Weld then studied at Hamilton College in Clinton, Oneida County, New York. The famous evangelist Charles Finney was based in Oneida County, and while a student Weld must have attended some of Finney's many revivals, for he became Finney's disciple. In Utica, intellectual capital of western New York, center of abolitionism, and county seat of Oneida County, he met and became a good friend of Charles Stuart, an early abolitionist, who at that time (1822–1829) was head of the Utica Academy. They spent several years as members of Finney's "holy band" before he decided to become a preacher and in 1827 entered the Oneida Institute of Science and Industry in Whitesboro, New York, after first staying at the farmhouse of founder George Washington Gale in Western, New York, working in exchange for instruction. While at the Oneida Institute, he would spend two weeks at a time traveling about lecturing on the virtues of manual labor, temperance, and moral reform. "Weld...had both the stamina and charisma to hold listeners spellbound for three hours." As a result, by 1831 he had become a "well known citizen" of Oneida County, according to the "Utica Elucidator".