Hamilton College is a private liberal arts college in Clinton, New York, United States. Hamilton began in 1793 as the Hamilton-Oneida Academy, a seminary founded by Rev. Samuel Kirkland, a Presbyterian minister, as part of his missionary work with the Oneida tribe. The seminary admitted both white 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 Academy became Hamilton College in 1812, making it the third oldest college in New York after Columbia and Union, after it expanded to a four-year college curriculum.