CHAPTER XXXVII
Shurtleff College
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Alton Seminary, like Rock Spring Seminary, was never incorporated, and for a similar reason. The charter granted by the legislature in 1833 was hampered by so many restrictions that the trustees decided they could get along better without than with it. In 1835 another effort was made, this time for a college charter. It was granted, but though more liberal than the rejected Seminary charter it prohibited theological instruction -- the very purpose for which the institution was founded. We may readily see that some of the legislators had been inhaling the atmosphere on the eastern side of the state. The Seminary trustees however decided to accept the charter, and in order to retain the theological department they had recourse to a little legal strategy. They organized under the charter as trustees of the college, and deeded to the college the property of the seminary. Then they organized as the board of trustees of the Alton Theological Seminary, without a charter, and elected Prof. Loomis president of both institutions. Thus "Alton Seminary" ceased to be. Some 150 students had been enrolled first and last, during the three years of its life, several of them becoming noted men. One was John M. Palmer who became a major-general, governor of Kentucky, governor of illinois, United States Senator, and ran as a candidate for President of the United States. He was an energetic young man, but so limited in means that the seminary trustees loaned him $20 to erect a cooper shop on the seminary grounds. He kept up his studies, made the cooper shop a success and repaid the loan.
The advantages in becoming a college, even with no larger teaching force than could have been had in the seminary, were that it carried the legal right to confer honorary degrees, advertised to the world the grade of instruction the institution was giving, would attract a larger number of students, would lift the institution out of the realm of ordinary "'schools," and would presumably make it easier to gain the necessary endowment. It was therefore not a matter of pride at all but was undertaken on business motives. With the attaining of college honors two field agents were appointed: Joel Sweet to search for money at home, and John M. Peck abroad. Mr. Peck started for the east in April and returned in November, bringing with him in cash and
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pledges $20,060. Half of this amount was one donation from Dr. Benjamin Shurtleff of Boston, the consideration being that the name of the institution be changed to SHURTLEFF COLLEGE. It was a magnificent gift for those days, as great as twenty times that amount today. One half of it was for a building; the other half was to endow a professorship of rhetoric and elocution. With the beginning of the new year, 1836, the change of name was formally made by vote of the board of trustees, and Alton College followed Alton Seminary into the silence of history. Benjamin Shurtleff was a Boston physician, born in that city in 1775, a graduate of Brown University and of Harvard Medical School. He died in 1847. His son, Dr. M. B. Shurtleff, was mayor of Boston in 1868.
But Mr. Peck brought from the east not money only. Lewis Colby, a young man who had helped him in raising the money, he brough with him to be principal of the theological department. Mr. Colby was an admirable teacher and organizer, but without sufficient salary or even funds for current expenses it was impossible for him to continue; so at the beginning of the fall term of 1837 he resigned and returned with his family to the east.
Another teacher discovered by Mr. Peck while on his eastern trip was Washington Leverett, He wrote in one of his letters: "A student at Newton by the name of Leverett, a brother of Rev. Mr. Leverett of Roxbury, is recommended to me for teacher of mathematics. He has been a tutor in Brown University, and stands high as a scholar and teacher. He is very modest and retiring."Washington Leverett, twin brother of Warren Leverett, was born in Brookline, Mass., in 1805. He was the seventh from Thomas Leverett, who came over with John Cotton in 1633; the sixth from John Leverett, who was for six years governor of the colony; fourth from John Leverett, for seventeen years president of Harvard College. Warren and Washington were baptized by Rev. Bela Jacobs in 1825, and united with the Baptist church in Cambridgeport. After graduating at Harvard and Newton, Washington was ordained in August, 1836, married in September and arrived in Upper Alton in October. He became at once acting president of the College, on account of the resignation of Prof. Loomis the previous June. This became his home for fifty-three years. He died in 1889.
On Mr. Peck's return from the east he found there had been but one college trustee meeting during his absence, and his first work was
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to resume building operations and straighten out innumerable tangles. While doing this he remained at Alton, and would have removed his home there if he could have disposed of his Rock Spring property. There had been talk for years about forming a joint stock company to publish Mr. Peck's "Pioneer" at Upper Alton as a weekly; but want of money hindered everything. He made however the removal himself, at his own cost, and at Upper Alton the "Western Pioneer and Baptist Standard Bearer" continued to be published as a monthly until its removal to Louisville, Ky., in 1839.
Besides the college affairs he had the usual conventions and societies and Missouri tours to look after. He completed also, with the aid of his old friend and helper, Prof. Messenger, a new and more accurate map of Illinois, and published a revised edition of his Guide to Emigrants. He was solicited to prepare a history of Illinois, and a legislative committee was appointed to assist him in gathering the facts. He was solicited also by the newly organized American and Foreign Bible Society to accept the general agency for that Society for the northwest. He could only reply to such solicitations that he was friendly to the cause and would do what he could. Harder to bear was the notification received from the Home Mission Society that on account of the financial stringency it would be impossible for the Society to meet its appropriations, thus throwing upon him the burden of raising as much of the appropriations as he could on the field, and being blamed by those to whom the unpaid balance was due for broken promises which he could not help.
In 1839 he spent September in a trip with his wife through the northern part of the state. He preached at Chicago for pastor I. T. Hinton, attended the Northern Association, at Elgin, was taken sick and confined to his room for ten days, so that he missed the State Convention at Bloomington, though having in his trunk the records and papers essential to the Convention business. Recovering he slowly wended his way by Newark, Ottawa, Tonica, Washington, Tremont, Delavan and Springfield.
For four years after the assumption of college dignity Shurtleff College was in fact an academy, but in 1839 a college class was formed of those who wished to pursue a classical course and who had the necessary attainments to begin with. The other classes were then erected into the academic department with Warren Leverett, who had been teaching at Greenville, as principal. He too was destined to do his
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life's work at Upper Alton. After two years as tutor he was appointed college professor of Latin and Greek. He died in 1872.
The Leverett brothers, as the 30's passed out, were the college and academy faculty, essentially. A small force on small salaries, but the value lay in the friendship and the moral and christian influence of the men. And therein lies the value of the small college, a value of which it need never be deprived. It is manhood and womanhood that develops manhood and womanhood. Lectures and textbooks are in comparison but the dust of the street. It is one of the axioms of teaching that the teacher is greater than the lesson. In a small institution the teacher is the student's environment; in a large institution the student's environment is his fellow students. This is a law that will never change. =============== [Edward P. Brand, Illinois Baptists -- A History, 1930, pp. 124-127. -- jrd]
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