HISTORY 
 
 COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY, 
 
 FROM ITS ORIGIN IN 1746 TO THE COMMENCEMENT OF 1854. 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN MACLEAN, 
 
 TENTH PRESIDENT OF THE COLLEGE. 
 
 VOLUME I. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 
 
 1877.
 
 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1877, by 
 
 JOHN MACLEAN. 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CAUFORfl 
 SANTA B All J Alt A COLLEGE LIBRA] 
 
 Y.I 
 
 TO 
 
 JAMES LENOX, ESQUIRE, LL.D., 
 
 WHOSE MUNIFICENCE TO THE COLLEGE 
 
 DURING THE AUTHOR'S ADMINISTRATION 
 
 GIVES HIM A CLAIM TO THE GRATITUDE 
 OF ALL ITS FRIENDS, 
 
 THIS HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY 
 
 IS MOST RESPECTFULLY 
 
 DEDICATED.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THE plan of this work will be seen at once by a glance at the 
 table of contents. 
 
 In his letter to the Trustees resigning the office of President, 
 the writer mentioned that it was his purpose to devote a portion 
 of his time to the collecting of materials for a history of the Col- 
 lege. Accordingly, the earlier portions of his manuscripts were 
 labelled " materials for a history." But, learning that his former 
 colleagues, and also the friends of the College generally, looked 
 to him to set in order and to publish, as well as to collect, the 
 requisite facts for a history of the institution, he determined to 
 do what he could in this direction ; and the following volumes 
 are the result. 
 
 This statement will account, in a measure, for whatever lack 
 there may be of a proper grouping of the incidents given in the 
 narratives of the different administrations. 
 
 Several important matters, which at the first he intended to 
 introduce into this work, have been omitted, for the reason that 
 they have already been given to the public, viz., sketches of the 
 two literary societies of the College, and brief notices of the 
 more distinguished graduates. The Histories of the Societies, 
 by Professors Giger and Cameron, and the work of the Rev. Dr. 
 Samuel D. Alexander, entitled " Princeton College during the 
 Eighteenth Century," have happily relieved the writer from any 
 obligation to attempt what these gentlemen have done so well ; 
 and it is earnestly hoped that Dr. Alexander's work may be so 
 enlarged as to include at least the graduates of the first half of 
 the nineteenth century. 
 
 In this work the writer has had in view two classes of readers : 
 one being those friends of the College who wish to have a general 
 
 5
 
 6 PREFACE. 
 
 knowledge of the institution, viz., of its origin, its design, its 
 methods of instruction, and its success ; and the other consisting 
 of those who desire to know more fully the various measures 
 adopted from time to time to attain the ends sought; and a 
 knowledge of which maybe of special use to those whose duty 
 it is to watch over the institution, and to whom a detail, to some 
 extent, of the various doings of the Trustees and of the Faculty 
 in times past may be of assistance in determining their own 
 course of action. To many of the graduates, too, it may be a 
 matter of interest to have an authentic account of the views and 
 plans of the Trustees in different periods of the history of the 
 College ; and for them numerous extracts are given from the 
 Minutes of the Board and from other documents. 
 
 To meet these different views, the writer has adopted the plan 
 of having the work printed with two different sets of type, in 
 the smaller of which most of the extracts from minutes and 
 public records will be printed. The rest of the work will be 
 in larger type, and of itself will form a narrative suited to the 
 class of readers first spoken of. 
 
 Another object aimed at in giving the official statements is 
 to secure their preservation in case the volumes containing 
 them should be lost or destroyed. 
 
 The citations from the College records are in some cases fol- 
 lowed by an expression of the writer's own views in reference 
 to the matters therein mentioned. 
 
 Had the writer's health permitted it, he would have devoted 
 some time to a thorough revision of this work, omitting some 
 parts and rewriting others, in the hope of thereby making the 
 entire work more acceptable to the reader; but, his age and 
 health forbidding this, it must go to the press as it is. He is 
 not, however, without hope that, whatever may be its defects, 
 he has clearly shown that it was the design of the founders 
 of the College, and of their successors in office, to make the 
 institution one devoted to the upbuilding of the Redeemer's 
 kingdom, by promoting the advancement of piety and learning 
 in happy union. 
 
 For reasons which will readily occur to the mind of the reader, 
 this history is brought down only to the date of the writer's
 
 PREFACE. 7 
 
 inauguration as President. It would give him sincere pleasure 
 to bring mtofull view the valuable services rendered by all his 
 colleagues, and especially by those associated with him in the 
 instruction and government of the institution from the begin- 
 ning of his presidency to its close; but the limit which he has 
 assigned himself prevents this from being done. Doubtless 
 some other annalist of the College will give such a record of 
 the labors of those who contributed so greatly to its success 
 from 1854 to 1868, during which period the number of under- 
 graduates increased from two hundred and forty-seven to three 
 hundred and fourteen, as was the case in 1 860-61 ; and although 
 these numbers, in consequence of the civil war, were reduced 
 in 1 86 1-2 to about two hundred and twenty, yet in 1868, the 
 last year of the writer's connection with the College, they again 
 reached two hundred and sixty-four, with a fair prospect of a 
 still larger increase in the course of the ensuing year, the num- 
 ber of new students for the College year of 1867-68 being one 
 hundred and eleven, of whom one hundred and five entered 
 College the first term of that year. 
 
 At different periods in the history of the College the cur- 
 riculum has varied more or less, and greater prominence was 
 given to one class of studies than to another; and in the period 
 just referred to, the course of study, religious and secular, was 
 considerably enlarged, and the requirements for admission to 
 the first degree in the Arts kept pace with the progress of learn- 
 ing. With the exception of the French and German languages, 
 the study of which was optional, all the branches of knowledge 
 taught in the College were made parts of the regular course, 
 which every student was required to pursue. 
 
 Of the condition of the College finances during the same 
 period, viz., from 1854 to 1868, while the subject is yet fresh in 
 his mind, the writer deems it due to some of his friends to say 
 in this connection a few words. 
 
 Within the time here mentioned, and the year preceding, 
 viz., the last year of Dr. Carnahan's administration, after paying 
 all the ordinary and contingent expenses of the College, and 
 those incurred in the rebuilding of Nassau Hall in 1855-56, the 
 actual increase in \\\Q funds vested in bonds, mortgages, and public
 
 8 PREFACE. 
 
 securities, and mainly through the efforts of Professors Hope and 
 Atwater, was not less than two hundred and forty thousand 
 dollars. Of this sum, one hundred and fifteen thousand dol- 
 lars were contributed for professorships, over fifty-five thousand 
 dollars for scholarships, about sixty-four thousand dollars for 
 general purposes, and six thousand dollars for prizes. 
 
 From a gift and a bequest by the late Dr. John N. Woodhull, 
 of Princeton, to found a professorship, the College became the 
 owner of all his houses and lots adjacent to the College grounds, 
 and extending on William Street from the road or path west 
 of Dickinson Hall to Washington Street, with the exception of 
 a small house and lot purchased by the College a year or two 
 before, and on Washington Street from the corner of William 
 and Washington Streets to Nassau, on the main street of Prince- 
 ton, the corner house and lot on Nassau Street included; the 
 estimated value at that time being twenty thousand dollars. 
 Since then this property has greatly increased in value. 
 
 The house and lot on William Street, mentioned as having 
 been purchased by the College, cost between one and two 
 thousand dollars. 
 
 This increase in the real estate and in the other permanent 
 funds of the College is exclusive of the first ten thousand dol- 
 lars given in 1865 by General N. N. Halsted for the erection of 
 the Astronomical Observatory, which was completed by him in 
 1872, at an expense of fifty thousand dollars; exclusive, too, of 
 the sum of five 'thousand five hundred dollars expended by the 
 College in the purchase of the site on which the Observatory 
 stands, of which sum three thousand dollars were a bequest 
 by the Rev. Dr. C. Van Rensselaer towards the establishment of 
 an Observatory; exclusive also of the sixteen thousand dollars 
 given in 1866 by John C. Green, Esq., for the purchase of the 
 lots on which " Dickinson Hall" was built by him three or four 
 years after; and of the further gift of one hundred thousand 
 dollars in the spring of 1868 by the same gentleman. It is 
 also exclusive of the thirty-eight thousand dollars, over and 
 above the twelve thousand dollars insurance, expended in the 
 rebuilding and enlarging of "Nassau Hall" in 1855-56; of 
 which sum eighteen thousand dollars were gifts and twenty
 
 PREFACE. 9 
 
 thousand dollars the excess of the receipts above the ordinary 
 expenses of the College from 1854 to 1860. The aggregate of 
 the above sums is four hundred and thirty thousand dollars, 
 of which more than four hundred thousand dollars were gifts 
 or bequests. Besides the above, there were three bequests 
 amounting to sixteen thousand dollars, which have been paid 
 since 1868; and another bequest of thirty thousand dollars, a 
 vested legacy (to found a professorship), not yet- due, but the 
 payment of which was made sure by the donor. 
 
 It was the intention of the donors that these several bequests 
 should be made parts of a permanent endowment; and if they 
 be added to the above they will make the increase in this class 
 of funds from July, 1853, to J u ^y 1868, not less than four hun- 
 dred and seventy-six thousand dollars. 
 
 During this period the President's house and a house occu- 
 pied by one of the Professors were also enlarged and improved, 
 at an expense of several thousand dollars, which without any 
 impropriety might have been added to the above amount. And 
 within the same time two other friends of the College in their 
 respective wills made provision for the endowment by each of 
 them of a professorship, which at a future day will doubtless be 
 established and the original bequests enlarged. In addition to 
 the sums above mentioned as contributed to the permanent funds, 
 nine thousand dollars were given towards the current expenses 
 of the College, viz., five thousand dollars, in ten semi-annual in- 
 stalments of five hundred dollars each, to aid in establishing a 
 professorship of Mental and Moral Philosophy, fifteen hundred 
 dollars for the professorship of Geology and Physical Geogra- 
 phy, and twenty-five hundred dollars to meet a deficiency in 
 the income of the College consequent on losses during the first 
 year of the late civil war. Several thousand dollars were also 
 given to an association formed for the purpose of aiding indi- 
 gent and worthy young men, without respect to the particular 
 professions to which they proposed to devote themselves. This 
 fund has already rendered valuable, assistance to as many as 
 thirty students of the College. 
 
 To what extent the College was indebted to its then Treasurer, 
 the late Governor Charles S. Olden, for the above-mentioned
 
 10 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 gifts of the late John C. Green, Esq., will appear from the fol- 
 lowing correspondence, begun on the 4th of August, 1866, very 
 nearly two years before the end of the writer's administration. 
 This difference of dates will account for one or two seeming 
 discrepancies between the writer's statement and that of the 
 Governor's in regard to the College finances. 
 
 Governor Olden's letter to Mr. Green : 
 
 "PRINCETON, August 4, 1866. 
 
 " JOHN C. GREEN, ESQ. : 
 
 " DEAR SIR, In the age in which we live, whatever has a 
 tendency to improve agriculture and manufactures and advance 
 useful science is attracting the attention of the best men of the 
 civilized world. The urgent necessity of thoroughly educating 
 a large portion of the youth in those branches termed 'Applied 
 Science' is apparent. This necessity has led to the establishment 
 of many private schools and academies in which these subjects 
 receive special attention, and it has led to the organization by 
 most of the principal colleges of the country of departments 
 in which these subjects are thoroughly taught. Several of the 
 prominent colleges of New England have recently established 
 such departments, and where already in existence they have 
 been greatly enlarged. The college at Easton, Pennsylvania, 
 has by the contributions of the citizens of that State organized 
 a department of'* Applied Science.' So also has Rutgers Col- 
 lege, at New Brunswick, in this State. And a college is started 
 at Allentown [Bethlehem], Pennsylvania, through the munifi- 
 cence of Judge Packer, to be under Episcopal influence, in 
 which these are to be prominently taught. This gives those in- 
 stitutions advantages over the College of New Jersey, and has 
 already drawn away some of her students and deterred others 
 from coming. The Faculty realizing this, and unwilling this 
 time-honored institution should lose the position (so long occu- 
 pied) among the foremost in the United States, drew a paper 
 which was laid before the Trustees, setting forth what they 
 thought should be taught in the department of ' Applied Sci- 
 ence,' and what was needed to carry it into effect. A copy of
 
 PREFACE. u 
 
 this is enclosed herewith, and I have noted on it some changes 
 that could, I think, be advantageously made. 
 
