Enjoying Shakespeare

Most of my knowledge of Shakespeare comes, not from studying the plays in English classes, but from attending annual student productions at the college where my parents taught and I eventually attended. Milton College had a tradition of annual Shakespeare plays dating back to the 19^th century. I've seen yearbook pictures of WWI casts that were entirely female since most of the guys were serving in the military. My brother and I from a very young age were taken to whatever was being performed that year. In preparation, Dad would read us a summary of the plot from Charles and Mary Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare. I was reminded of that today:

First published in 1807, it contains retellings of 20 of Shakespeare’s best-known plays. The Lamb siblings weren’t trying to dumb down the language or stories, they were simply hoping to give newcomers a more understandable introduction to these plays. Often, it’s easy to get stuck on the unfamiliar language and trip on the allusions, and these mishaps can make us lose the whole thread of the plot. Many characters, some major and many minor, zip on and off stage, adding to the confusion. Tales from Shakespeare, however, aims to fix some of that by giving the plots in as straightforward a manner as possible and including enough of the Bard’s language to give a thrilling glimpse to eager readers. ....

Whether you’re a long-time lover of Shakespeare’s works or you couldn’t name a single one of his plays; whether you’re a Stratfordian or an Oxfordian; and if you never could figure out whether Hamlet was crazy or not, Tales from Shakespeare is a wonderful addition to any library. Read it aloud to your children or dip in and out for your own pleasure — this delightful introduction to some of the greatest stories, prose, and poetry in the English language is a treat.

Sarah Schutte, "Shakespeare for the Young," National Review, June 23, 2024.

My family

My name is James Austin Skaggs. James was the first name of my father and his father. Austin was the middle name of my maternal grandfather. I was born—I was told—on May 29, 1946, in Clarksburg, West Virginia.

My mother, Mary Elizabeth Bond (1911-2009), belonged to a family that had lived in West Virginia for generations, well before there was a West Virginia. She was the fifth of eight siblings and even after suffering dementia late in life she could recite their names in birth order: Beatrice, Walter, Stanley, Harold, Mary, Richard, Charles, and Robert. The youngest, Robert, was killed in the Second World War. His middle name, Levi, was also the name of a great-uncle killed fighting for the Union in the Civil War. Mom was born, and lived her early life, on the family farm on Canoe Run near Roanoke, West Virginia. By the time she was school-age, the family had moved to Salem, West Virginia, where she grew up. She attended Salem College, where she trained to be a physical education teacher. She taught high school girls physical-ed after graduating. The Bonds had been Seventh Day Baptist since the 1700s. Mom was baptized and became a member of the Salem Seventh Day Baptist Church.

Dad, James Leland Skaggs (1912-2003), was born in Shiloh, NJ, where his father, James Leroy, was pastor of the Shiloh Seventh Day Baptist Church. Dad's grandfather had also been a Seventh Day Baptist pastor, and his younger brother would become one (as would Dad's brother-in-law, Charles, my mother's younger brother, who married my father's younger sister). Except for his time in the Army, Dad was known as Leland, or "J.L." Dad was one of five siblings: Alison, Evalyn, Leland, Margaret, and Victor. A Baptist pastor's family tends to move from one pastorate to another. When Dad was in high school his father was pastor of the Milton, Wisconsin, Seventh Day Baptist Church. Dad graduated from Milton College in that town, in 1933, just after his father had been called to another church in the East. After graduation, Dad moved to New York City, where he taught college mathematics evenings and attended graduate school.

Dad and Mom probably first met at one of the annual Seventh Day Baptist General Conference sessions. The first time they ever spent time alone together was after driving Dad's sister, Margaret, and mother's brother, Charles, newly married, from Salem to their honeymoon hotel in Clarksburg, West Virginia. They stayed in touch, Dad in NYC, and Mom in Salem. Mom and Dad married the Monday after Easter in 1942. Dad's father, now pastor in Salem, presided over the ceremony. The wedding hadn't been planned for that date, but World War II had begun and Dad expected to be drafted, and soon after, was.

