CHAPTER XXXVI
The Alton Seminary
[p. 121]
In the fall of 1831 Hubbell Loomis opened his school for the second year at Kaskaskia, and Alvin Bailey opened a school at Upper Alton. Rock Spring Seminary did not open, as its removal had been finally decided upon. Probably it should have been removed to Upper Alton immediately, and a building erected in readiness for the fall term and for the anticipated inpouring of students down the Mississippi, Missouri apd Illinois rivers. But the limited means of the promoters was the obstacle. What they lacked in power they were obliged to makeup in longer time. The citizens of Upper Alton had promised to put up a thousand dollar building, and Dr. Going had encouraged them to expect $20,000 endowment from the east, but the lumber had not been hauled for the building, and the endowment was not in sight.
Hubbell Loomis was the man wanted for the principal of the new school. He had been consulted with but had not fully consented. He was fifty-six years of age, a born student and educator, and was making a success of the academy at the old state capital. He was born in Colchester, Conn., in 1775, and became a Congregational minister, serving some years as pastor at Willington. During this pastorate his understanding of the ordinance of baptism became so much clearer that he was baptized and was ordained as pastor of the Baptist church at Webster, Mass. He came to Illinois in 1830, and to Upper Alton in 1832. This was his home for the remainder of a long life. He died in 1872, aged 97.
February 28, 1832, was a damp, raw day, but Mr. Peck mounted his faithful pony and set out for Kaskaskia to complete the negotiations with Mr. Loomis. Part of the journey was made in a storm of sleet and rain. His trip, however, was successful. Mr. Loomis closed his school at the end of the winter term, and in April removed to Upper Alton. But he found the situation so unpromising that he opened his school in Edwardsville. That place and Upper Alton were rivals for the school, and Edwardsville under the leadership of Dr. B. F. Edwards, scored the first victory. It compelled Upper Alton to talk business, whereupon Dr. Edwards magnanimously yielded the point and consented to help at Upper Alton. Edwardsville had the energy and Upper
[p. 122]
Alton had the best location; neither could well succeed without the other. June 4, 1832, the business was begun. Hubbell Loomis, Dr. Edwards, Stephen Griggs and Enoch Long met at the home of William Manning in lower Alton, pledged a loan of $100 each for the school, and arranged to buy 122 acres of land for a site. All these were Baptists except Mr. Long, who was a Presbyterian, and he was the only Upper Alton man of the five. Cyrus Edwards and George Smith subsequently signed the agreement. The 122 acres of land cost $400, and 240 acres adjoining was entered at government price, making a farm of 362 acres. The object in securing the land was to make it a manual labor school, that young men might thus be encouraged to obtain an education. But that part of the plan was finally dropped. The trustees decided that:"The scholars be permitted to cut their firewood off of the seminary land if they will take none but wood that is lying down:on the ground; and that they be permitted to put up cabins on the land for their use, and to cut the timber on the land for the cabins under the direction of the building committee."Thus the labors of Elisha's theological students twenty-seven hundred years before, in the river timber of Palestine, 2 Kings 6:1-4, was repeated in the labors of Prof. Loomis' students in the bluff timber of Alton. It is likely, too, in this case as in the other, some of the students had to borrow their axes. We would give a large sum for correct photographs of that early campus, dotted with the log cabins of students' boarding clubs and choppers at work on the fallen treetops. It is certain that such environment was more favorable to the production of manhood than is that which surrounds the student in the richly endowed university. Prof. Loomis himself was not on the ground to open the school. He had been sent east in June by the trustees to solicit funds, and he did not return until December. His place until he returned was taken by John Russell, the successor of Joshua Bradley at Rock Spring. Mr. Russell was a Vermont man, a graduate of Middlebury, a teacher of experience. He was a man of much geniality; therefore he won the friendship of his students even if he did not transform them into scholars. He spoke fluently seven languages; was an author, of a temperance work and a little work against Universalism; edited a newspaper in Louisville, Ky., and "The Backwoodsman" at Grafton, Ill. He died in 1863.
[p. 123]
Prof. Loomis was the opposite of Prof. Russell. He was grave in his manner and a strict disciplinarian. They were too unlike to work harmoniously together, so when Prof. Loomis returned with $500 as the disappointingly net proceeds of the eastern trip, Prof. Russell withdrew and opened a private school near by. A number of students went with him, and for a time his school was well patronized.
In 1832 the Western Educational Association was organized in Boston, and Rev. Bela Jacobs, pastor of Cambridge Baptist church, became its corresponding secretary, and immediately set out to explore the field. He spent a little time in Alton, and on his return published a report of his trip in pamphlet form. Two years afterward he was killed in a runaway on Sunday morning, at the hour for worship, his head striking the corner of his meeting house in Cambridge.
The busiest man of that time was brother Peck. He spent the month of June, 1832, in a trip through McDonough, Fulton, Hancock and Warren counties. Observed that the settlements were small and scattered, infidelity and Universalism general, churches in the crude pioneer stage. Then he was at home seeing callers, answering letters, settling accounts, preparing newspaper articles, preaching. Then to the state capital to attend the annual meetings of the State Bible Society, Temperance Society, Sunday School Union, Educational Association, etc.; of all of which he was the chief promoter and was depended upon to make the wheels go 'round. Then to St. Louis to help the brethren straighten out some tangle, or wrestle with some financial problem, or hold a revival meeting. Then to Cincinnati to attend the Convention of the Western Baptists, and help organize a Baptist Education Society. He conducted at Edwardsville the funeral ot Gov. Ninian Edwards. Six weeks afterwards he conducted the funeral of the most useful of all our early preachers, Elder John Clark. He promised to prepare a biography, but twenty years passed before the book appeared; so long it took him to find the time. In 1834 he published a new edition of his Gazetteer, and took a horseback trip through Missouri, writing articles on Mormonism, Romanism, and whatever common evil he found afflicting the people.
In the meatltime Alton Seminary struggled on, hindered by poverty but prospered by grace. ================ [Edward P. Brand, Illinois Baptists -- A History, 1930, pp. 121-123. -- jrd]
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