 "Your brother, the Chancellor, is one of the oldest and most 
 influential Trustees, and always manifested great interest in the 
 College. His attention had been for some time directed to this 
 subject, and in conversation with him about a year ago he told 
 me that on a recent visit to Princeton -he had looked at the land 
 owned by the College, with the view of ascertaining whether 
 there was any eligible site for a building suitable for a scientific 
 department. I gave him some information about lands adjoin- 
 ing the College property, which induced him to ask me to furnish 
 him with some maps, etc., and ascertain the price for which the 
 land referred to could be obtained, in order that he might fully 
 understand the matter. Some time after, I did so, and told him 
 that I had obtained a refusal of the property until the first of 
 January next (now last). His official business was at this time 
 very engrossing, and I forbore saying anything further to him 
 on the subject until the expiration of the time for which I had 
 the refusal of the property, when he informed me that he had 
 not had leisure to give the subject the attention he desired, but 
 would do so ere long. With some difficulty I got the time ex- 
 tended (for which I had the refusal) one month ; but before I 
 saw him again he was taken sick, and I have not since thought 
 it proper to call his attention to it, as he had more requiring his 
 supervision than the state of his health warranted. In our first 
 conversation he intimated, as I understood him, that he believed 
 you felt interested in Princeton College, and possibly, if satisfied 
 that decided good could be effected, this subject might be con- 
 sidered by you favorably. I am emboldened by this allusion 
 to you to lay this matter before you; and I have no doubt that, 
 if known to him, my doing so would meet his approval. I 
 send you herewith a copy of the map furnished the Chancellor, 
 giving a sketch of the property now owned by the College, and 
 of that which it is desirable to obtain in order to carry out 
 the plan of a scientific department properly, also the prices at 
 which I had the refusal of the several parcels making up the 
 plot. 
 
 " You are aware that the College of New Jersey is among the
 
 I2 PREFACE. 
 
 oldest institutions of the kind in the United States, two only 
 (or at most three) being older, and yet it has had less outside 
 assistance by far than any of the other prominent ones. It has 
 struggled along, relying on its own resources almost entirely, 
 until within a few years, when several friends have come to its 
 aid. In 1844, when I became particularly acquainted with its 
 financial condition, it had a charitable fund of about twelve 
 thousand dollars, and all the other funds belonging to it, after 
 paying its debts, did not exceed one hundred dollars. Its 
 finances improved somewhat between this time and 1855, when 
 the main building of the College was burned. It was insured 
 for twelve thousand dollars ; about eighteen thousand were 
 contributed by sundry persons towards rebuilding it, and the 
 balance of the fifty thousand dollars which it cost to erect it 
 was supplied by the savings of the business of the College the 
 previous and the succeeding five years, during which its affairs 
 were quite prosperous.* 
 
 " A short time before this event, an effort had been commenced 
 to raise a sum by establishing scholarships, of one thousand 
 dollars each, to aid in educating destitute young men intended 
 for the ministry, and, in some cases, others. This effort was 
 continued through several years, and was quite successful, 
 realizing over fifty thousand dollars. 
 
 "In the year 1862 it became apparent that the loss of the 
 Southern students in consequence of the rebellion, and the in- 
 creased cost of living, required an increase of the Professors' 
 salaries ; and, as the College could not get on with the means 
 then at command, an effort was in consequence made to se- 
 cure what was termed an ' Endowment Fund.' Over sixty-five 
 thousand dollars were subscribed and paid to the College, and 
 one professorship of thirty thousand dollars and one of thirty- 
 five thousand dollars were also established. A professorship 
 of twenty-five thousand dollars had been formed some years 
 before by the united contributions of a number of individuals, 
 and there is a probability that another will be secured ere long. 
 The whole funds of the College now amount to about two hun- 
 
 * These six years were the first six years of Dr. Maclean's administration.
 
 PREFACE. j^ 
 
 dred and forty thousand dollars,* which it is believed is securely 
 invested at an interest averaging seven per cent, per annum. 
 As at present situated, and with a continuance of the number 
 of students in attendance the last three years, the income and 
 the expenses of the College are about equal. There is little 
 or nothing left at the close of each year with which to make 
 improvements or to enlarge the operations of the institution. 
 When the resources of the College are compared with those of 
 other prominent colleges of the country, it is astonishing that 
 it has been able to maintain its established reputation. While 
 Harvard and Yale each have funds amounting to millions of 
 dollars, and colleges of less note quadruple of those of Prince- 
 ton, it has required all the talent of the Faculty and Trustees of 
 Princeton College to maintain her reputation ; and without fur- 
 ther aid it will probably be impossible for them to do it much 
 longer. For some reason, after the College of New Jersey was 
 fairly in operation, it appears to have been taken for granted 
 that it needed no further assistance. It received nothing, com- 
 paratively, until within a few years, while other colleges have 
 been the recipients of munificent gifts. Other States have made 
 liberal appropriations to their colleges. New Jersey, though 
 solicited, has done nothing in aid of that which for many years 
 was her only one. Individuals appear to have forgotten her 
 altogether. Mr. James Lenox, of New York, is an exception, 
 and had it not been for his liberality the College would have 
 been seriously embarrassed. At a later period other friends of 
 the institution have contributed liberally and made up what is 
 the present fund. The great importance of the College, its in- 
 fluence for good to the country generally and the Presbyterian 
 Church in particular, have not, I think, been duly considered. 
 
 * This sum does not include the notes of the late Captain Silas Holmes, of New 
 York, amounting to thirty thousand dollars, given by him to found a professorship 
 and five scholarships, the principal payable at the option of the donor, the interest 
 at six/<?r cent, payable on the 1st of January and the 1st of July in each year. Cap- 
 tain Holmes died before the date of this letter, and, as the payment of the principal 
 was not at that time fully secured by bond and mortgage, Governor Olden did not 
 reckon the notes of Captain Holmes as a part of the vested funds of the College.
 
 !4 PREFACE. 
 
 " Princeton stands alone as having for more than a century 
 taught nothing in Theology but the purest doctrines, as under- 
 stood by the Old School branch of the Presbyterian Church, 
 and, pursuing the same course unwaveringly, is at this time 
 doing more probably for the cause of sound principles and true 
 religion than any institution in the land ; in evidence of which 
 it may be stated that two-thirds of all the students in College 
 during the last session were professors of religion, the greater 
 portion of whom became such after entering. The opportunity 
 afforded of making lasting impressions on the minds of youth 
 at a period when they are most impressible is nowhere more 
 fully understood or diligently improved than by the President 
 and Professors of this College. While errorists abound and 
 are zealous in disseminating heterodoxy over the land, the in- 
 fluence for good of the band of young men yearly passing out 
 from 'the College of New Jersey' is incalculable. We need 
 only look over the country and observe what men are giving 
 direction to public sentiment, to see how mighty the influence 
 exercised by it. In the pulpit her graduates are unsurpassed 
 for learning and piety. In the Senate of the United States (the 
 only men in that body whom no one ventured to approach with 
 business on the Sabbath were Frelinghuysen and Berrien, both 
 graduates of Princeton), in Congress, on the bench of the Su- 
 preme Court, in the State Courts (all the Chancellors of the 
 State under the present Constitution were graduates of this 
 College), and of eminent and influential men, there are more in 
 proportion to the number of graduates who are from Princeton 
 than from any other institution in this country. But I will not 
 enlarge further on the importance of the College. My object 
 is, principally, to inform you that those best able to judge think 
 that a department of 'Applied Science' is very much needed 
 to enable her to keep her standard of instruction equal to that 
 of other prominent institutions. Knowing that you are a Jer- 
 seyman, and believing you are interested in all that concerns 
 our native State, I do not doubt that you sympathize with those 
 who congratulate themselves on having at least one institution 
 in New Jersey of which they are proud. Should you feel suf- 
 ficient interest in the matter to induce you to desire further in-
 
 PREFACE. !5 
 
 formation, I will cheerfully give it; or can you not make me a 
 visit, and I could point out the localities and explain everything 
 more fully here than elsewhere? If you should incline to come, 
 let me know a few days before, as I should regret being absent. 
 No one connected with the College knows that I am writing to 
 you, and you can, if you desire it, be entirely private while here. 
 "Trusting that you will not consider me intrusive in address- 
 ing you, I am, very respectfully, 
 
 " Yours, etc., 
 
 "CHAS. S. OLDEN." 
 
 Copies of two letters of the same date from John C. Green, 
 Esq., to the Hon. Charles S. Olden : 
 
 " NEW YORK, December 24, 1870. 
 
 " HON. CHARLES S. OLDEN, Princeton, New Jersey : 
 
 " MY DEAR SIR, I have your letter of the 23d instant, ac- 
 companying the final accounts of the cost of Dickinson Hall 
 and the grounds pertaining thereto. 
 
 " Herewith I hand you my check on the National Bank of 
 Commerce, in New York, payable to your order, for ten thou- 
 sand and ninety-seven dollars and twenty-nine cents ($10,097.29), 
 which is the balance represented in said accounts to be due to 
 the College of New Jersey. 
 
 '' It was my intention to leave the provisions of the Elizabeth 
 Endowment absolutely to you and my brother, the Chancellor. 
 I have not the deed at hand, and cannot, therefore, express an 
 intelligent opinion on the point regarding which you ask my 
 'further directions.' I leave it to your own judgment, and 
 whatever your decision may be I now confirm it. 
 
 " This letter is official. I write another of a personal character, 
 which is due to the occasion, but which, for want of time, may 
 not reach you by this mail. 
 
 " Very truly yours, 
 
 " JNO. C. GREEN." 
 
 "NEW YORK, December 24, 1870. 
 " Hox. CHARLES S. OLDEN, Princeton : 
 
 " MY DEAR SIR, I have already acknowledged the receipt of
 
 !6 PREFACE. 
 
 your letter of the 23d instant, and complied with its business 
 requirements. Now I propose to add what the occasion calls 
 for besides. 
 
 " Your letter of August 4, 1866, now lies before me, and has 
 just been reperused. This was the beginning of our corre- 
 spondence on the subject of the affairs of the College of New 
 Jersey, and the origin of all that I have done for the institution. 
 
 " My belief in the fulness of your knowledge, and confidence 
 in your judgment and public spirit, led me to consider your 
 opinions with more than ordinary care, and to examine anew 
 the claims of the College to public aid. My brother Henry 
 was absent in Europe. On his return, consultation with him 
 confirmed my own favorable conclusions, and induced me to 
 enter upon the work which has just been finished. Its subse- 
 quent conduct having been intrusted absolutely to my brother 
 and yourself.no cause of anxiety was allowed to remain lest the 
 money bestowed should be extravagantly or unwisely disbursed. 
 
 " The first proposed contract, which was not executed, 
 strengthened my conviction that a restraining and controlling 
 power was needed other than that of the official authorities. 
 With the prosecution and completion of the undertaking I am 
 fully satisfied, and beg you, my dear sir, to accept my hearty 
 thanks for your ready acceptance of the trust, and for the fidelity, 
 wisdom, and success with which it has been discharged. 
 
 " My pleasure is enhanced by the consideration that a tried 
 and valued friend has crowned a life of honor and usefulness by 
 rendering this (among other important services running through 
 a long course of years) important aid to an eminent institution 
 of learning which confers blessings on the State and the world. 
 " I remain, my dear sir, very faithfully, your friend, 
 
 " JNO. C. GREEN." 
 
 In preparing this history, the author has availed himself of 
 all the sources of information within his reach, and, except 
 through some inadvertence, he has not failed to refer to his 
 authorities and to name the authors from whom he had occa- 
 sion to cite either passages or facts. Among these, and chiefly, 
 are:
 
 PREFACE. I7 
 
 The College Records. 
 
