edifices, and instruction necessary for the rapidly increasing number of students.

A few years' experience showed that the location in the city was not sufficiently ample, and the observing eye of Dr. Nott, at an early period in his presidency, had noticed in the suburbs a better one that combined in a rare degree every advantage desirable. On the eastern border of the city the fields rose by a gentle slope to a plain of moderate elevation and of easy access. Near the upper edge of this slope the construction of a terrace a few feet high would afford a level campus of ample space and a site for buildings that would overlook the valley, the river, and the neighboring city, while northward glimpses of mountains blue from distance, and southwestward ranges of hills dividing the waters of the Mohawk and Susquehanna rivers would present a panorama of peculiar loveliness. A gently murmuring brook issuing from dense woodlands flowed across the grounds just north of the proposed site, and in the rear alternating fields and groves extended several miles eastward to the Hudson.

A half century later, in an address before the gathered alumni of Union who had met to celebrate the anniversary of his accession to the presidency, Dr. Nott thus spoke of the new college grounds:

Fifty years ago, having been charged with the supervision of Union College, I stood for the first time on yon rising grounds where the college edifices now stand. The same range of western hills, the same intervening luxuriant flats, and the same quiet river winding through fields of grain whitening for the harvest then met the eye; the same starry firmament overspread the night, and the same glorious sunlight rendered visible by day, in its general outline, the whole lovely valley of the Mohawk.

The immediate college grounds, however, now so symmetrical and ornate, were then mere pasture grounds, scarred by deep ravines, rendered at once unsightly and difficult of access by an alternation of swamp and sand hill, and the whole divided into numerous irregular compartments in evidence of different owner. ships. As yet neither shrub nor tree had been planted, walk traced, garden laid out, or edifice erected thereon.

A tract of some 250 acres was secured mainly on the responsibility of the president, and new buildings begun upon plans drawn by M. Joseph Jacques Ramée, a French engineer then eminent in this country and for a time employed by the National Government in planning fortifications and public works.

In 1890, in an old print shop in Paris, a Union College graduate of the class of 1880 discovered M. Ramée's original sketch of the ground plan of the college buildings and gardens. It bears the inscription, "College de l'Union à Schenectady, État de New Yorck, 1813," and is probably the original draft submitted by the architect to Dr. Nott. This plan has been very closely followed in the laying out of the grounds and the erection of the successive college buildings. It shows the ground plan of the main college buildings, north and south, the central circular building, not completed till 1876, and the projected semicircular building in the rear, which has still more recently

taken form in the Powers Memorial Building, finished in 1884. The two buildings at the ends of this semicircle, however, are still to be built. Nor has the lake in the "college pasture" or the Catholic cross in the garden shown on the Frenchman's plan yet materialized into being. The work of construction was begun in 1812, and the two main buildings finished in 1820, although one of them was occupied as early as 1814. These buildings were four stories high, 200 feet by 40 feet each, and cost about $110,000.

To meet this expense application was again made to the legislature in 1814. Dr. Nott was a power in Albany. His influence with legislators and before committees was another instance of that remarkable personal force which impressed itself upon all he met. Other colleges and institutions were before the legislature of 1814 as applicants for aid, but, satisfied that their unaided efforts would prove ineffectual, intrusted their cases to President Nott, who generously advocated their claims in the same breath with his own, and the benefits to Hamilton College, the College of Physicians and Surgeons, and the Asbury African Church in New York were included in the same grant as those to Union. Columbia College had introduced a bill intended to grant to that institution the celebrated Hosack Botanical Garden in New York. Convinced of the futility of their independent claim for aid, the Columbia managers withdrew their special bill and besought Dr. Nott to take up their appeal. This he did so generously and vigorously that the Columbia grant was attached as a "rider" to his own lottery bill, and went through with it. Thus, solely through the influence of the president of Union, Columbia received that magnificent property which to-day forms its principal endowment. The botanical garden granted to Columbia comprised 20 acres located between Fifth and Sixth avenues, Forty-seventh and Fifty-first streets, in New York City, then 34 miles out of town, but now the center of the wealth and population of the metropolis. In the same act which gave to Columbia the title to the botanical garden, it was provided, in recognition of the services of her sister college, that within one year from the passage of the act, at least one healthy exotic flower, shrub, or plant of each kind it contained in duplicate should be sent, with the jar containing it, to Union College. There is no record, however, that Columbia ever complied with this graceful suggestion for the recognition of Union's services in her behalf.

