History
Hamilton began in 1793 as the Hamilton-Oneida Academy, a seminary founded by Samuel Kirkland as part of his missionary work with the Oneida tribe. The seminary admitted both European-American and Oneida boys. Kirkland named it in honor of Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, who was a member of the first Board of Trustees of the Hamilton-Oneida Academy.
The institution was chartered as Hamilton College in 1812, making it the third oldest college established in New York after Columbia and Union. It had expanded to a four-year college curriculum.
In 1978, the all-male Hamilton College merged with the women's Kirkland College, founded by Hamilton in the 1960s and located adjacent to it. The primary public reason for the merger was Kirkland's imminent insolvency, as women's colleges had become less popular after the rise of the women's movement and other social changes. It took nearly 7 years to complete the merger; women students were given the option of receiving a Kirkland diploma instead of a Hamilton diploma until 1979.
The original Hamilton campus is referred to by students and some school literature as the "light side" or "north side" of the campus. Formerly, the original side of campus was referred to as the "Stryker Campus" after its former president, Melancthon Woolsey Stryker (or incorrectly "Striker Campus"). On the other side of College Hill Road, the original Kirkland campus is referred to as the "dark side" or as the "south side."
Since the 1970s, Hamilton has been a member of the New England Small College Athletic Conference (or the NESCAC) (despite technically being located outside of New England). This conference also includes Amherst, Bates, Bowdoin, Colby, Connecticut College, Middlebury, Trinity, Tufts, Wesleyan, and Williams. Rivalries with many of these schools, Middlebury in particular, predate the establishment of the conference.
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