 The Minutes of the Synods of New York and of Philadelphia. 
 
 The Diary, in manuscript, of President Davies, during his visit to Great Britain 
 in behalf of the College in 1753-4. 
 
 An Account of the College, published by order of the Trustees, in 1764. 
 
 Memoranda, by Mr. N. F. Randolph, of Princeton, respecting the charters, and 
 the erection of Nassau Hall. 
 
 Governor Belcher's Correspondence, in manuscript. 
 
 Letters of the Rev. Charles Beatty to the Rev. Dr. Treat, of Abington, Penn- 
 sylvania, written from Scotland in 1767. 
 
 President Witherspoon's Address to the Inhabitants of Jamaica and other West 
 India Islands in behalf of the College, and other papers in the fourth volume of his 
 works, W. W. Woodward publisher. 
 
 President Green's Notes respecting the College, his Autobiography, and his 
 Address before the Alumni Association of Nassau Hall. 
 
 "History of the College of New Jersey, from 1746 to 1783," by a graduate 
 (Rev. Dr. William A. Dod), in 1844. 
 
 " Historical Sketch of the College of New Jersey," by Robert Edgar, a student 
 of the College, 1859. 
 
 Dr. Samuel D. Alexander's " Princeton College." 
 
 Professor Cameron's " History of the American Wing Society." 
 
 Professor Giger's " History of the Cliosophic Society." 
 
 The " New York Gazette and Mercury." 
 
 The " Pennsylvania Gazette." 
 
 The " Pennsylvania Chronicle." 
 
 " Wood's Gazette," of Newark, New Jersey. 
 
 "Newark Daily Advertiser." 
 
 " New Jersey State Gazette." 
 
 Mr. Samuel Smith's " History of New Jersey." 
 
 Hon. William Smith's " History of New York." 
 
 Mr. William A. Whitehead's " East Jersey under the Proprietors." 
 
 Mr. Whitehead's " Contributions." 
 
 " Minutes of the Provincial Council." 
 
 Judge Field's " Provincial Courts." 
 
 Judge Elmer's " Constitution, etc., of New Jersey." 
 
 Dr. Hodge's " History of the Presbyterian Church." 
 
 Rev. Richard Webster's " History of the Presbyterian Church." 
 
 Dr. A. Alexander's " Log College." 
 
 " Transactions of the American Philosophical Society," vol. i. 
 
 Dr. Bellamy's Correspondence, in manuscript. 
 
 Dr. Sprague's " Annals." 
 
 President Quincy's " History of Harvard University." 
 
 " Life of Mrs. Quincy," by her daughter, Miss Quincy. 
 
 Charters and Catalogues of Yale College. 
 
 Professor Kingsley's sketches of the history of Yale College. 
 
 President Clap's " Defence of the Charter of Yale College," given in the ap- 
 pendix to the " History of the Dartmouth College Case." 
 VOL. I. 2
 
 1 8 PREFACE. 
 
 President Porter's " Life of Professor Silliman, of Yale College." 
 
 " History of the College of William and Mary, of Virginia." 
 
 " History of Brown University," by Mr. R. A. Guild, the Librarian. 
 
 Judge Bradley's Discourse at the Centennial Anniversary of Rutgers College. 
 
 Dr. Stearns's " History of the First Presbyterian Church, Newark, New Jersey." 
 
 Dr. Hall's " History of the First Presbyterian Church, Trenton, New Jersey." 
 
 Dr. Davidson's " History of the First Presbyterian Church, New Brunswick, 
 New Jersey." 
 
 Dr. Hatfield's " History of Elizabeth, New Jersey." 
 
 Dr. Gibbon's " Sermon on the Death of President Davies," London. 
 
 President Finley's " Sermon on the Death of President Davies." 
 
 Dr. Rodgers's " Sermon on the Death of Dr. Witherspoon." 
 
 Dr. E. S. Dwight's " Life of President Edwards." 
 
 Dr. Beasley's " Life of President S. S. Smith." 
 
 " Princeton Review." 
 
 " New York Medical Repository." 
 
 " The Presbyterian Magazine," of Philadelphia, edited by Dr. C. Van Rens- 
 selaer. 
 
 " Princeton Magazine," edited by William C. Alexander, LL.D. 
 
 Mr. Bancroft's " History of the United States." 
 
 Dr. Foote's " Sketches of Virginia" and " Sketches of North Carolina." 
 
 " Life of the Rev. Dr. Miller," by his son, the Rev. Samuel Miller, D.D. 
 
 " Life of the Rev. Dr. A. Alexander," by his son, the Rev. Dr. James W. Alex- 
 ander. 
 
 " Life of James Madison, Fourth President of the United States," by William C. 
 Rives, of Virginia, United States Senator. 
 
 Dr. Franklin's Life and Essays. 
 
 Bishop Johns's " Life of Bishop Meade, of Virginia." 
 
 Mrs. Lee's Life of her father, George Washington Parke Custis. 
 
 Judge Duer's " Life of Lord Stirling." 
 
 Dr. Carnahan's " Life of Dr. John Johnston, of Newburgh, New York," and 
 some manuscripts 'papers of his, including Dr. Carnahan's Sermon at Colonel 
 Aaron Burr's funeral. 
 
 " The Forum and the Bar," by David Paul Brown, Esq. 
 
 Dr. Allibone's " Dictionary of Authors." 
 
 Dr. Morse's " American Gazetteer." 
 
 Messrs. Barber and Howe's " Historical Collections from New Jersey and 
 Virginia." 
 
 Frank Moore's " Diary." 
 
 The Biographical Dictionaries of the Rev. Drs. Allen, Blake, and Lempriere. 
 
 Manuscript letters of Joseph Shippen, a student in the College of New Jersey 
 
 in 1750-53- 
 
 Mr. Parton's account of Rittenhouse's orrery, in the " New York Ledger." 
 
 The readers of this history cannot fail to observe that the 
 writer has freely expressed his opinions in reference to various 
 measures adopted from time to time by the authorities of the
 
 PREFACE. ! 
 
 College touching its course of instruction and discipline, and 
 with respect to its fiscal affairs. For these opinions he alone is 
 responsible; and yet he cannot but indulge the hope that some 
 of them at least will have the hearty approval of the friends of 
 the College generally. 
 
 In collecting his materials the writer had but little aid, with 
 the exception of that given him by one of his friends, who is 
 unwilling that any mention should be made of his services, al- 
 though to him the writer is more indebted in this matter than 
 to all others. Still, the writer is under obligations to many of 
 his friends for the constant encouragement they have given him 
 to persevere in his arduous work, how arduous none but those 
 who have faithfully and laboriously engaged in like under- 
 takings can fully appreciate; and it is a pleasure for him to 
 add, that to his distinguished successor in the office of Presi- 
 dent of the College, Dr. McCosh, the writer is indebted for im- 
 portant suggestions as to the plan of the work, and for the 
 deep interest which he has manifested in its preparation for 
 the press. 
 
 To his friend the Rev. Dr. Duffield he is under peculiar 
 obligations for making the requisite arrangements for the pub- 
 lication of this work, all pecuniary interest in which the writer 
 has transferred to the Princeton Charitable Institution, for the 
 aid of indigent and worthy youths engaged in seeking a liberal 
 education. 
 
 To the publishers of the work, also, the writer must tender 
 his thanks for the careful and satisfactory manner in which they 
 have performed their part in issuing it from the press. 
 
 When he began to gather materials for a history of the Col- 
 lege, the writer scarcely dared to hope that he should be spared 
 to complete that undertaking ; still, he cheerfully gave himself 
 to it, under the impression that his labors in this line might be 
 of service in the hands of another, in preparing a truthful ac- 
 count of the origin, design, and progress of the College. But 
 in the kind providence of God he has been permitted to go 
 beyond this, and to bring to its close a history of the College 
 of New Jersey from its foundation in 1746 to the annual Com- 
 mencement of 1854, a period of one hundred and eight years ;
 
 20 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 and it is his fervent prayer that this work may help to keep in 
 perpetual remembrance the design of those truly good and 
 great men who, in laying the foundations of the College, sought 
 to erect an institution for the advancement of piety and sound 
 learning, and one especially devoted to the upbuilding of the 
 kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. PAGE 
 
 The Origin of the College .23 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 The Design of the College, and its Relations to the Church and the State . 61 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 The Charters of 1746 and 1748 70 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Memoir of Governor Belcher, and Brief Notices of the Trustees named in 
 
 the Two Charters of the College 98 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The Administration of the Rev. Jonathan Dickinson, First President of the 
 
 College; and Memoir of his Life 114 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The Administration and Life of the Rev. Aaron Burr, Second President of 
 
 the College 127 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The Annual Commencement of 1757, and the Election and Administration 
 
 of President Edwards 169 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 Memoir of the Rev. Jonathan Edwards, Third President of the College . 178 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 The Interval between the Decease of President Edwards and the Inaugura- 
 tion of the Rev. Samuel Davies as President of the College . . .192 
 
 21
 
 22 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Administration of the Rev. Samuel Davies, Fourth President of the 
 
 College 203 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 Memoir of the Rev. Samuel Davies, Fourth President of the College . . 219 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 The Administration of the Rev. Samuel Finley, Fifth President of the 
 
 College 249 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 Memoir of the Rev. Samuel Finley, D.D., Fifth President of the College . 277 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 The Interval between the Death of Dr. Finley and the Accession of Dr. 
 
 Witherspoon, from July 18, 1766, to August 17, 1768 .... 285 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 The Administration of the Rev. Dr. John Witherspoon, Sixth President of 
 
 the College ............ 300 
 
 Appendix to the Chapter on Dr. Witherspoon's Administration . . . 368 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 A Memoir of the Rev. John Witherspoon, D.D., LL.D., Sixth President of 
 
 the College 384
 
 HISTORY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE ORIGIN OF THE COLLEGE. 
 
 ON the occasion of his inauguration as President of the Col- 
 lege of New Jersey, on the 28th of June, 1854, the writer of 
 this History gave a brief outline of its origin and design. In 
 this outline the College was represented as "being in fact a con- 
 tinuation of the one over which the pious and learned Jonathan 
 Dickinson presided," and as being established under the aus- 
 pices of the Synod of New York ; which Synod at that time 
 embraced not only the Presbyterian churches in New York, 
 but also the larger part of those in New Jersey. 
 
 A more thorough examination has served to confirm the 
 view then taken as to the identity of the College, under the char- 
 ter given in 1746, by the Honorable John Hamilton, President 
 of his Majesty's Council ; and under the one granted two years 
 after, by his Excellency Jonathan Belcher, Esq., his Majesty's 
 Governor of the Province of New Jersey. But the statement 
 as to the Synod was not as exact as it might have been. The 
 credit given to the Synod of New York belongs almost exclu- 
 sively to certain leading members of that body, one of whom 
 was the pastor of the only Presbyterian church in the city of 
 New York, and the others pastors of Presbyterian churches in 
 East Jersey. 
 
 23
 
 24 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 Particular attention is due to both these matters, for the 
 reason that they have been misapprehended by most of those 
 who have undertaken to write or to speak of them. At the 
 time application was first made to the civil authorities of New 
 Jersey for a college charter, the state of things in the Presbyte- 
 rian Church in this country was a very peculiar one, and the 
 condition of the civil affairs of the Province was also peculiar. 
 In any other circumstances than those which existed at the 
 time the first charter was obtained, and for a few years after, it 
 is hardly probable that a charter, in the name of the King, 
 would have been granted by the Governors and Council of 
 New Jersey for the erection of a college to be under the con- 
 trol of ministers and laymen of the Presbyterian Church. It 
 will therefore not be amiss to recite the facts to which reference 
 is here made, before entering upon a regular chronological 
 detail of the events which properly constitute the history of 
 the College. 
 
