Early Correspondence

Description

This is a collection of manuscripts related to the founding and early years of Hamilton College. It consists mainly of correspondence regarding legal and financial matters.

Background

Hamilton College was founded in 1793 as the Hamilton-Oneida Academy and later chartered in 1812 as Hamilton College. It is the third oldest college established in New York State.

Hamilton College acquired its name from Alexander Hamilton, U.S. statesman, first secretary of the U.S. Treasury, who was a member of the first Board of Trustees of the Hamilton-Oneida Academy.

Digitization

Digitization of the letters was done in-house on a flatbed scanner at 600 dpi, 24-bit color and saved as uncompressed TIF images. Transcripts are provided where available, but full-text searching is not yet available, but the names of the letter writers have been extracted and can be searched from the collections "Search" page.

Online Resources

• Documentary History of Hamilton College (Clinton, N.Y. : The College, 1922) (online version, paper version)
  This book brings together all the available primary records relating to Samuel Kirkland's Plan of Education and the history of Hamilton Oneida Academy, the laws of New York and the proceedings of the Regents of the University of the State of New York so far as they relate to the Academy.

(Reviewed: September 27, 2013)