1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Hamilton (New York)

HAMILTON, a village of Madison county, New York, U.S.A., about 29 m. S.W. of Utica. Pop. (1890), 1744; (1900), 1627; (1905) 1522; (1910) 1689. It is served by the New York, Ontario & Western railway. Hamilton is situated in a productive agricultural region, and has a large trade in hops; among its manufactures are canned vegetables, lumber and knit goods. There are several valuable stone quarries in the vicinity. The village owns and operates its water-supply and electric-lighting system. Hamilton is the seat of Colgate University, which was founded in 1819, under the name of the Hamilton Literary and Theological Institution, as a training school for the Baptist ministry, was chartered as Madison University in 1846, and was renamed in 1890 in honour of the Colgate family, several of whom, especially William (1783–1857), the soap manufacturer, and his sons, James Boorman (1818–1904), and Samuel (1822–1897), were its liberal benefactors. In 1908–1909 it had a university faculty of 33 members, 307 students in the college, 60 in the theological department, and 134 in the preparatory department, and a library of 54,000 volumes, including the Baptist Historical collection (about 5000 vols.) given by Samuel Colgate. The township in which the village is situated and which bears the same name (pop. in 1910, 3825) was settled about 1790 and was separated from the township of Paris in 1795. The village was incorporated in 1812.