Hamilton College

Hamilton-Oneida Academy & The Origins of Hamilton College

August 22, 2025 by Richard Williams Leave a Comment

Hamilton-Oneida Academy, the predecessor of Hamilton College, was chartered on January 31, 1793 with a document signed by the state’s first governor, George Clinton.

The plan was for a school for children of New England settlers who were moving into Central New York in the 1790s and the Oneida people. The town of Clinton’s first settlers arrived in 1787. The area was organized in the newly formed Herkimer County, which was created in 1792. [Read more…] about Hamilton-Oneida Academy & The Origins of Hamilton College

Hamilton College’s Reforestation Project

April 21, 2025 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Hamilton College a small liberal arts college in Oneida County, NY, was established as the Hamilton-Oneida Academy in 1793. It received its charter as Hamilton College in 1812, in honor of Alexander Hamilton, one of its inaugural trustees, following a proposal made after his death in 1804. Since 1978, Hamilton has been a coeducational institution, having merged with its sister school, Kirkland College.

Since 2018 Hamilton College has been working to reforest part of its lands, including former agricultural fields and a repurposed golf course. [Read more…] about Hamilton College’s Reforestation Project

“Locusts of the East”: The Yankee Invasion of New York

March 9, 2024 by Guest Contributor 3 Comments

New York by 1820 was becoming a “colony from New England” to use the phrase of President Timothy Dwight of Yale. The “Puritan Pope,” as he was some times called, estimated that 60 to 67 percent of the people of New York had originated in the “land of steady habits.”

The few thousand Puritans who had established a new Zion around Boston in the 1630s were a remarkably energetic, prolific, and self-assertive people. The thin soils on the hilly lands, the harsh winters, and the stern theology of John Calvin created a distinct community spirit and shaped a unique character. [Read more…] about “Locusts of the East”: The Yankee Invasion of New York

Oneida County Black History Photo ID & Documentation Event

June 14, 2022 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

The Oneida County History Center and For the Good Inc. will host a community photo identification, and documentation event on Friday, June 17th, to commemorate Juneteenth and encourage the preservation of Black History in Oneida County. [Read more…] about Oneida County Black History Photo ID & Documentation Event

The Last Days of John Brown: The Secret Six

September 6, 2021 by John Warren Leave a Comment

John Brown has often come down to us as a lone nut, bent on an suicidal mission, but this is far from the truth.

Brown was part of a larger movement to free slaves that grew with passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 (which required the return of escaped slaves to their masters with all its potential for torture and death at their hands) and the large Underground Railroad movement.

It’s little understood that Brown was intimate with northern politicians, industrialists, ministers, and folks from all walks of life, including the leading intellectuals of the era – the Transcendentalists. [Read more…] about The Last Days of John Brown: The Secret Six

Chester Sanders Lord of the New York Sun

February 3, 2014 by Lawrence P. Gooley 1 Comment

Modern media includes television, radio, newspapers, and Internet sources, together bringing us news from local to international. But until about a century ago, newspapers did the job. By the mid-1800s, the process of delivering timely news to the nation’s dailies was achieved, courtesy of the telegraph. It wasn’t until the 1920s when other forms of media (radio and newsreels) began carving their own niche in reporting the news.

When newspapers ruled, editors wielded great power and thus bore great responsibility. Ethics were critical but weren’t always adhered to. It took men of courage to do what was right, and among the best of them was Chester Sanders Lord, a man with roots firmly embedded in northern New York State. [Read more…] about Chester Sanders Lord of the New York Sun

No Votes For Women: The NY Anti-Suffrage Movement

October 19, 2013 by Editorial Staff 1 Comment

No Votes for Women: The New York State Anti-Suffrage Movement (Univ. of Illinois Press, 2013) explores the complicated history of the suffrage movement in New York State by delving into the stories of women who opposed the expansion of voting rights to women.

Author Susan Goodier makes the case that, contrary to popular thought, women who opposed suffrage were not against women’s rights. Instead, conservative women who fought against suffrage encouraged women to retain their distinctive feminine identities as protectors of their homes and families, a role they felt was threatened by the imposition of masculine political responsibilities. [Read more…] about No Votes For Women: The NY Anti-Suffrage Movement

Books: Fight All Day, March All NIght

December 16, 2012 by Editorial Staff 1 Comment

In 1862 twenty-one-year-old Morris Brown Jr. left his studies at Hamilton College to take up the Union cause. He quickly rose in rank from sergeant major to captain and acting regimental commander for the 126th New York Volunteers. Fight All Day, March All Night: A Medal of Honor Recipient’s Story (SUNY Press Excelsior Editions, 2012) is the narrative of a young Civil War officer, as told through his letters from the battlefield and edited by Civil War historian Wayne Mahood.

In letters written to his family in Penn Yan, New York, Brown describes his experiences at war: the unseemly carping between fellow officers, the fear that gripped men facing battle, and the longing to return home. Brown’s letters also reveal an ambitious young man who not only wanted recognition but also wanted to assure himself of a financial future. [Read more…] about Books: Fight All Day, March All NIght

Auburn Prison, Gillette Case Documentary, Lecture

September 12, 2012 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

A North Woods Elegy: Incident at Big Moose Lake is a documentary feature film that explores one of the most famous American murder cases. Grace Brown, a pregnant young woman from upstate New York, was killed in the Adirondacks on July 11, 1906 [watch the trailer].

Her lover, Chester Gillette, was eventually tried and convicted of her murder. Gillette died in the Auburn Prison electric chair on March 30, 1908. The case became the basis for Theodore Dreiser’s 1925 novel, An American Tragedy.

A North Woods Elegy explores the fascination America had, and still has, with the case, encompassing issues of class, jurisprudence in America at the turn of the 20th century and ethics and sensationalism in news reporting.

The documentary film will be shown in Theater Mack at the Cayuga Museum, twice on Saturday, September 15, at 1:00 pm. and again at 4:00,. Derek Taylor, the film’s producer, director and editor, will answer questions after each screening.

At 3:00 p.m., there will be a lecture on “Gillette in Auburn” by Tompkins County Judge Jack Sherman, editor of The Prison Diaries and Letters of Chester Gillette. Gillette spent more than a year in Auburn Prison before his execution; his diary from that time is today in the collection of Hamilton College. Both the film screenings and the lecture are free and open to the public.

Hamilton College

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