During the war, Dad was a Lieutenant in the Army Signal Corps and taught radio to soon-to-be infantry radiomen. The classes were held in Convention Hall, near the Boardwalk, in Asbury Park, NJ. Mom joined him there for the duration.

I was born just after the war and the following winter, we moved to Milton, Wisconsin, where Dad was a Math professor, later Registrar, and briefly Acting President, at Milton College where he spent the rest of his professional life apart from a time in the military again during the Korean War. This time he was stationed at Camp Gordon near Augusta, Georgia, commanding a basic training company.

My brother, Samuel Bond Skaggs, was born in July of 1951 after Dad had been called up. Mom returned to her parents in West Virginia until after Sam arrived when the three of us joined Dad in Georgia. Then back to Milton. Our lives there centered around the Milton Church and the College.

Mom joined the College faculty as the women's Phy-ed teacher and the Counselor for Women.

Sam and I both grew up in Milton and graduated from Milton College. After graduation, and not being drafted, I taught one year at Milton Union High School, attended graduate school for one year at William & Mary, and accepted a position teaching history and political science in the Madison, Wisconsin, public schools. I retired in 2005 and still live in Madison. Sam spent his entire professional career as an accountant for the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, living in Milwaukee, where he still lives. Neither of us married. We stay closely in touch.

"Where the weary shall toil no more"

A friend recently linked to a song about West Virginia (where I was born) that reminded me of a chorus sung at my mother's funeral by a male quartet. Mom was born and grew up in West Virginia. "Beautiful Hills" isn't about West Virginia, it is about Heaven (not "almost Heaven"), but it was appropriate. The pages below are from The Milton College Carmina (1928) and the music was harmonized by J.M. Stillman, a professor at that college, my alma mater. (the images can be enlarged)

 

 

 

 

Hosea Rood

From a very good article by Doug Welch in the Milton Courier this week about Hosea Rood (1845-1933):

The abolitionist legacy of the early Milton Academy was put to the test at the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861. Former and current students of the academy – renamed Milton College in 1867 – responded in kind and with great vigor.

More than 325 men with academy ties enlisted in the Union Army, a very high percentage of the school’s male student body from the time the academy opened in 1844 through the close of the war in 1865. Of those men, 46 died while serving in the Union Army and 13 were killed in action or died of wounds. Of their ranks, 28 perished to disease. ....

...[T]he largest legacy among Civil War veterans affiliated with Milton Academy is that of Hosea Rood. Rood did not attend Milton Academy until after the war when the school became Milton College. He attended and then taught at the college....

Rood enlisted in Company E of the 12th Wisconsin Infantry in October 1861 when he was 16, though he gave his age as 19. The company trained at Madison’s Camp Randall and left for Missouri in January 1862. The 12th was involved in many actions during the war. It was attached to General Grant’s army during the siege of Vicksburg, a turning point in the war’s Western Theatre when the siege ended on July 4, 1863. The 12th then joined General Sherman’s Army of Tennessee in Georgia. Rood and his comrades saw extensive action during the Atlanta Campaign, including the battle at Kennesaw Mountain.

Once Atlanta was secured, the 12th was part of Sherman’s decisive March to the Sea from Nov. 15 to Dec. 21, 1864. In May, 1865, a month following the assassination of President Lincoln, Rood and the 12th took part in the Grand Review in Washington, D.C. ....

In 1901, Rood was instrumental in having a bill introduced providing for a Memorial Hall in the capitol where war relics, books and photos might be gathered and preserved as memorials of the state’s participation in the Civil War. The bill passed and Rood became custodian of the hall.

Rood spent two years gathering a large collection of Civil War materials and artifacts for display in the new hall.

But on the morning of Feb. 17, 1904, the capitol was nearly destroyed by fire and everything Rood had collected was destroyed.... Rood went back to work to rebuild the collection and from his efforts came the foundation of what remains the Wisconsin Veteran’s Museum on the Capitol Square in Madison. ....