So marked was the influence of the distinguished clerical lobbyist in favor of the combination bill that at the close of the act in the official session laws of 1814 was printed this unprecedented note:

No bill before the legislature excited greater interest and attention than this act. Much credit is due to the unwearied exertions of the able and eloquent president of Union College in promoting its passage.

This lottery bill granted to Union College $200,000, to Hamilton College $40,000, to the College of Physicians and Surgeons $30,000,

and to the Asbury African Church in New York $4,000, with interest for six years.

But the managers of these lotteries, appointed by the act, were so remiss in selling the tickets that up to 1822 not a dollar of the principal had been paid to any of the beneficiaries.

Again, therefore, the good doctor betook himself to Albany, and on April 5, 1822, an act was passed "to limit the continuance of lotteries." It recited the delay in the conduct of the concern, and authorized the institutions themselves to take the management of the lotteries, direct the drawings, receive the avails, and pay the prizes. The other beneficiary institutions, having witnessed the failure of the lotteries. during the preceding eight years, took alarm at the responsibility this act devolved upon them, and refused to participate in the active management. Not so the president of Union. With the consent of his board of trustees, he bought out, for a satisfactory consideration, the interests of all the other institutions, for which he borrowed, on his own responsibility, $75,000, and assumed in his own person the entire management of this great hazard. It was this bold act and the transactions which followed it, which years later brought Union College into the courts and into legislative investigations, and which caused the motives and acts of the president to be sharply arraigned. From this consolidated lottery Union College received in all a sum of $277,000. Dr. Nott had sublet to Yates & McIntyre, a firm of brokers, the management of the lotteries, reserving to himself a percentage of the profits from such management, which were afterwards found to amount to $71,691.29. In order to save the firm of Yates & McIntyre from bankruptcy and from imperiling the college interests in the proceeds of the lottery, Dr. Nott had advanced the firm large sums of money by pledging his and his wife's property, and had taken as security a bond for $150,000, It was the ownership of these two sums which years later gave rise to the charges against the president. His enemies claimed that these profits and the bonds belonged to the college and not to the doctor personally. This claim was, however, never made by the college, but by newspapers and by outsiders. The charges were never credited by the friends of Dr. Nott, or by the college trustees. And the president had frequently announced his intention ultimately to appropriate every dollar that he derived as profits from the lottery transaction to the benefit of Union College, a promise which was eventually more than fulfilled.

In 1849 a resolution was introduced in the assembly requiring a report as to the financial condition of Union College. This was incited by the reports of newspapers hostile to Dr. Nott, charging that he had appropriated to his own use $560,000 of the funds of the college. A committee of the assembly made an examination of the books and reported that the "financial condition of the college was unsound and improper." This led, of course, to a thorough investi

gation, in which Hon. John C. Spencer, an old pupil of Dr. Nott, volunteered his services in behalf of his old instructor, and his masterly argument before the commission was so eloquent and convincing as to complete the vindication of his venerable instructor of other years, and to remove the odium from an honored name. Dr. Nott completed the discomfiture of his enemies by anticipating the report of the legislative committee and by executing a deed of trust which bestowed upon the college a property then estimated at over $600,000, an act which only the most malignant of his enemies persisted in characterizing as the discharge of a debt, and not as a donation. Certainly the college owes its high position among American colleges not only to the scholarship and the reputation of Eliphalet Nott, but also to his shrewdness, skill, and munificence it owes its largest endowment.

