Food prices are soaring. Farmland has been abandoned. This may sound like news we read or hear about in 2008. However, these two issues were prominent in day-to-day life when the State School of Agriculture and Domestic Science at Morrisville was created in 1908. We know it today as the State University College of Agriculture and Technology at Morrisville.
The early 20th century was a time when food prices were steadily rising. James Wilson, secretary of agriculture under President Theodore Roosevelt, attributed the rises to a lack of direct contact that formerly existed between a producer and consumer, therefore putting the consumer at the mercy of the middleman, considered by many as the villain of the time, because a few had unscrupulous practices.
Additionally, farmland had been abandoned. There had been a widespread belief that the soils in the eastern states had been permanently decreased in their productive possibilities.
John A. Stewart was born and brought up in Morrisville and was a major promoter of the new School of Agriculture. Stewart viewed the school as a model of an educational plan to increase agricultural production.
Stewart, like several others, felt that the local soils were fine and that with proper education and training for farmers and their wives, the best of the abandoned land could be put back into use. This in turn would bring down the cost of food.
As a result of this line of thinking, new state Schools of Agriculture were built in areas where land abandonment was the highest. These areas included Cobleskill, Delhi, Canton and Alfred, as well as Morrisville.
Another factor that played into the new schools was the criticism from the New York State Grange being given to the state about the funding invested each year for construction at the College of Agriculture at Cornell University.
They felt few graduates were actually becoming farmers. Few students could afford the Cornell education.
An alternative, less-expensive and closer-to-home education won the favor of the state decision-makers.
It was a day of exuberant celebration in Morrisville on May 6, 1908, when Gov. Charles Evans Hughes signed a bill to appropriate $20,000 to establish a school in the village. The college opened its doors on Oct. 27, 1910.
Arthur L. Hicks wrote in the 1959 Morrisville Arcadian: "Cannons were fired and church bells were rung; fireworks and bonfires were lighted at night. The village band paraded up and down the streets. It was a happy day indeed, portending a bright future for a town which only two years earlier was talking ghost town."
The new college saved Morrisville from fading into obscurity. Morrisville had been the seat of Madison County since 1817. But at the beginning of the 20th century, a feeling was growing that the county seat should be located in the more populated northern section.
The towns of Oneida and Canastota were most active in seeking the new county seat. It was on Nov. 5, 1907, when the voters of Madison County voted to transfer the county seat to Wampsville "" midway between Oneida and Canastota.
Disappointed Morrisville residents were thrilled when Stewart, then a New York City businessman, began his work to establish a school in his old hometown. The vacant county buildings would go on to be used in the earliest years of the college.
Morrisville's first graduating class was in 1912, consisting of 11 men and two women. Just as any other college in the SUNY system, Morrisville experienced unprecedented growth from 1957 to 1978.
It was in 1969 that the college established a branch campus in Norwich. Classes were originally held at the Norwich High School.
Today the Norwich campus serves 500 students and has its own state-of-the-art facility, Follett Hall, adjacent to the Eaton Center in downtown Norwich.
Today, SUNY Morrisville offers more than 70 specialized associate and bachelor's degree programs, and enrolls about 3,300 students.
On Monday: A very sweet train wreck in Hamilton.
City Historian Mark Simonson's column appears twice weekly. On Saturdays, his column focuses on the area during the Depression and before. His Monday columns address local history after the Depression. If you have feedback or ideas about the column, write to him at The Daily Star, or e-mail him at simmark@stny.rr.com. His website is www.oneontahistorian.com.
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