The Roods first purchased a home on Greenman Street in 1879 and always considered Milton to be their home, even while Hosea worked or taught in other communities. In 1924, Rood moved permanently to Milton where he continued writing, including an extensive history of his Company E of the 12th Wisconsin Infantry. He died in 1933 at age 88 and is buried in the Milton Cemetery. (more)

Doug Welch, "Hosea Rood became one of many prominent names out of Milton in late 19^th century," Milton Courier, Nov. 18, 2022.

Library

When I was growing up Dad would often take me to the Milton College Library. It was also the Milton Village Library and the village appropriated funds to buy books that would not necessarily otherwise appear in an academic library thus, for example, a children's section. Until the late 1960s the library was located in Whitford Hall on the Milton campus. We moved across the street from the library when I was in 4^th grade, c. 1956, and after that I inhabited the place. I read my way though the fiction and history sections. Eventually I was employed to straighten books on the shelves and, in high school, to man the desk in the evenings. I have vivid memories of the place, the stacks, the smell of books, the creaking of the floor, and had a pretty thorough knowledge of its contents. Not long ago I thought to try to find pictures of the interior and Doug Welch of The Milton College Preservation Society came up with this one — well before my time but definitely recognizable.

"To thee and thy mandates..."

I graduated from Milton College in 1968. Milton was one of the oldest colleges in Wisconsin, chartered in 1867 (Milton Academy dated back to 1844). The college closed its doors in 1982 having accumulated much debt and never having any significant endowment. The buildings on the former campus have been re-purposed in various ways, for example the former college library is now the Milton city library. 

My grandfather attended Milton early in the last century. My father graduated from Milton in the 1930s. Both of my parents spent almost all of their working years as members of the faculty there. I never even considered going to school anywhere else.

I inherited a copy of the Carmina, a Milton College songbook published in 1928. The second entry in the book is "Our Colors," Milton's alma mater with words composed by Milton's second president, W.C. Daland.

The college's colors were originally "the Brown and the Blue" but by the time I was a student they had become gold and blue, supposedly because it was easier to acquire athletic uniforms in those colors.

Later in the book comes "St Anne's Tune," actually Isaac Watts great hymn "O God Our Help in Ages Past," the hymn that I remember being sung as part of every commencement ceremony. It is found here with an arrangement by W.C. Daland.

Milton College

Main Hall, Milton College

I graduated from Milton College, the college my father and my grandfather attended. Milton was one of the oldest institutions of higher education in Wisconsin, founded before the Civil War and chartered by the state in 1867. Seventh Day Baptists created it and, although it never had a formal relationship with the denomination, that connection sustained it for much of its history, supplying both faculty and students. The college never prospered financially, depending for its survival on dedicated faculty willing to serve sacrificially. My father, for instance, was persuaded to return to the college by its president after World War II. He had been teaching at CCNY. His salary at Milton was never significant — I believe my brother and I each made more in our first years of employment than he did after decades there although he had served as professor of mathematics, interim college president, and, for many years, registrar. The school had no endowment. I vividly recall the happiness in our house when the Main Hall bell would ring some evening to let everyone know that the budget had been raised and the college could continue for another year.

When I was growing up, life centered around the college. We lived across the street from campus and my alarm clock was the 7:25 ringing of the Main Hall bell. Both public high school and Milton College football was played on the college field. My brother and I were taken to every college basketball game. Our parents' closest friends were members of the faculty, many of whom were also members of our church. The college library was the village library. We attended Glee Club reunions and commencement ceremonies. We learned the fight song, and "The Song of the Bell" and the alma mater. We attended music recitals, choral concerts, and plays as did most on campus and many from the community. My parents would read us the plot from Lamb's Shakespeare before taking us to the Shakespearean play on campus — a play which continued an annual tradition begun in the 19th century not even broken during world wars when male roles were performed by women. In high school and college I worked in the college library and, during the summers, on the maintenance crew. Because both our parents worked at the college [Mom was a phys ed teacher and councilor for women students], we participated in just about every event — athletic, dramatic, social, musical — at the school.