The tracing to their culmination of the lotteries and the difficulties engendered by them has caused a digression from the history of the college itself and its progress through these years. Notwithstanding the number and the intricacy of the outside matters which claimed his attention, Dr. Nott's first interests were in "his children," as his pupils were affectionately styled. From the time of the erection of the new college buildings on the hill the number of students steadily increased until in 1820 the number in all the classes exceeded 300, and the graduating class alone contained 65. In this class were several men who attained distinguished eminence, among whom were William H. Seward; Laurens P. Hickok, who long stood at the head of American metaphysicians; William Kent, one of New York's ablest jurists; Tayler Lewis, the greatest linguist and classical scholar of his age, and Rev. Dr. Horatio Foote. In 1825 Union had passed Harvard and Yale in the number of its students, and with the exception of a few intervening years held for a quarter century the honor of being the largest college in the United States. The fame of Dr. Nott as an educator, the high reputation of the college, the excellence of its system and management drew students from all parts of the country to Schenectady, and large numbers came from the lower classes of other institutions to obtain the benefit of President Nott's senior lectures and receive from his hand their diplomas. The president drew around him and kept as his coadjutors a remarkable body of faithful, energetic, and learned professors, and throughout President Nott's unprecedented administration of sixty-two years the college enjoyed the highest degree of prosperity.

In 1845 was celebrated with great enthusiasm the semicentennial anniversary of the founding of the college, for which, preparations had been made for two years previous. The occasion was one of general rejoicing and congratulation. Addresses were made by Rev. Dr. Joseph Sweetman, one of the first graduates, and by Dr. Alonzo 3176-14

and to the Asbury African Church in New York $4,000, with interest

for six years.

But the managers of these lotteries, appointed by the act, were so remiss in selling the tickets that up to 1822 not a dollar of the principal had been paid to any of the beneficiaries.

Again, therefore, the good doctor betook himself to Albany, and on April 5, 1822, an act was passed "to limit the continuance of lotteries." It recited the delay in the conduct of the concern, and authorized the institutions themselves to take the management of the lotteries, direct the drawings, receive the avails, and pay the prizes. The other beneficiary institutions, having witnessed the failure of the lotteries during the preceding eight years, took alarm at the responsibility this act devolved upon them, and refused to participate in the active management. Not so the president of Union. With the consent of his board of trustees, he bought out, for a satisfactory consideration, the interests of all the other institutions, for which he borrowed, on his own responsibility, $75,000, and assumed in his own person the entire management of this great hazard. It was this bold act and the transactions which followed it, which years later brought Union College into the courts and into legislative investigations, and which caused the motives and acts of the president to be sharply arraigned. From this consolidated lottery Union College received in all a sum of $277,000. Dr. Nott had sublet to Yates & McIntyre, a firm of brokers, the management of the lotteries, reserving to himself a percentage of the profits from such management, which were afterwards found to amount to $71,691.29. In order to save the firm of Yates & McIntyre from bankruptcy and from imperiling the college interests in the proceeds of the lottery, Dr. Nott had advanced the firm large sums of money by pledging his and his wife's property, and had taken as security a bond for $150,000. It was the ownership of these two sums which years later gave rise to the charges against the president. His enemies claimed that these profits and the bonds belonged to the college and not to the doctor personally. This claim was, however, never made by the college, but by newspapers and by outsiders. The charges were never credited by the friends of Dr. Nott, or by the college trustees. And the president had frequently announced his intention ultimately to appropriate every dollar that he derived as profits from the lottery transaction to the benefit of Union College, a promise which was eventually more than fulfilled.

In 1849 a resolution was introduced in the assembly requiring a report as to the financial condition of Union College. This was incited by the reports of newspapers hostile to Dr. Nott, charging that he had appropriated to his own use $560,000 of the funds of the college. A committee of the assembly made an examination of the books and reported that the "financial condition of the college was unsound and improper." This led, of course, to a thorough investi