School relocates, including its name, to the hometown of Professor Smith to Fairfax, Vermont in 1852
After decades of growth under the leadership of Professor Eli B. Smith, D.D., financial constraints led the school to the brink. Failure to build an endowment and dwindling support from NH Calvinist Baptists ended in the relocation of the school, including its name, to the hometown of Professor Smith, Fairfax, Vermont in 1852. What remained in NH were empty buildings, the two literary societies, who, with their substantial libraries, voted to “remain forever at New Hampton,” and a town that daily felt the loss of an exciting intellectual and social center in its midst. Under the local leadership of Rufus G. Lewis, Henry Y. Simpson, Augustus Burpee, and others – and with a new alliance with the Freewill Baptists – a charter was obtained from the State Legislature to establish The New Hampton Literary and Biblical Institute. Buildings were relocated from the old “Center” (where the Town House stands today) to the “Village” (the current campus). As Lewis’ son, Edwin C. Lewis, recorded fifty years later, “the school was founded by New Hampton people; they patronized it, improved it, and contributed to its support; they saw to it that the school was supported both before church help was advanced and after it was withdrawn.”
