I learned some interesting facts from seeing some eight or ten graves opened. Decay of bones, even in our light soil, is slower than I supposed. Of a boy of nine years, drowned in 1806, all the larger and many of the smaller bones remained entire. A white flannel blanket wrapped about an old man buried in 1837 was whole in places and was lifted out in ribbon-like strips, but all vestiges of cotton clothing buried much later had entirely disappeared.

An action which makes Charles Hamlin stand out from all other faculty members of his time was his adoption of a colored baby, Lulu Osborne, daughter

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of the man who for many years was the beloved "Sam", janitor of Colby Col- lege. When Sam had first come to Waterville with Col. Fletcher, he had brought with him two of his daughters, but had been obliged to leave behind his wife and a new-born baby girl. A year later he was able to bring that baby, little Lulu, to Waterville, but it was some time later before his wife and other children could join him and the whole family be united. Both Sam and his wife had, of course, been slaves before the Civil War liberated them. In spite of the kind- ness of Waterville citizens, especially members of the Baptist Church, Sam Os- borne found it difficult to care for three little girls. Col. Fletcher took Amelia into his own household, Flora stayed with her father, and Lulu became the legally adopted daughter of Professor Charles Hamlin on November 4, 1865, when she was about a year and a half old.

To take a Negro girl into one's home and train her to be a servant, a nurse- maid for a white child, as Col. Fletcher did with Amelia, was quite acceptable. But to make a Negro child one's own legal daughter was something else. That just wasn't done even in the families of ardent abolitionists. But Charles Hamlin was a man who believed strongly that practice should always keep abreast of prin- ciple. Others could mouth sympathetic platitudes; others could donate a few dollars to relieve Negro families; others could preach unctuously the equality of white and black; but Charles Hamlin believed in action. If one subscribed to the equality of races, then let one show it. He made Lulu Osborne his own legal daughter.

The feeling against the Hamlins for this action was bad enough in Water- ville; when they moved to Cambridge it was much worse. Separated then from the protection of the Waterville Baptist Church and from the kindly support of Col. Fletcher, they found themselves in virtual ostracism because of the Negro child. Clayton Smith is convinced that this is the reason why so many writings about the Harvard museum and the men associated with it make no mention of Hamlin. Even Mrs. Agassiz, who wrote an excellent biography of her husband, makes not a single reference to Hamlin in her two-volume work.

Charles Hamlin was precise, meticulous, painstaking, and honest not only as a scientist, but in all relations with his fellow men. Though reserved to the point of aloofness, he was warm and friendly once the outer reserve had been penetrated. He was a rigid disciplinarian and had no tolerance for the shoddy and slovenly. He held high moral standards and would lay aside his shyness and fight openly for justice and fair play. And above all, he was one who knew and behaved on the principle that actions speak louder than words.

It is well that the human qualities of Charles Edward Hamlin should be remembered. But that for which he deserves distinction in any history of Colby College is that he was the first member of its faculty truly to deserve the name of scientific scholar.

Altogether they made an impressive quintette: Edward Hall, the linguist and bibliophile; Samuel K. Smith, the rhetorician who never smiled; John B. Foster, the Christian gentleman to whom the classics were as contemporary as the newest novel; Moses Lyford, for whom mathematics and physics were not only relatives, but Siamese twins; and Charles E. Hamlin, who was not content until he could learn all there was to know about a flower in the crannied wall.

CHAPTER XX

Standards, Academic And Religious

I was nearly a year after President Champlin's resignation before the Trustees could decide upon his successor. Meanwhile Champlin agreed to con- tinue in office until after the commencement exercises of 1873. At a special meeting of the Board in Portland on July 2, 1873, Dr. Shailer, chairman of the selection committee, presented the name of Rev. Henry E. Robins, D. D., of Rochester, New York, as the committee's unanimous choice. Dr. Robins was elected, at the hitherto unprecedented salary of $2500 and house, and the Trus- tees also agreed to pay his moving expenses from Rochester to Waterville, to the amount of $500.

In turning to the pastor of Rochester's First Baptist Church as the new president of Colby University, the Trustees had made an excellent choice. Al- ready known as one of the most eloquent preachers in Upper New York, Henry Robins had shown special interest in Baptist educational matters. He delighted to converse with or address young people, especially those of college age, and he was closely associated with the Baptist seminary at Rochester, which was fast gaining national prestige. Dr. Burrage says of him:

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The history of Colby College, Part 25

Author: Colby College Publication date: 1963 Publisher: Waterville, Colby College Press Number of Pages: 716

Author: Colby College
Publication date: 1963
Publisher: Waterville, Colby College Press
Number of Pages: 716