 The first efforts for the erection of a college in New Jersey 
 have an intimate connection with the first schism in the Presby- 
 terian Church. This schism began in 1741, with the separation 
 of the Presbytery of New Brunswick from the Synod of Phila- 
 delphia. It was consummated in 1745, by the withdrawal of 
 the Presbytery of New York from the same Synod, tJien the 
 only one ; and by the organization of a new Synod, "under 
 the title of the Synod of New York," in the autumn of that 
 year. 
 
 At its formation the Synod of New York consisted of the 
 Presbyteries of New York, New Brunswick, and New Castle. 
 There was another and older Presbytery of the name of New 
 Castle, in the Synod of Philadelphia. 
 
 The Presbytery of New York was formed in 1738, by uniting 
 the Presbyteries of Long Island and East Jersey, and the Pres- 
 bytery of New Brunswick was also formed in 1738, upon the 
 petition of some members of the Presbytery of New York, then 
 just constituted, to be erected into a distinct Presbytery with 
 some members of the Presbytery of Philadelphia. The Presby- 
 tery of New Castle, the second of that name, was formed in
 
 THE ORIGIN OF THE COLLEGE. 25 
 
 1741, and it was composed of members who sympathized with 
 their New Brunswick brethren, and who refused to remain any 
 longer in Presbyteries connected with the Synod of Philadel- 
 phia, from which these brethren had been virtually cut off with- 
 out any respect had to the usual forms of citation and trial. 
 This Fresbytery was first known as the Presbytery of London- 
 derry, but before the Synod of New York was organized it 
 took the name of New Castle. 
 
 The schism above mentioned arose not from any different 
 views in reference to the Calvinistic system of doctrine as set 
 forth in the Westminster Confession of Faith, which had been 
 adopted by the entire Synod, but chiefly from conflicting opin- 
 ions with respect to the requisites for admission to the ministry, 
 and in regard to the countenance which should be given to 
 the religious excitements of that period, which prevailed to a 
 greater or less extent in New England and in the middle Prov- 
 inces. A majority of the old Synod insisted upon a regular 
 training of candidates in studies usually pursued at colleges 
 or universities, and they were unwilling to license and ordain 
 preachers whose preliminary training had been defective, al- 
 though they might be sound in the faith and give evidence of 
 fervent piety. The majority also objected earnestly to all intru- 
 sion into their congregations, on the part of the revivalists, 
 which some of the New Brunswick ministers and their friends 
 openly advocated and practised. 
 
 These differences in opinion and practice were the occasion 
 of many sharp and bitter controversies, which prepared the 
 way for the rending asunder of the entire body. 
 
 The ministers and elders who organized the Synod of New 
 York were all of one mind as to the desirableness of religious 
 revivals, and as to the duty of doing all in their power to pro- 
 mote them ; but they were not equally prudent in the use of 
 the requisite means for attaining their object, nor were they all 
 agreed as to the evidences of true conversion. As a body the 
 Presbytery of New York was more conservative than the Pres- 
 bytery of New Brunswick. And while these tivo Presbyteries 
 were yet in connection u'it/i tJie Synod of Philadelphia, the leading 
 men in them evidently differed in opinion as to the provision 
 VOL. i. 3
 
 2 6 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 which should be made for the education of candidates for the 
 holy ministry. The New Brunswick men, several of whom 
 had been trained at the school established by the Rev. Wil- 
 liam Tennent, Sr., on the southwest bank of the Neshaminy, 
 in Pennsylvania, and who had been greatly blessed of God in 
 their labors as ministers of the gospel, were content with the 
 comparatively meagre instruction in the arts and sciences given 
 at that seminary of learning ; and they deemed the different 
 efforts made to establish a school of a higher order as aimed 
 against their foster-mother and school of theology. In this 
 school, now well known under the designation of the " Log 
 College," more account was very properly made of personal 
 piety and religious experience, in candidates for the ministry, 
 than of a complete knowledge of both their preparatory and 
 their professional studies. And it is equally true that at this 
 school the great benefits of mental discipline and of a familiar 
 acquaintance with the several branches of philosophy and of 
 polite learning were not estim-ated at their full value. 
 
 The ministers of the New York Presbytery, most of whom 
 were pastors of churches in East Jersey and residents in that 
 part of the Province, were no less ardent friends of revivals 
 than were their brethren of the Presbytery of New Brunswick. 
 Nor were they less fully persuaded of the unspeakable impor- 
 tance of personal piety as an element of success in preaching 
 the gospel. But they did not approve the course of their New 
 Brunswick brethren in reference to intrusion, and in the matter 
 of licensing candidates. They were also desirous that the best 
 possible provision should be made for the preparatory and pro- 
 fessional education of all candidates for the ministry. Before 
 the schism they concurred with their brethren in the Synod of 
 Philadelphia in the project of founding, for this very purpose, 
 a school or seminary of learning. This is evident from the fol- 
 lowing record in the minutes of that body at their sessions in 
 Philadelphia, May, 1739, six years before the schism of 1745: 
 "An overture for erecting a school or seminary of learning 
 being brought in by the Committee, the Synod unanimously 
 approved the design of it ; and in order to the accomplishing 
 it did nominate Messrs. Pemberton, Dickinson, Cross, and An-
 
 THE ORIGIN OF THE COLLEGE. 
 
 2 7 
 
 derson, two of which, if they can be prevailed upon, to be sent 
 home to Europe to prosecute this affair with proper directions. 
 And in order to this, it is appointed that the Commission of 
 the Synod, with correspondents from every Presbytery, meet 
 at Philadelphia on the third Wednesday of August next. And 
 if it should be found necessary that Mr. Pemberton should go 
 to Boston, pursuant to this design, it is ordered that the Pres- 
 bytery of New York supply his pulpit during his absence." 
 
 Messrs. Pemberton and Dickinson were members of the New 
 York Presbytery, they were leading men in that body, they 
 were present at the meeting of the Synod, they were members 
 of the Committee which brought the overture before the Synod, 
 they had the respect and confidence of all their brethren, both 
 of the Old Side and of the New, as the two principal parties 
 in the Synod of Philadelphia were then called. Had they not 
 been in favor of the proposed measure, they would not have 
 been the first persons named to take so active a part in carry- 
 ing it into effect. Mr. Pemberton was a native of Boston, well 
 known and highly esteemed by the ministers and people there,, 
 and perhaps the most influential person the Synod could have 
 selected to solicit aid in that city. 
 
 This statement of the different views entertained by the lead- 
 ing men in the Presbyteries of New York and New Brunswick 
 is confirmed by what is said in a letter, of May 30, 1746;. 
 addressed by the Synod of Philadelphia to President Clap-,, 
 of Yale College, and which has reference to a proposed ar- 
 rangement by which candidates for the ministry at the school 
 established by the Synod of Philadelphia at New London, 
 Pennsylvania, in 1744, might have certain privileges granted 
 to them by Yale College. The writers of it say, "And by his 
 [Mr. Whitefield's] interest, Mr. Gilbert Tennent grew hardy 
 enough to tell our Synod that he would oppose their design of 
 getting assistance to erect a college, wherever we should make 
 application, and would maintain young men at his father's 
 school in opposition to us." 
 
 This must have occurred at the meeting of the Synod of 
 Philadelphia in 1739, and the language here attributed to Mr. 
 Tennent was most probably used by him before the above-
 
 2 8 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 mentioned overture was submitted to the Synod ; for it appears 
 from the minutes of 1739, that, on the morning of the day on 
 which the design of the overture was approved in the afternoon, 
 the Rev. Gilbert Tennent protested in behalf of himself and of 
 such as would join with him, viz., William Tennent, Sr., William 
 Tennent, Jr., Samuel Blair, Eleazar Wales, Charles Tennent, min- 
 isters, Thomas Worthington, David Chambers, William McCrea, 
 John Weir, elders, against the act respecting the trial of candi- 
 dates. This act required all candrdates who had not studied at 
 a college or university to be examined by a committee of Synod 
 before being received under the care of any Presbytery and 
 placed on trial for license to preach the gospel. In the debate 
 on this subject it is highly probable that Mr. Tennent gave 
 utterance to his feelings in no very measured terms, under the 
 deep conviction that the resolution then under consideration 
 was aimed against his father's school and was designed to pre- 
 vent his " training gracious men for the ministry." Words to 
 this effect are also given in the Synod's letter to President Clap 
 as having been uttered by Mr. Tennent in connection with his 
 protest. It is not likely, therefore, had Mr. Tennent and his 
 friends been present when the Synod expressed its approval of 
 the design of the overture respecting the erection of a school 
 .to be under the care of the Synod, that they would have even 
 acquiesced in a resolution approving that design. If, upon 
 presenting their protest against the act in regard to candidates, 
 they retired and took no further part in the proceedings of the 
 Synod, which were then drawing to a close, and which were 
 closed that very day, we can readily understand how it was 
 that the design of the overture was unanimously approved, as 
 stated in the record. 
 
 No member of the New York Presbytery united with Mr. 
 Tennent and his friends in their protest at this meeting, or in 
 the one presented by them the following year, when the Synod 
 reaffirmed their act respecting the examination of candidates 
 by a committee of the Synod. 
 
 The plan of sending two of their number to Europe to 
 solicit funds to aid in the establishing of a school, was given 
 up by the Synod of Philadelphia ; and the reason for giving it
 
 THE ORIGIN OF THE COLLEGE. 
 
 2 9 
 
 up may be learned from the following minute of the date of 
 May 29, 1740: "The Commission of Synod did meet last year 
 according to appointment, in order to conclude upon a method 
 for prosecuting the overture respecting the erecting a seminary 
 of learning. The minutes of that proceeding were read, and 
 although herein it is found that they concluded upon calling 
 the whole Synod together as necessary in that affair, yet the 
 war breaking out between England and Spain, the calling of 
 the Synod was omitted, and the whole affair was laid aside for 
 that time." The war here spoken of would have rendered a 
 voyage to England far more hazardous to those selected to go 
 abroad, or, as the phrase then was, to go home, in order to 
 solicit funds for their projected school ; and the difficulty of 
 obtaining the requisite aid would have been greatly increased. 
 The entire scheme was not again resumed. 
 
 Next year the contentions in the Synod began to come to a 
 head. The meeting was small. No one from the Presbytery 
 of New York was present. The members of the Old Side party 
 were in a majority ; and they availed themselves of the oppor- 
 tunity to protest against the members of the New Brunswick 
 Presbytery being permitted " to sit and vote as members of the 
 Synod." The reasons for this remarkable protest can be seen 
 in full on pages 155-158 of the printed minutes. It is suf- 
 ficient for our purpose to know that the protest led at once 
 to the separation of the New Brunswick Presbytery from the 
 Synod. Sincere and earnest efforts to effect a reconciliation 
 were made the following year by the Presbytery of New York, 
 and were continued until May, 1745, but all to no purpose. 
 
 Failing to .bring the two parties to such an understanding as 
 would enable them to come to an amicable adjustment, the 
 Presbytery of New York deemed it their duty to withdraw, and 
 to take measures for the formation of another and separate 
 Synod. Both these they did ; not because they approved the 
 conduct of their New Brunswick brethren in the matters alleged 
 against them, but solely on the ground that these brethren had 
 been irregularly cut off from the Synod, and denied their rights 
 as members of that body. They believed them to be sincere 
 and faithful servants of Christ, and men owned and blessed of
 
 2o HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 God in their labors ; yet they were not blind to their defects. 
 And before they united with them in a new Synod, all con- 
 cerned entered into an engagement to abstain from denunciations 
 of their brethren from whom they differed in opinion, from all 
 divisive courses, and to retire peaceably from the new Synod 
 if they could not conscientiously submit to its decisions and 
 orders ; terms which would have readily secured their speedy 
 restoration to the old Synod, had they been of a mind to offer 
 or to accept them. 
 
