W. H. Johnson 
55 
Tradition represents him as a man of genial temperament, with 
a keen sense of humor, and an energetic worker, exercising a 
strong influence for good in the college and the community. And 
the annals of the Baptist denomination show that his influence 
was weighty in its religious and educational activities through- 
out the country. Before coming to Denison he had been espe- 
cially active in organizing the Home Mission work of the denom- 
ination, and this had impressed him with the need of better 
educated men, not only in the ministry but among the laity as 
well. And his sympathies extended beyond his denomination, 
since he had served as one of the original board of trustees of 
Amherst College. 
After a vacancy of more than a year, the Brown tradition 
was continued in the selection of the Rev. Silas Bailey, a grad- 
uate in the class of 1834. During his term of service the lack 
of funds still made it necessary for the President to teach flve 
or six hours each day, and he also served most of the time as 
acting Pastor of the Baptist church. There are still those in 
the community who remember him as a pulpit orator of great 
power, but his influence was finally undermined by the belief that 
he was favorably inclined to a proposition to remove the college 
to another part of the state. Such favor as he had shown to 
this proposition was not really discreditable to him, since it was 
merely the result of the inability, so far, to secure adequate 
financial support for the college at Granville. But the move- 
ment failed, and the feeling which it had engendered led inev- 
itably to his resignation, in 1853, and to a material loss from 
the student body. 
A convention of Ohio Baptists had been held to consider 
the question of removal of the college. In that convention the 
Rev. Jeremiah Hall, then pastor of the Granville Baptist church, 
made a motion that the friends of Granville be given six months 
to raise for the college the sum of $50,000, one-half to be sub- 
scribed within the county, and that in case of the success of 
this effort all agitation for removal should cease. The motion 
was adopted, Dr. Hall was chosen to the presidency which Dr. 
Bailey had resigned, and the money was duly raised. The loca- 
tion of the college on a farm, a mile or more from the village, 
had been one of the objections raised in the effort for removal, 
and it was at this time that the present site was secured and the 