It was foreordained that I and my brother would attend Milton. Not only had grandfather and Dad gone to Milton but, because our parents were faculty members, we could attend on a "faculty scholarship," that is, we could attend tuition-free and, since we could live at home, there was essentially no expense at all. I don't recall ever even considering going anywhere else. I graduated in 1968.

Brick walk to the Music Studio

The college closed in 1982, burdened by debt, and really no longer the institution it had been. The curriculum had devolved, pursuing the faddish educational nonsense common to the '60s and '70s  — I remember accounts of long-serving faculty, including my father, being subjected to "sensitivity training" involving "trust walks" and other idiocy. By the time my brother attended some classes were self-graded. The on-campus student body had dwindled and some of the once strong departments had been eviscerated. And many of those who had served the college faithfully and sacrificially, including my parents, were gone.

Almost all the college buildings were sold and converted to other uses. Main Hall, the oldest building, was turned over to the alumni association and has been restored and maintained as a museum. Since the last class graduated thirty years ago the youngest alumni are now in their fifties. Our numbers are dwindling. So some years ago the alumni gave over Main Hall to the "Milton College Preservation Society" which dedicates itself to "Keeping the Spirit Alive." I'm not certain what spirit that is. My own emotional connection probably has more to do with the years before I was a student — the '50s and early '60s before everything started to change, or even, based on stories told and read, what I imagine the place was like when my grandfather attended before the turn of the last century, or my father in the '30s, or my uncle in the '20s.

I received the 2013 renewal notice today for my membership in the "Milton College Preservation Society."  I will write the check.

Dad

This would have been my father's 100th birthday. From the day after his funeral:

Dad’s funeral was yesterday, Monday, December 29, at the Milton Seventh Day Baptist Church, and he was buried in the Milton Cemetery, near the highway in the oldest part of the cemetery in a plot the folks purchased from members of the Goodrich family. Pastor George Calhoun of the Milton Church had the service and did a beautiful job describing Dad’s faith and life of integrity and service. Justin Camenga spoke for the family – apart from Mom he was the only one present who, as a child of six, had attended the folks’ wedding in 1942. He had also consulted with Dad’s older sister, Justin’s mother Evalyn, and conveyed information about Dad’s childhood none of us had heard before. A men’s chorus from the Milton church sang the old Milton College song “Song of the Bell” and “It is Well with My Soul.” Mom chose the hymn “When We All Get to Heaven” and we also sang the Brother James setting of “The Lord’s My Shepherd” and the hymn that was always sung at Milton College events, the great Isaac Watts hymn “O God, Our Help in Ages Past.” There was a reception after the service with the sharing of good memories. ....

This is from the obituary [with a couple of minor corrections] which appeared in the Janesville Gazette that Sabbath and Sunday.

Skaggs, Prof. J. Leland
February 27, 1912 - December 25, 2003

MILTON—Prof. J. Leland Skaggs died peacefully early Christmas morning at his home in the Milton Senior Living retirement home. Leland Skaggs was born in Shiloh, NJ on February 27, 1912, the son of Rev. James L. and Hettie Skaggs. Rev. Skaggs was a Seventh Day Baptist pastor, and the family moved several times before moving to Milton, WI, while Leland was in grade school. He attended and graduated from Milton Union High School and then went on to study at Milton College. J. Leland Skaggs graduated from Milton College in 1933. He also attended Columbia University. During the Depression he taught in New York City at CCNY and for the WPA. He served in the Army during World War II, teaching radio for the Signal Corps on the boardwalk at Asbury Park, NJ. After the war he became a mathematics professor at Milton College, Milton, WI. Apart from the Korean War period, when he was recalled to duty with the Army, serving as a Lieutenant and commanding a basic training company at Camp Gordon, GA, he continued to work at Milton College until retirement. He taught math, served as registrar for many years, and was appointed interim acting president. Leland was an active member and deacon of the Milton Seventh Day Baptist Church. He married Mary Elizabeth Bond in Salem, WV in 1942.