 This state of things prevented all further united action to 
 secure the erection of a college or seminary of learning. Three 
 of the Presbyteries in connection with the Synod of Philadelphia 
 made provision for establishing a school or academy as early as 
 November, 1743, which in May, 1744, was taken under the care 
 of the Synod. The plan of the school was a very liberal one. 
 It had a succession of able teachers,* and it rendered good 
 service to the cause of religion and learning. But in the un- 
 settled state of affairs then existing, the Presbytery of New 
 York, consisting almost wholly of ministers and churches 
 in East Jersey, although still in connection with the Synod of 
 Philadelphia, could take no part in fostering this institution. 
 It was yet uncertain whether the Presbytery itself could con- 
 tinue its relations to the Synod; and until this matter was de- 
 
 * The first teacher of this school was the Rev. Francis Allison, pastor of the 
 Presbyterian church in New London, Pennsylvania. He continued to have charge 
 of the school until his removal from New London to Philadelphia, in 1752, at which 
 time he became the principal of a grammar-school in that city. This Philadelphia 
 school was, in 1755, erected into a college, of which Mr. Allison was made vice- 
 provost. The erection of this college and Mr. Allison's connection with it seemed 
 to do away the necessity of a school, of the rank of a college, under the supervision 
 of the Synod ; and the Synod's school continued to be only a preparatory school of 
 a high order. As principal of the Synod's school, Mr. Allison was succeeded by 
 his assistant-teacher, the Rev. Alexander McDowell. In 1754 the Rev. Matthew 
 Wilson was appointed teacher of languages, and Mr. McDowell continued to give 
 instruction in logic, mathematics, and in natural and moral philosophy. This 
 school was finally removed to Newark, Delaware, and received a charter from the 
 Proprietaries, under the name of the Newark Academy. 
 
 In 1756, Mr. Allison received from Nassau Hall the degree of Master of Arts, 
 and from the University of Glasgow the degree of Doctor in Divinity, and he is 
 said to have been the first Presbyterian minister in this country upon whom this 
 degree was ever conferred.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF THE COLLEGE. ^l 
 
 termined, it was inexpedient to give their countenance and aid 
 to the Synod's school, or to undertake to erect one to be under 
 their own control, either virtually or directly. It is therefore 
 almost certain that nothing was done by the Presbytery of New 
 York, or by any of the leading members of that body, towards 
 the erection of a college or seminary of learning, until 1745, 
 when the Presbytery separated itself from the Synod, and 
 thereby consummated the first great schism in the Presbyterian 
 Church. It is not improbable, however, that, before this took 
 place, Mr. Dickinson, in order to meet present emergencies, 
 established a private school at Elizabethtown, according to a 
 commonly received tradition to this effect. It is known that 
 he instructed certain candidates for the ministry in their theo- 
 logical studies. About this time, also, Mr. Burr had a classical 
 school at Newark. 
 
 After the schism, Messrs. Dickinson, Pierson, Pemberton, 
 Burr, and others of the Presbytery of New York, unable to 
 unite with the Synod of Philadelphia in sustaining their school, 
 not satisfied with the limited course of instruction given at the 
 Neshaminy school, and having become more or less alienated 
 from the colleges of New England, turned their thoughts to 
 the erecting of a college, in which ample provision should be 
 made for the intellectual and religious culture of youth de- 
 sirous to obtain a liberal education, and more especially for 
 the thorough training of such as were candidates for the holy 
 ministry. That they might the more effectually accomplish 
 their purpose, they sought to obtain a charter for the erection 
 of a college in New Jersey. In this undertaking they had no 
 assistance from either Synod ; and most probably at that time 
 they neither sought nor desired it. The Synod of Philadelphia 
 were interested in the success of their own school ; the Pres- 
 bytery of New Brunswick in that of the Neshaminy school. 
 The venerable founder of this school, the Rev. Wm. Tennent, 
 Sr., was still living when measures were taken to obtain the de- 
 sired charter. His sons and his pupils were the leading men 
 in the Presbyteries of New Brunswick and- New Castle. His 
 eldest son, the Rev. Gilbert Tennent, in his famous Nottingham 
 sermon, had openly expressed his preference for private schools
 
 32 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 or seminaries, under the care of skilful and experienced Chris- 
 tians (see Dr. Hodge's " History of the Presbyterian Church," 
 vol. ii. page 154), "as the most likely method to stock the 
 Church with a faithful ministry." The Rev. Samuel Blair, one 
 of the most distinguished scholars and ablest men trained at 
 the Log College, had established at his residence in Fagg's 
 Manor, Pennsylvania, and within the limits of the New Castle 
 Presbytery, a classical and theological school, at which Presi- 
 dent Davies and other prominent ministers* of the gospel were 
 prepared for their work. Had there been no rupture of the old 
 Synod, there is every probability that there would have been 
 a hearty co-operation on the part of the Presbytery of New 
 York with the Synod of Philadelphia in the establishment and 
 endowment of a synodical school. And after the schism, had 
 the Log College ceased to exist before the formation of the 
 Synod of New York, it is morally certain that the Synod, as 
 soon as it was organized, would have promptly given their 
 countenance to the plan of erecting a college, to be under the 
 supervision and control of ministers and laymen whose church 
 relations were with their own body. This is almost evident 
 from the fact that, two years after, upon an application for an- 
 other charter with greater privileges, the former friends of the 
 Neshaminy school became the earnest and devoted friends of 
 the College of New Jersey. But at the juncture just men- 
 tioned it so happened, in the good providence of God, that the 
 work of initiating the measures for the erection of a college 
 and for obtaining a charter devolved almost exclusively upon 
 the leading ministers and laymen of the Presbytery of New 
 York, most of whom resided in East Jersey, and were men of 
 high standing in the community and held in great respect for 
 their wisdom, learning, and piety. In the whole Synod there 
 were no men so likely to find favor in the sight of the Gover- 
 nor and of his Council, and to obtain from them a compliance 
 with their petition. 
 
 Lewis Morris was Governor of New Jersey during the whole 
 of the excitement that led to the rupture of the Presbyterian 
 Church, and he was Governor when the first application was 
 
 * Dr. John Rodgers, Dr. Robert Smith.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF THE COLLEGE. 
 
 33 
 
 made for a college charter. His son Robert Hunter Morris 
 was the Chief Justice of the Province during the whole of his 
 administration, and for many years after. Both of them must 
 have been more or less familiar with the divisions or parties in 
 the Presbyterian Church ; and, although having no particular 
 regard for any one of these parties, it is more than probable 
 that they had a special dislike to the one most nearly allied 
 in views, feelings, and style of preaching to Whitefield and his 
 admirers. This was the party of the Tennents, Blairs, Row- 
 land, Finley, and others of kindred spirit, who were members 
 of the Synod, but not of the Presbytery, of New York. 
 
 In 1741 an attempt was made to indict and convict the Rev. 
 John Rowland for horse-stealing, he having been mistaken for 
 a remarkable adventurer of the name of Bell. Robert Hunter 
 Morris presided at the trial, and it is reported that with great 
 severity he charged the grand jury to find a bill against Mr. 
 Rowland. After two refusals and as many reproofs, they com- 
 plied with the instructions given to them, and found the re- 
 quired bill. Whereupon Mr. Rowland was regularly tried; but 
 he was also acquitted. 
 
 The witnesses for the defence were the Rev. William Tennent, 
 Jr., and Messrs. Joshua Anderson and Benjamin Stevens. By 
 the testimony of one or more of these witnesses the fact was 
 fully established that Mr. Rowland was in another Province, and 
 not in New Jersey, on the very day on which the theft was 
 committed. At the same term of the court, for an incorrect 
 statement made by Anderson in reference to another party 
 while giving his testimony in this case, he was, by order of the 
 court, indicted for perjury. It is most probable that the mis- 
 take made by him was due to failure of memory, the matter 
 having reference to the time and place when and where he saw 
 this other party. 
 
 At a subsequent term of the court, Messrs. Tennent and 
 Stevens were also charged with perjury; and bills were found 
 against them. Mr. Tennent was tried and acquitted. Mr. 
 Stevens was not tried. It is probable that a nolle proscqui 
 was entered by the Attorney-General, in view of the evidence 
 adduced in Mr. Tennent's case.
 
 34 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 Neither Mr. Rowland nor Mr. Tennent owed anything to the 
 favor or the indulgence of the court, which would have had them 
 both convicted if it had been possible. They were both asso- 
 ciated in the public mind with the most active and earnest of 
 the revival preachers ; and this whole class of ministers were 
 objects of dislike to such men as Chief-Justice Morris and his 
 father, Governor Morris. 
 
 In an application at this time for a college charter, it would 
 have been very indiscreet for any of this class of persons to 
 unite in the petition, even had they been warmly in favor of the 
 project. Their taking part in the matter would have surely 
 resulted in a denial of the request. But, for the reasons which 
 have been given above, they were not disposed at this time to 
 take any part in promoting this enterprise, and the leading men 
 in the Presbytery of New York were left by their brethren in 
 the other Presbyteries to pursue their plan without aid or inter- 
 ference. 
 
 The petition for a college charter was refused by Governor 
 Morris, but on what grounds is not certainly known. It may 
 have been that he doubted his authority to grant such a charter 
 as was asked of him, or, having no doubt as to his power, he may 
 have deemed it altogether inexpedient to clothe a body of Dis- 
 senters, as he regarded the petitioners, with the power and 
 privileges sought to be attained by a charter for a college to be 
 under the exclusive control of Presbyterian ministers and lay- 
 men, however discreet and liberal-minded the petitioners them- 
 selves might be. Governor Morris was Chief Justice of New 
 York when a charter was refused once and again, by the Coun- 
 cil of that Province, to the First Presbyterian Church in the 
 city of New York, on the ground that there was no precedent 
 for granting corporate privileges to a body of Dissenters. The 
 sole object of the church in seeking to obtain a charter was to 
 secure their property more firmly, which was then held in trust 
 by certain individual members of the congregation. 
 
 At the time of their second application, Governor Burnet 
 was Governor of New York as well as of New Jersey, and 
 the Presbyterians in New York City had hope, from the well- 
 known liberal views of his father, Bishop Burnet, and from his
 
 THE ORIGIN OF THE COLLEGE. 
 
 35 
 
 own professions of liberality, that he would have given them 
 his countenance and aid; but he did not. Upon a second re- 
 fusal, both the petitioners and the Council requested that the 
 petition might be sent to the Lords of Trade and Plantations, 
 in London, for their decision. But the Governor did not send 
 it until the i6th of May, 1724, nearly four years after he was 
 requested to do so. Richard West, Attorney-General for Ire- 
 land and Solicitor-General to the Board of Trade, and a brother- 
 in-law of Governor Burnet, to whom the petition was referred, 
 gave it as his opinion that in the general and abstract view of 
 the thing there was nothing in the request unreasonable or im- 
 proper. Yet no charter was obtained until after the American 
 Revolution, when one was granted by the State of New York. 
 Perhaps one reason why the Board of Trade did not instruct 
 Governor Burnet and his Council to give the charter in ques- 
 tion was, that Mr. West died in December of that year, 1724, 
 and the matter was lost sight of. Whether Governor Morris, 
 who must have been familiar with the proceedings in this case, 
 was influenced by this refusal of the New York Council to in- 
 corporate a body of Dissenters cannot now be known ; but that 
 he refused to grant a charter for a college in New Jersey ap- 
 pears from 'a statement in the supplement to the "Weekly 
 Mercury and New York Gazette" of Monday, the 28th of July, 
 1755. That such an application was made and refused is con- 
 firmed by the fact that there was no denial as to this point in the 
 reply to the supplement, which reply was evidently written by one 
 familiar with the history of the efforts made to obtain a charter, 
 and most probably by a Trustee of the College. Had Governor 
 Morris lived, or had he been succeeded by one of like spirit, no 
 charter given in the name of the King could have been obtained 
 by the petitioners from the Governor and Council of New Jer- 
 sey. And from the time that the eastern and western divisions 
 of New Jersey were united, in 1702, under the exclusive juris- 
 diction of the Crown, until the death of Governor Morris, in 
 1746, there was probably no period when a royal charter could 
 have been obtained for the erection of a school or college by 
 a body of Presbyterian ministers and laymen, or by any class 
 of religionists, whether Churchmen or Dissenters. We might
 
 36 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 possibly except from this period the years from 1736 to 1738, 
 when John Anderson and John Hamilton were acting Gov- 
 ernors, at the end of which time Lewis Morris received his 
 commission as Governor. 
 
