Bound Volumes, Hometown History

November 9, 2023

40 Years Ago
Hartwick College has received a collection of letters, some written by the Rev. John Christopher Hartwick, a Lutheran minister who bequeathed his estate for the formation of a religious seminary near Cooperstown, which was the forerunner of the college now located on Oyaron Hill in Oneonta. The letters were given to Hartwick College by Yale University. “We’re extremely pleased that Yale officials have given them to us so that they can be part of the documentation of our history,” said Jane Des Grange, director of museums at Hartwick College. Hartwick, who was born in what is now East Germany, preached in the central New York area during the Revolutionary War era. When he died in 1796, he left his estate for the establishment of a Lutheran Seminary. The school became the first Lutheran Seminary in the United States.

November 1983

30 Years Ago
For Stan Sessions, phone calls are passé and letter writing is practically a lost art. When it comes to correspondence, he lets his computer do the talking. “No one is paying attention to memos and letters anymore,” says Sessions, a biology professor at Hartwick College in Oneonta. “They figure if it’s important enough, it’ll be on e-mail.” E-mail, or electronic mail, is becoming the dominant mode of communication at colleges, schools, and big business. It has the immediacy of a telephone call and the hard-copy capabilities of a letter and could be a way of life for the masses by the 21st century. Electronic mail began 15 years ago when the first bulletin board services (BBS) were created as local message centers for a handful of computer users. The number of BBS users in the U.S. has reached about 500,000 and some estimates expect that to climb to as many as 20 million by the year 2000.

November 1993

20 Years Ago
The Rev. Mitchell Spring, pastor of Spirit and Truth Christian Assembly, is lecturing at Hartwick College on “End Time Bible Prophecies.” Pastor Spring will appear in Room 202 of Miller Hall on Thursdays, November 6, 13 and 23 beginning at 7 p.m. The meetings are free and open to all.
Geshe Thupten Kunsang, who was in Oneonta for the Buddhism Semester at Hartwick College in 2000, is visiting the area. Kunsang will be available for appointments before November 19 and will return for teachings on the first stages of Lam Rim in late December.

November 2003