Milton Academy and the Civil War

Joseph Goodrich

I grew up in Milton, Wisconsin, living across the street from Milton College, founded by Seventh Day Baptists, and two doors down from the house that had once belonged to Hosea Rood, Civil War veteran, active member of the GAR, and creator of the Civil War Museum in Wisconsin's Capitol building. The Milton College Library had a plaque listing the names of those Milton College students who died in that war. Today the Milton Courier has on its website an article about Milton Academy [soon after the war to be Milton College] and the American Civil War:

.... Over the course of the 1861-1865 Civil War approximately 312 students and former students of Milton Academy volunteered for military service. 43 died in the war.

Total student enrollment in 1861 was 384. By the end of the war enrollment had dropped to 292, “mainly due to the enlisting of the males of legal age in the army of the United States,” a college history booklet states. ....

Given the strong abolitionist leanings of the community and Milton Academy faculty it was natural students would support the fight to end slavery. Scheehle said the robust volunteerism on campus “was reflective of the attitude of the area.”

[Joseph] Goodrich planted strong anti-slave sentiment here when he settled in 1838 from western New York....

He opened Milton Academy in 1844. Three other abolitionists would become presidents. Academy trustees and board members were abolitionists as well.

Earlier in 1844 Goodrich built his Milton House stagecoach inn. At some point the 50-foot tunnel for escaping slaves was dug from the Goodrich Cabin to the inn’s basement. It is not known exactly when the tunnel was dug.

Hosea Rood

Of the 312 Civil War volunteers from Milton Academy, 69 received commissions from second lieutenant to brigadier general. Besides students they included faculty members such as Nathan Twining, a math teacher who was made captain of Company C, 40th Infantry in 1864. He would return to chair the department. ....

Milton Academy was granted a college charter in 1867. Though the students and former students who fought in the Civil War are now footnotes in history, the field and chapel where they drilled, and the classrooms where they learned, are still here for residents and visitors to explore. .... [more]

Those pictured are Joseph Goodrich, the founder of Milton and of Milton Academy, and Hosea Rood, Civil War veteran and Milton resident.

Hundreds of Milton Academy students fought in Civil War - Milton Courier - Milton, WI

Mary Elizabeth Bond Skaggs, 1911-2009

My mother died this morning, age 98, after a long and productive life. My brother, Sam, and I will miss her, but as Christians, with confidence born of the Hope she possessed.

Mary Elizabeth Bond Skaggs, age 98, died peacefully on December 19, 2009 of natural causes at Milton Senior Living in Milton, Wisconsin. She was born August 3, 1911 to Charles Austin and Maud Virginia (Hefner) Bond on Canoe Run near Roanoke, West Virginia. She was the fifth of eight children - Beatrice Mora, Walter Clarence, John Stanley, Luther Harold, Mary Elizabeth, Richard William, Charles Hefner, and Robert Levi, each of whom preceded her in death.

She lived on her grandfather’s farm near Roanoke until she was eight when the family moved to Salem, West Virginia, so the older children could attend high school. Mary was baptized by Pastor George B. Shaw and became a member of the Salem Seventh Day Baptist Church when she was twelve. After high school, she entered Salem College, majoring in physical education, graduating in 1934. In 1935 she became a physical education teacher at Bridgeport High School, Bridgeport, West Virginia, and taught there until the end of the spring semester in 1942. Mary’s younger brother, Charles, married Margaret Skaggs and, subsequently, Mary became acquainted with Margaret’s older brother, Leland Skaggs, then living in New York City where he taught mathematics at CCNY. Because of the uncertainties resulting from the beginning of World War II, Leland and Mary decided to marry during Easter weekend. They were married on April 6, 1942, the Monday after Easter, with Leland’s father, Rev. James L. Skaggs, performing the ceremony, Charles Bond as best man, and Margaret Skaggs Bond attending Mary.