 From the accession of Cornbury, in 1702, to that of Morris, 
 in 1738, the Province of New Jersey may to some extent be 
 viewed as an appendage of New York, the Governor of New 
 York being also Gove'rnor of New Jersey. The Governors 
 during this period were Lord Cornbury, Lord Lovelace, Robert 
 Hunter, Wm. Burnet, John Montgomerie, and Wm. Cosby. 
 Upon the death of Lord Lovelace, Richard Ingoldsby, the Lieu- 
 tenant-Governor, had charge of the government for nearly a 
 year. Upon his removal, Wm. Pinhorne, as senior Councillor, 
 for a very short time was at the head of affairs in New Jersey. 
 Upon Governor Hunter's return to England, Lewis Morris, as 
 President of the Council, acted as Governor, and a second time, 
 upon the death of Governor Montgomerie. John Anderson, 
 President of the Council, acted as Governor for a few weeks, 
 upon the death of Governor Cosby ; and John Hamilton, upon 
 the death of Anderson. The jurisdiction of the acting Gov- 
 ernors here named was limited to New Jersey. 
 
 In virtue of the concessions of Carteret and Berkeley, the first 
 Lords Proprietors of New Jersey, to the settlers of this Province, 
 there seem to have been a greater freedom in matters of re- 
 ligion and learning in New Jersey than in New York, and less 
 frequent attempts on the part of the Governors to enforce the 
 instructions given them by the Home Government. These in- 
 structions required the Governors of the several Provinces " to 
 give all countenance and encouragements to the exercise of the 
 ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Bishop of London, as far as 
 conveniently might be done in their respective Provinces;" and 
 particularly directed that " no schoolmaster be hereafter per- 
 mitted to come from this kingdom, and to keep school within 
 this our said Province, without the license of the Bishop of 
 London; and that no other person now here, or who shall come 
 from other parts, shall be admitted to keep school without your 
 license first obtained." " There is reason," says Wm. Smith, 
 the historian of New York, " to think that this instruction has
 
 THE ORIGIN OF THE COLLEGE. 
 
 37 
 
 been continued from the [English] Revolution to the present 
 time to the Governors of the Provinces." 
 
 Bent upon exercising all the power given to him, and ever 
 ready to go beyond the spirit of his instructions, Cornbury, in 
 administering the affairs of New York, " insisted that neither 
 ministers nor the schoolmasters of the Dutch," the most numer- 
 ous persons in the Province, " had a right to preach or instruct 
 within his gubernatorial rule" (see Wm. Smith's " History of 
 New York," page 172), and this, notwithstanding by the terms 
 of surrender the Dutch were not to be molested or interfered 
 with in matters of religion, the eighth article of the terms 
 being in these words : " The Dutch shall enjoy their liberty of 
 conscience in Divine worship and Dutch discipline." (See 
 Samuel Smith's " History of New Jersey," page 44.) 
 
 An avowed friend and supporter of the Church of England, 
 he was an enemy to all classes of ministers who faithfully and 
 boldly preached the truth, and who refused to submit to his 
 arbitrary orders. Attached to the Church, not because it was 
 the Church of God, but because it was the Church of England 
 established by law, he imprisoned a truly excellent and devoted 
 missionary of that Church, the Rev. Thorowgood Moore, for 
 denouncing certain well-known and indecorous practices of his 
 Excellency the Governor, and for refusing to administer the 
 communion to Lieutenant- Governor Ingoldsby on account of 
 his debauchery and profaneness. These two worthies, the Gov- 
 ernor and the Lieutenant-Governor, " par nobile fratrum," had 
 him arrested in New Jersey and brought to Amboy; and there, 
 contrary to law, he was forced by their order into a barge, 
 taken to New York, and committed to the custody of a guard 
 at the fort. After a confinement of three weeks, he escaped, and, 
 in company with the Rev. John Brooks, another minister of 
 the Church of England, a man of kindred spirit, and who had 
 reason to apprehend like treatment (see S. Smith's " History 
 of New Jersey," page 333), he went to Marblehead, Massachu- 
 setts, where they took passage for England, intending to make 
 known to the authorities there the situation of affairs here. 
 Unhappily, the vessel was lost at sea, and all on board perished. 
 The Rev. Mr. Talbot, a well-known minister of the English
 
 38 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 Church, said of these good men, that they were " the most 
 pious and industrious missionaries the Honorable Society ever 
 sent over." (See Hatfield's " History of Elizabethtown.") 
 
 Another instance of Lord Cornbury's tyranny is seen in his 
 treatment of the Rev. Francis Makemie and the Rev. John 
 Hampton, two Presbyterian ministers, who, on their way to 
 Boston from their homes on the Eastern Shores of Maryland 
 and Virginia, stopped in New York, and there preached without 
 his Lordship's license, one in a private house in the city, and 
 the other on Long Island. He caused them to be arrested and 
 brought before him, and ordered them to be confined. Mr. 
 Makemie was indicted and tried ; and when acquitted by the 
 jury, he was required by the court to pay the costs of trial. 
 In a letter dated October 14, 1706, to the Board of Trade, his 
 Lordship gives his account of the matter, and confirms what is 
 here said of his treatment of these men : he excuses his treat- 
 ment of them on the ground that they were strolling preachers, 
 and disposed to bid defiance to the government. Mr. Makemie 
 was a native of Ireland, and the first Presbyterian minister ever 
 settled in America as a pastor. 
 
 In the very first year that Cornbury entered upon the admin- 
 istration of affairs in New York, he and certain of his officials 
 were guilty of great oppression and gross cruelty, in seizing 
 and imprisoning Samuel Bownas, a preacher of the Society of 
 Friends, for preaching at a private house in Hempstead, Long 
 Island, and speaking in disparaging terms of the Church of 
 England, in relation to the sacrament of baptism. He was 
 confined in a room which two years before had been protested 
 against as an unlawful prison. His friends were denied admit- 
 tance; and, that he might be chargeable to no man, he learned 
 to make shoes, and earned his food. The grand jury refusing 
 to find a bill against him, he was released, having been in prison 
 nearly a whole year. This act of seizing and imprisoning Bow- 
 nas is said to have been done by Cornbury at the instigation of 
 two men who had been Quakers, but who had renounced their 
 faith and had turned Churchmen. One of these was the Rev. 
 George Keith, who was a zealous advocate of the Church of 
 England, and a bitter opponent of all non-conformists.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF THE COLLEGE. 
 
 39 
 
 These are a few of the things which made Cornbury so 
 odious to the people in both Provinces, and which contributed 
 to his downfall. His successors in office were men of higher 
 and nobler aims ; and yet some of these found it expedient not 
 to bring upon themselves the hostility of the more earnest par- 
 tisans of the Church of England. 
 
 Lord Lovelace, the immediate successor of Cornbury, was 
 greatly respected for his upright administration of affairs, 
 which, however, in consequence of his decease, was of short 
 duration. Had he, or any of his successors, ventured to grant 
 an act of incorporation to the members of any dissenting body, 
 it might and probably would have been a ground of complaint 
 against them, that they had disregarded their instructions. As 
 it was, Governor Hunter, one of the most liberal-minded and 
 popular of these Governors, was complained of for his lack of 
 zeal in behalf of the Church. Against this charge he found it 
 necessary to defend himself; and his friend Lewis Morris, then 
 Chief Justice of New York, united with him in defending his 
 official conduct. To show that he was not unmindful of his 
 duty, Governor Hunter furnished to the Government officials in 
 England evidence of his zeal in behalf of the Church in both 
 the Provinces of which he was Governor ; and in the following 
 terms he made a solemn protestation of his devotion " to the 
 true interests of our Holy Mother, in whose communion, ever 
 since I was capable of sober thoughts, I have lived, and, by the 
 blessing of God, I am resolved to die." (See Whitehead's " Con- 
 tributions," etc., page 153.) At the same time the Governor did 
 not hesitate to speak his mind very freely in regard to some of 
 his clerical opponents. Under the date of October 10, 1711, 
 writing to the Board of Trade, he says, " It is reported that 
 the Bishop of London has appointed Rev. Mr. Vesey as his 
 commissary for New York. Governor Hunter hopes that Mr. 
 Talbot will be appointed his Lordship's commissary for New 
 Jersey, and Mr. Phillips for Pennsylvania : though I know no 
 good tliey have ever done, I know no great harm they can do at 
 present" (See Whitehead's " Contributions.") 
 
 Governor Burnet, the immediate successor of Governor 
 Hunter, interpreted his instructions as giving him authority to
 
 4Q HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 judge of the qualifications of ministers, even of those licensed 
 by the Bishop of London, and complaint was made against him 
 for his conduct in this matter, as appears from a letter addressed 
 to him by his brother-in-law, Richard West, Solicitor-General 
 of the Board of Trade, who, in writing to the Governor in 
 regard to the complaint of the Bishop of London, that clergy- 
 men licensed by him were subjected by the Governor to a 
 second examination, says, " Your method is to present him a 
 text, and give him. a Bible, then lock him up in a room by 
 himself, and then in case he does not produce, in a given time, 
 a satisfactory sermon, you refuse to license him. The conse- 
 quence is that the man must starve. I have seen many com- 
 plaints against Governors, and no one was surprised. You are 
 surely the first who ever brought himself into difficulties by 
 an inordinate care of souls''' (See Whitehead's " Contributions.") 
 
 It can hardly be supposed that a Governor who was so 
 watchful of the spiritual instruction given to the members of 
 his quasi established Church would be anxious to aid in build- 
 ing up churches of other denominations, either by granting 
 them corporate privileges, or by giving them charters for the 
 erection of schools and colleges. Aware, no doubt, of the 
 difficulties of his predecessor arising from his liberal treatment 
 of non-conformists in the matter of civil appointments, he was 
 not disposed to bring upon himself the like charge of being 
 neglectful of his duty to the Church, or of being too indulgent 
 to Dissenters. And this will account for his conduct in the 
 matter of a charter for the First Presbyterian Church of New 
 York, of which mention has been made above. 
 
 Of the views and feelings of Governors Montgomerie and 
 Cosby in regard to the granting of charters upon the petition 
 of Dissenters, nothing particular is known; and there is no 
 reason to believe, from anything that is recorded of their re- 
 spective administrations, that in the matter named they would 
 have pursued a different course from that marked out by their 
 predecessors in office. 
 
 On the 2Oth of April, 1730, while Mr. Montgomerie was 
 Governor of New York and New Jersey, there was passed at 
 St. James an Order of Council, approving the instructions sent
 
 THE ORIGIN OF THE COLLEGE. ^ 
 
 to all the Governors in America (except of the Leeward Islands, 
 New England, North and South Carolina), directing them to 
 "support the Bishop of London and his commissaries in the 
 exercise of such ecclesiastical jurisdiction as is granted to them." 
 And this included the licensing of schoolmasters as well as of 
 preachers. 
 
 During the administration of Governor Cosby occurred the 
 famous trial of John Peter Zenger, printer of the " New York 
 Journal," for a libel against the English Government and the 
 Governor of New York. The trial involved the question 
 whether or no there was freedom for the press in the Province 
 of New York. There was intense feeling on the subject ; and 
 for denying the competency of the court to take cognizance of 
 the case, Messrs. Alexander and William Smith, the two most 
 eminent lawyers of New York, who had offered to defend 
 Zenger, were excluded from further practice in the Supreme 
 Court, and their names were stricken from the roll of attorneys; 
 nor were they restored until after the death of Cosby, in 1736. 
 Andrew Hamilton,* a famous lawyer from Philadelphia, and 
 rendered still more famous by his efforts and success in this 
 trial, engaged in the defence, and obtained a verdict for his 
 client, by which it was established that the jury are to decide 
 not only that a paper alleged to be seditious was published by 
 the party accused, but also whether it is of a libellous or sedi- 
 tious character. It is mentioned as a remark of the late Gou- 
 verneur Morris, that "the trial of Zenger, in 1735, was the germ 
 of American freedom. "f Governor Cosby was evidently no 
 friend to freedom of speech and of the press, and most prob- 
 ably no patron of learning. 
 
 Richard Ingoldsby, the Lieutenant-Governor under Corn- 
 bury, and who, before the arrival of Lord Lovelace, administered 
 the affairs of the Province, was a man of like views and spirit 
 with Cornbury. Lewis Morris, in virtue of his office as Presi- 
 dent of its Council, was twice acting Governor of New Jersey, 
 first from the summer of 1719 to the summer of 1720, and 
 
 * A different person and of a different family from Governor Andrew Hamilton, 
 f The Forum of Philadelphia, by David Paul Brown. 
 VOL. I. 4
 
 42 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 again from July I, 1731, upon the death of Governor Mont- 
 gomerie, to the arrival of Governor Cosby, in 1732. Governor 
 Cosby dying upon the loth of March, 1736, John Anderson, 
 President of the Council for New Jersey, administered the gov- 
 ernment of this Province until his own death, which occurred 
 between two and three weeks after he became the acting Gov- 
 ernor. He was admitted to the Council by Governor Hunter, 
 who, in his report of the matter to the Board of Trade, apolo- 
 gized for displacing an unworthy Churchman and substituting 
 in his room a worthy Dissenter. He was "a gentleman of the 
 strictest honor and integrity, justly valued and lamented by all 
 his acquaintance." He was a brother of the Rev. James Ander- 
 son, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in the city of New 
 York. He was succeeded by John Hamilton, the next senior 
 Councillor, who discharged the duties of the Governor until 
 the accession of Lewis Morris as Governor, in 1738. As early 
 as 1699, Morris was made President of the Council by Gov- 
 ernor Andrew Hamilton ; and, with a few short intermissions, 
 he was a member of the Council until he was appointed Gov- 
 ernor. He was active and influential in bringing about the 
 surrender of the Proprietary Governments in East and West 
 Jersey, and for this service he was named at that time by the 
 Lords of Trade for the post of Governor ; but Viscount Corn- 
 bury, son of the second Earl of Clarendon, and a cousin of 
 Queen Anne, received the commission. Morris was twice sus- 
 pended from the Council by Cornbury, on account of his stren- 
 uous opposition to his Lordship's administration. But in what- 
 ever else they disagreed, they were both professedly earnest 
 supporters of the Church of England. It is related of Morris 
 that he made the suggestion " that the Venerable Society for 
 Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts should see to it that 
 only Churchmen should be sent as Governors of the Colonies; 
 and that no person should be competent to receive a consider- 
 able benefice in England who had not performed three years 
 of missionary service in America." (See Webster's " History," 
 page 8 1.) His zeal for Episcopacy must, however, have greatly 
 abated before his death, for in his last Will and Testament, a 
 remarkable document, these words occur: "I forbid . . . any
 
 THE O RIG IX OF THE COLLEGE. 
 
 43 
 
 man to be paid for preaching a funeral sermon over me. 
 Those who survive me will commend or blame my conduct in 
 life as they think fit, and I am not for paying any man for doing 
 either; but if any man, whether Churchman or Dissenter, in 
 or not in priest's orders, is inclined to say anything on that oc- 
 casion, he may, if my executors see fit to admit him to do it." 
 
 In view of these passages, it can occasion no surprise that 
 he refused to give a charter to an institution to be erected and 
 controlled by a body of Presbyterians, with a special reference 
 to the training of young men for the holy ministry. 
 
 But whatever were his errors or feelings, it is due to him to 
 say, that in the course of his long public career of more than 
 fifty years, and embracing within its limits the entire period 
 from the formation of the first Presbytery to the schism of 1745, 
 he rendered several very important services to New Jersey, and 
 indirectly to the interests of religion, learning, and civil liberty. 
 He probably did more than any other one man towards effect- 
 ing the overthrow of the Proprietary Government in the eastern 
 and western divisions of the Province, and the consequent union 
 of these two divisions under the sole jurisdiction of the Crown. 
 He was also instrumental in securing for New Jersey a Governor 
 separate from the Governor of New York. The first of these 
 measures contributed greatly to the prosperity of the whole 
 Province ; and without it the College of New Jersey, in all- 
 probability, would never have been established upon its present 
 basis. There might have been an East Jersey College, but not 
 a College of New Jersey. And had the Colonial governments. 
 of New York and New Jersey continued under one head, there 
 is reason to believe, as has already been said, that no corporate 
 privileges would have been granted to any body of Dissenters, 
 as all persons who were not of the Church of England were 
 then wont to be called. And in this matter the friends of that 
 Church were in all probability no more unreasonable than the 
 Dissenters themselves would have been, had their respective 
 conditions been reversed. It was reserved for those not con- 
 nected with established churches to be liberal-minded, and. 
 regardful of the rights of others. 
 
 In a matter of controversy between the Presbyterians and
 
 44 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 Episcopalians of Jamaica, brought before him when he was 
 Chief Justice of New York, he did not permit his preference for 
 the Church of England to influence his decisions, but acted the 
 part of an independent and upright judge. 
 
 Another thing for which Governor Morris is to be greatly 
 commended was his earnest opposition to the tyrannical meas- 
 ures of Governor Cornbury; also for his persistent and suc- 
 cessful efforts to have his Lordship removed from an office for 
 which he was utterly unfit. 
 
 Governor Morris died in May, 1746, and upon his death the 
 government again devolved upon John Hamilton, Esq., Presi- 
 dent of the Council. He was the son of Andrew Hamilton, 
 Governor of East and of West Jersey, under the Proprietors, 
 from 1692 to 1702, and for some years also Deputy-Governor 
 of Pennsylvania. Andrew Hamilton was a native of Scotland, 
 and removed with his family to this country in 1686. Both 
 father and son were intelligent and liberal-minded men, and 
 popular Governors. The first and for many years the only laws 
 for the establishing and supporting of public schools in East 
 Jersey were passed while Andrew Hamilton was Governor of 
 the Province. For some years before the surrender of the 
 government he was Postmaster-General for the Provinces of 
 New Jersey and Pennsylvania. (See " East Jersey under the 
 Proprietary Governments," page 229.) 
 
 When, in 1746, John Hamilton assumed a second time the 
 administration of affairs, as President of the Council and Com- 
 mander-in-Chief, the petitioners for a college charter renewed 
 their request, and prepared the form of a charter which they 
 desired to have granted to them. It was granted, and thus the 
 way was prepared for laying the foundations of the College of 
 New Jersey. 
 
 It is worthy of notice that this is the first college charter ever 
 granted in this country by a Governor, or acting Governor, with 
 simply the consent of his Council. That of Harvard was granted 
 by the General Court of Massachusetts Bay, with the consent of 
 the Governor; that of Yale, by the General Assembly of Con- 
 necticut; that of William and Mary, by their Majesties of those 
 names.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF THE COLLEGE. 
 
 45 
 
 The first Legislative Assembly ever convened in America 
 was that of Virginia, in 1619, and the first attempt to establish 
 a college in this country was made by this Assembly. And 
 although nothing resulted from their action, for the erection 
 and support of a college, it is nevertheless highly creditable to 
 their discernment and good sense, that the members of this 
 body should have directed their attention to a matter of this 
 kind at the very beginning of their legislative career, and almost 
 at the very foundation of their colony. 
 
 Mr. Hamilton was the first Governor who ventured to act in 
 a matter of this kind without previously obtaining either the 
 consent of the Provincial Legislature or the special permission 
 of his Majesty's Home Government. Governor Belcher fol- 
 lowed the example set him by Mr. Hamilton, and at a later 
 period Governor Franklin did the same, in granting to sundry 
 ministers and laymen of the Dutch Reformed Church a charter 
 for Queen's College, now Rutgers. Governor Bernard, the 
 successor of Governor Belcher, and afterwards Governor of Mas- 
 sachusetts, claimed the right, as the representative of the King, 
 to grant charters for schools and colleges without any action 
 on the part of the Assembly or of the General Court ; and a char- 
 ter for the erection of a college, or collegiate school, in Hamp- 
 shire County, Massachusetts, was actually prepared and signed 
 by him : but in consequence of an earnest remonstrance from 
 the Overseers of Harvard the Governor did not issue the char- 
 ter. His right to grant such a charter was questioned by 
 the Overseers, although in their representations to the Governor 
 they did not press this point. Some few at least were of the 
 opinion, and in private gave utterance to it, that, in the charter 
 given to the Province itself, the King had relinquished his own 
 right to interfere in such matters. (See President Quincy's 
 " History of Harvard," vol. ii. pp. 477-479.) 
 
 In 1754, Lieutenant-Governor De Lancey, then administering 
 the government of New York, with the consent of the Council, 
 gave to King's College a charter, which was afterwards con- 
 firmed by a vote of the Assembly of that Province. This ap- 
 proval by the Assembly was probably obtained by the Trustees 
 of the College in consequence of the objections made to its
 
 46 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 establishment under a charter given by the acting Governor, in 
 the name of the King, and in order to remove all doubts as to 
 the validity of the charter to which these objections may have 
 given rise. 
 
 The Proprietaries of Pennsylvania and Delaware claimed and 
 exercised the right to grant charters for academies and colleges. 
 
 The prerogative of the King in this matter was sedulously 
 maintained ; and it was never in any case openly called into 
 question : but there was no little diversity of opinion as to the 
 respective rights of Governors and of Assemblies in reference to 
 the granting of charters. 
 
 Joseph Dudley, who was Governor of Massachusetts from 
 1703 to 1715, has been highly commended, and very justly, for 
 his boldness in consenting to a resolution to revive the charter 
 given to Harvard in 1650 by the General Court of that Province, 
 and " thus establishing a charter without, and contrary to, the 
 will of the British sovereign," and that after the consent of the 
 Crown had been withheld from several successive charters 
 granted by the provincial authorities between the years 1692 
 and 1701. The resolution referred to was passed by the Council 
 and by the House of Representatives in December, 1707, and 
 it is believed that it was suggested as well as officially approved 
 by him. (See President Quincy's " History," pages 159-161.) 
 
 John Hamilton, the acting Governor of New Jersey in 1746, 
 should be held in no less honor, at least by the College of New 
 Jersey, for his wise and liberal treatment of the founders of this 
 College, in granting to them a charter with ample privileges, 
 and that too in the absence of all precedent in matters of this 
 kind, and with the full knowledge of the fact that his prede- 
 cessor in office had refused to give them such a charter. His 
 liberality is the more conspicuous from the fact that the peti- 
 tioners for the charter were Presbyterians, and that he himself 
 was a Churchman. 
 
 Just at this time there were in the condition of the civil 
 affairs of the Province several things very favorable to the suc- 
 cess of those who were anxious to obtain a charter for their 
 projected institution : 
 
 I. The acting Governor was a man of enlightened views, and
 
 THE ORIGIN OF THE COLLEGE. 
 
 47 
 
 friendly to the interests of religion and learning; a member 
 of the Episcopal Church, but not unmindful of the rights of 
 those who were members of other Christian churches. 
 
 2. Several members of the Council were Presbyterians: for 
 instance, John Reading, the next senior Councillor to President 
 Hamilton, and his immediate successor as President of the 
 Council; James Hude, a native of Scotland, and the son of a 
 Presbyterian elder who emigrated to this country to escape 
 persecution in his own ; and Thomas Leonard, of Princeton. 
 Andrew Johnston, another member of the Council, was an 
 Episcopalian, a gentleman of liberal views, and cordially in 
 favor of the proposed scheme for the erecting of a college. 
 His father, Dr. Johnston, was bail for the Rev. Francis Makemie 
 when he was arrested, imprisoned, and prosecuted by order of 
 Lord Cornbury. Dr. Johnston was a native of Scotland, and 
 came to America in 1685. His son Andrew was born in 1694. 
 These four gentlemen, Messrs. Reading, Hude, Leonard, and 
 Johnston, were all named as Trustees of the College in the 
 second charter given, in 1748, by Governor Belcher. James 
 Alexander, Esq., a native of Scotland, and an eminent lawyer 
 in New York, was also a member of the Council, and, from a 
 liberal gift made by him to the College a few years after, there 
 is good reason to believe that he too was favorable to the wishes 
 of the petitioners. 
 