After the war, most of which was spent in Asbury Park, New Jersey, where Leland served in the Army teaching classes in radio for the Signal Corps, Leland was persuaded to return Milton, Wisconsin, and to Milton College, his alma mater, as a math teacher and, eventually, as Registrar. In 1956, Mary was employed by the college to teach women’s physical education. Later she also served as Dean of Women. The family’s life – there were now also two sons – centered around the activities at the college and the Milton Seventh Day Baptist Church. Mary organized and hosted social events for students and faculty, receptions, open houses, church Turkey Suppers, and was never happier than when she was doing so. With a sister-in-law, she took a class in cake decorating, and thereafter baked and decorated cakes for wedding receptions, anniversaries and other celebrations.

Mary retired from teaching in 1973. She and Leland continued to live in a house across from the Milton College campus until the end of 2002 when they moved to Milton Senior Living. Leland died there on Christmas morning, 2003. Mary is survived by her sons, James Austin Skaggs of Madison, Wisconsin, and Samuel Bond Skaggs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and numerous nephews and nieces.

The funeral will be on Wednesday, December 23 at the Milton, Wisconsin, Seventh Day Baptist Church, with burial in the Milton Cemetery.

"To thee and thy mandates..."

Main Hall, Milton College

 

I attended Milton College in Milton, Wisconsin, as did my brother, father, grandfather, other relatives and many friends. My father and mother served on its faculty for many years. Dad was a professor of Mathematics, Registrar, Acting President, and then, at the end, manager of the college bookstore. Mom was Dean of Women for a time, and instructor of women's physical education. So all of the time I was growing up until I graduated in 1968 much of my life centered around the college — music recitals, Saturday night football and basketball, plays — especially the annual Shakespeare performance, and the library. The library was across the street from our house and I spent many, many hours there, first in the children's section, later graduating to general fiction, and then reading my way through the history books.

Milton was a small, liberal arts college, founded by Seventh Day Baptists, first as an academy in the 1840s and then chartered as a college soon after the Civil War. By the mid-Twentieth century its connection with the denomination had become tenuous and by the time I attended there was essentially none. The college expired in the 1980s, having acquired a lot of debt, never having had any endowment, and failing to find its role in the post Vietnam environment. The buildings are still there, all converted to new uses. This weekend my brother called my attention to a 1962 yearbook, from which these pictures are taken. They are of the old campus. By '62 quite a few new buildings had been added. [click on the images for much larger versions]

 

Main Hall, Milton College

 

The first two pictures are of Old Main, the oldest building on campus, part of which dates before the Civil War. The bell in the tower was rung every morning at 7:25. It was my alarm clock, growing up. It was also rung on important occasions — when a game was won, for instance, or when the budget for the year had been raised — thus ensuring another year of Milton College. Most of my history and political science classes were here.

Whitford Hall, Milton College - the college library

 

Whitford Hall was the location of the library until a new building went up while I was in college. The library where I spent so much time was on the first floor. The rest of the building was science classrooms and labs.

Brick walk to the Music Studio

 

The walk led from Main Hall up the hill to the Music Studio, where the music department had until very recently been located. The elms were all over campus and all over Milton — lining the walks and the streets. Dutch elm disease was about to take its toll. When it did, it entirely changed the feel both of the campus and the town.

"Our Colors" was the college song. This version comes from the Milton College Carmina, published in 1928. By the time I was a student the school colors had changed to blue and gold, but the rest of the words remained the same. The title of this post is taken from the first verse.

Faith in hard times

As my father walked to church one cold, winter Sabbath morning early in the 1930s in Milton, Wisconsin, he, along with the rest of the congregation found the Seventh Day Baptist church building burning. A chimney fire was apparently responsible. A few items, including the church records, were rescued, and some others, including a cracked church bell, were recovered, but the building was a total loss. It was the depths of the Great Depression but the members decided to build again - and to build with the best architecture, materials and craftsmanship they could manage. An experienced church architect was employed [one who had designed many Lutheran churches in the area] and plans were drawn. The conceptual drawing looked like this [click on the images to enlarge]:

Architect's rendering of the proposed building

Much of the work on the building was done by members. When this picture was taken, constuction was well underway:

The front of the sanctuary when completed:

This was the church building in which I worshipped while growing up - in fact, until well after I graduated from college. When I was young, the congregation still included many of those who had sacrificed in the most difficult economic times in order to create this place.

Although it has been modified in some ways since then, it remains a beautiful environment in which to worship.

Seventh Day Baptist History IV

“A Nation cannot long endure…”

1790 - 1865

From the beginning of the Republic until the end of the American Civil War, the great political and moral question was, in Lincoln’s words, whether the nation could “endure permanently half slave and half free.” Throughout the first half of the 19th century, the nation moved from political crisis to crisis as it attempted to accommodate increasingly incompatible positions about slavery. It was one of those questions not amenable to normal political compromise because of its fundamental moral implications.

The American Constitution provided for the end of the American slave trade and the British Empire abolished slavery in 1833. Most of the northern states had ended slavery by that time as well and a powerful political movement, motivated primarily by Christian moral conviction, was advocating the complete abolition of slavery in the United States.

Joseph Goodrich

Abolitionism. As the abolition of slavery became an important movement Seventh Day Baptists were not equivocal on the issue. As early as 1836, the General Conference resolved that:

“…we consider the practice of holding human beings as mere goods and chattel, entirely subject to the will of their masters…. is a practice forbidden by the law of God, at variance with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which no human legislation can render morally right - which no worldly considerations can justify - and which ought to be immediately abandoned.

Resolved, That the condition of more than two millions of native Americans, unrighteously held in bondage, demands the sympathies and prayers of citizens, who are commanded to "remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them."

Hosea Rood

Subsequent Conferences adopted resolutions that were explicitly abolitionist, for instance in 1849:

“…the sin of slavery is a high-handed outrage against the Majesty of Heaven and the Rights of Man, and that we have no fellowship with those who hold their fellow-men as slaves, or with those who aid or abet them.”

During those years the pages of the Sabbath Recorder were filled with accounts describing the iniquities of slavery and slave catchers. After passage of the Fugitive Slave Act which allowed the pursuit of slaves into free states in the North, Seventh Day Baptists were among the active supporters of the Underground Railway, assisting fugitives escaping to freedom in Canada.

Unlike many other denominations, Seventh Day Baptists had few churches in slave states, and so there was little division on the question. A member of the Lost Creek Church, in Virginia [soon to be West Virginia], owned slaves he had inherited and that elicited general condemnation from other Seventh Day Baptists.

W.C. Whitford

Civil War. When war finally came, Seventh Day Baptists served the Union cause. The student bodies of Milton and Alfred provided large numbers of volunteers, as did many of the churches, east and west. Alfred students were accompanied by the college president who served as chaplain. The president of Milton College, W.C. Whitford, traveled to northern Virginia to visit his students in the Army of the Potomac.

Historians debate whether those who fought for the United States were primarily motivated by a desire to preserve the Union or to abolish slavery. It would seem that for Seventh Day Baptists the causes were one and the same.

Source: Don Sanford, A People Speak Out Against Slavery, n.d.

The pictures are all Seventh Day Baptists: from the top, Joseph Goodrich, whose Milton House was a stop on the Underground Railway, Hosea W. Rood, taken at the end of the war, and W.C. Whitford, college president, who traveled to visit his students in the army.

The next in the series: "Seventh Day Baptist History V - An Era of Growth and Ferment

This series begins with: "Seventh Day Baptist History I - Seventh Day Baptist Origins"

Links to all of the posts about Seventh Day Baptist History can be found here.

This series of short summaries of Seventh Day Baptist history is part of a project undertaken for the Seventh Day Baptist Historical Society, which maintains its archives and a museum in Janesville, Wisconsin.