 3. In East Jersey, where most of the petitioners for a college 
 charter resided, the people were divided into two parties, which 
 were known as the Scotch and the English. This distinction 
 had existed for a long time. In a letter of the date of June 
 16, 1703, addressed to the Lords of Trade by Colonel Quarry, 
 who held at one time the position of a member of Council in 
 five different Provinces, and who was Judge of the Admiralty 
 Court in New York and also in Pennsylvania, the writer says, 
 " The contest in West Jersey was always between the Quakers 
 and those who were not Quakers; in East Jersey between the 
 Scotch and the English, the Scotch for many years had the 
 advantage of having a Scotch Governor, Colonel [Andrew] 
 Hamilton." The Presbyterian churches in this country all 
 adopted the Doctrine and the Discipline of the Church of Scot-
 
 48 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 land ; and the Presbyterian Church in New York City was 
 known as the Scotch Church. This in a measure may account 
 for the interest taken in the plan for a Presbyterian college, 
 both by President Hamilton and Mr. Johnston. They doubt- 
 less thought that in this land the adherents of the Church of 
 Scotland were entitled to equal favors and privileges with the 
 adherents of the Church of England. And in the case of 
 President Hamilton, the fact that the partisans of the English 
 faction had for a time deprived his father of his office as Gov- 
 ernor, on the ground that he was a Scotchman and not an 
 Englishman, and the refusal to grant the Scotch Church in 
 New York their petition for a charter, no doubt rendered him 
 all the more disposed to grant to Presbyterians those privi- 
 leges for which they could rightfully ask, and which he could 
 lawfully bestow.* 
 
 4. The relations between Governor Morris, who had refused 
 to give the sought-for college charter, and President Hamilton, 
 who did give it, were not of the most pleasant kind. Upon his 
 return from England, and before he received his commission as 
 Governor, Morris demanded of Hamilton that he should sur- 
 render to him the seals of the Province, which Hamilton refused 
 to do, on the ground that Morris had forfeited his right to ad- 
 minister the government by his absence from the country; and 
 in this Hamilton was sustained by the Home Government. A 
 year or two after, when Morris received his Majesty's commis- 
 sion, he declared it to be his purpose to regard all previous 
 difficulties as bygones ; and yet he claimed from Hamilton all 
 the moneys which Hamilton had received for discharging the 
 duties of Governor, on the ground that he, and not Hamilton, 
 was the legal President of the Council during that time. More- 
 over, although Mr. Hamilton was the second Judge of the 
 Supreme Court of the Province, Governor Morris made his 
 
 * Another instance of this national feeling is to be seen in the conduct of Lieu- 
 tenant-Governor Gooch, of Virginia. Sundry gentlemen were brought before him, 
 in 1742, for attending unauthorized religious meetings. As soon as he learned 
 that they held to the doctrinal views and the system of church order set forth in 
 the Westminster Confession of Faith, he said that these gentlemen " were Presbyte- 
 rians according to the Kirk of Scotland, and could not be molested."
 
 THE ORIGIN OF THE COLLEGE. 
 
 49 
 
 son, Robert Hunter Morris, Chief Justice, who, as compared 
 with Mr. Hamilton, was a mere youth ; and the letter of Gov- 
 ernor Morris to the Board of Trade, which informed the Board 
 that he had made his own son Chief Justice, also made mention 
 of Mr. Hamilton's resignation as Judge. 
 
 In an attack made in 1755 upon the petitioners for the Col- 
 lege charter, which passed the seal of the Province in 1746 
 attested by President Hamilton, it is asserted that he was in- 
 competent, from age and infirmity, to discharge properly the 
 duties of Governor, and that the petitioners availed themselves 
 of his infirm health to obtain from him a charter, which, had he 
 been in the full possession of his faculties, he would never have 
 granted. The paper containing this assault affords evidence 
 that the information of the writer was probably derived, either 
 directly or indirectly, from Chief-Justice R. H. Morris. That 
 this gentleman was no friend to the College appears from an 
 expression in a letter of Governor Belcher's, of the date of Jan- 
 uary 8, 1749-50, to Mr. Walley, of London, in which the Gov- 
 ernor, alluding to the Chief Justice, speaks of "the malevolence 
 of a young gentleman, lately gone from New Jersey, towards 
 the Province and the College." 
 
 The statement made by the writer of the paper to which 
 reference is here made is as follows (taken from the supple- 
 ment to the " New York Mercury" of July 28, 1755, No. 155) : 
 
 " I have been curious enough to inquire what methods were taken to obtain this 
 charter, and, by the best information I can get, was told that it was done in a public 
 manner, by petition, and passed the seal in same legal manner that other grants of 
 the King do. The reasons of my being so particular in my inquiries of this kind 
 were, that I would endeavor to compare the legality of one grant with the legality 
 of another of the same nature. What I mean is, the grant of the charter of the 
 College of New Jersey. There the Presbyterians, Independents, and the New 
 Lights, for I speak of them as one body, and they are all of a kidney, I am told 
 made their application to the late Governor Morris for a charter. He told them 
 that he could not grant such a charter. He soon after dying, the Government de- 
 volved upon the Honorable John Hamilton, Esq., whose age and infirmity had ren- 
 dered him unequal to the task. This they thought the proper time to get what 
 they wanted ; accordingly they applied again, and a draft of the charter was laid 
 before Mr. Hamilton in Council ; and the petitioners were ordered to lay a draft 
 of it before the Chief Justice of the Province for his opinion, whether it was legal 
 to grant it or not ; but they, well convinced of the illegality of it before the
 
 50 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 Chief Justice had time to give his opinion, prepared an engrossed draft on parch- 
 ment, and got the Governor (by the help of some about him), whom they had 
 properly prepared on the occasion, to pass the charter, at a time when he was 
 unable to read, and scarcely able to sign his name. 
 
 " Now, as I am no lawyer, I would beg leave to ask, whether an instance can be 
 found in the law books that a petition to his Majesty for any grant or charter, and 
 that petition referred to the Attorney- or Solicitor-General, or to the Judges, for 
 their opinion, whether he ought to grant the prayer or petition, any grant or charter 
 was ever granted by the King before such opinion was given. I have been in- 
 formed that some of those gentlemen (whose cunning and deceit equal the society 
 founded by Loyola), because the Judge did not give his opinion, that the charter 
 laid before them was legal, for that reason when he afterward went to England, 
 they represented him there as an Atheist, a man of no religion; for the great mis- 
 fortune of most of these people is, that a man has no religion, in their opinion, 
 if he be not possessed of as much cant, hypocrisy, and enthusiasm as themselves. 
 Yet this College has a Presbyterian or Independent President [Mr. Burr], and is a 
 most excellent institution, under the sole inspection and direction of the ' Watch- 
 Tower'; and because that of New York [King's College, now Columbia] is not 
 under their sole direction, it is a most scandalous, pitiful, paltry institution." 
 
 The " Watch-Tower" is the title of a series of papers pub- 
 lished in the "New York Gazette" in 1754 and 1755. The 
 entire series was edited, and many, if not the greater part, of 
 the articles were written, by Wm. Livingston, Esq., an eminent 
 lawyer of New York, and subsequently Governor of New Jer- 
 sey, being the first Governor after the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence. The preface to No. XL. of the " Watch-Tower" is 
 avowedly written by the editor ; but the paper itself professes 
 to be a letter from a gentleman in the country to his friend in 
 the city, and it contains a reply to some of the statements in 
 the supplement cited above : it is as follows : 
 
 " Sir, The reflections that have been frequently cast on the College of New 
 Jersey by the enemies of the ' Watch-Tower' are so perfectly groundless, and appear 
 so evidently the effects of envy and impotent malice, that I have ever thought them 
 unworthy of the least notice, and I should with the same neglect have treated the 
 spiteful performance which appeared in the Supplement of the ' Mercury,' num- 
 ber 155, had you not judged a few remarks on some points of it necessary for the 
 satisfaction of the Public. 
 
 " The present Constitution of the College has no dependence upon the Charter 
 obtained from Governor Hamilton, nor indeed any relation to it, as that by which 
 it is now established is in sundry respects different; the majority of the Trustees 
 being also different persons. 
 
 " That Governor Morris [Robert Hunter Morris, who at this time was Deputy- 
 Governor of Pennsylvania as well as Chief Justice of New Jersey] was misrepre-
 
 THE ORIGIN OF THE COLLEGE. 51 
 
 sented at Home [in England], is to me entirely new, and has not, I am persuaded, 
 the least foundation in Truth. The Trustees of the College of New Jersey are 
 disposed to treat that Gentleman with all suitable respect, and none have the least 
 inclination to enter into a Dispute with him. But if he requests it, a particular 
 account of the manner in which the first charter was obtained shall be published, 
 together with a full and candid Disquisition of any Accusation he may be pleased 
 to bring. Till this happens, no notice shall be taken of any ill-natured Reflections 
 made by a Person totally ignorant of his subject, and who will not, I am confident, 
 receive any thanks from the Governor for introducing his name into a controversy 
 with which he had no connexion. The story, as represented from hearsay, as the 
 author himself confesses, is grossly and notoriously false, and that almost in every 
 circumstance, as can be made to appear by sufficient evidence. 
 
 " Whether the Charter obtained from Governor Hamilton in his declining state 
 was a valid one, I am not able to determine. The contrary, however, has always 
 appeared to me most probable, and that it was therefore wisely resigned ; though, 
 indeed, the Episcopal Church in Newark is established by a charter obtained of 
 the same gentleman and in the same circumstances, the validity of which I have 
 not heard called in question. 
 
 " It is well known that the College at present is established by a Charter, with 
 its usual formalities, from Governor Belcher, with the full consent of his Council, 
 on the petition of several public-spirited gentlemen, who have with great pains and 
 Industry laid a Foundation for a liberal education of Youth in a Province where it 
 was evidently wanted, and in which no undertaking of like nature had ever been 
 attempted. 
 
 " And though it must be confessed that the majority of the Trustees thereby in- 
 corporated were professed Presbyterians, yet it is worth remarking that his Excel- 
 lency at the same time generously offered to grant a charter, with equal Privileges, 
 to any Gentlemen of the Episcopal Persuasion who should be willing to embark in 
 the like noble design. 
 
 " The present Charter exhibits a most Catholic Plan, and contains no exclusive 
 clauses to deprive persons of any Christian denomination (except Papists) either 
 from its Government or any of its Privileges." Signed T. T. 
 
 If the remark in the last sentence be understood as implying 
 that Papists were excluded from any of the privileges of the 
 College, it will make a wrong impression. No such words, 
 " except Papists," occur in the charter. It is expressly set 
 forth, as one reason for granting the charter, " that the said 
 petitioners have expressed their earnest desire that those of 
 every religious denomination may have equal liberty and ad- 
 vantages of education, any different sentiments in religion not- 
 withstanding." It is true that the Trustees none others were 
 required to take certain oaths for the security of his Majesty's 
 person and government, and respecting the succession of the 
 Crown, which " Popish recusants" could not or would not take,
 
 52 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 and on that account could not be Trustees of the College. Upon 
 the establishment of American Independence these oaths were 
 no longer required. 
 
 There is one matter in this letter in defence of the College 
 to which exception will be taken when the two charters shall 
 come more distinctly under consideration ; but on the whole 
 we regard it as a dispassionate and satisfactory reply to the 
 charges made against the petitioners for the first charter, and 
 as exposing the ignorance as well as the malevolence of their 
 assailant. The object of the writer of this vindication was 
 rather to defend the College as it was at the time he wrote, 
 viz., in 1755, than to defend the charter given by President 
 Hamilton or the conduct of those concerned in soliciting it. 
 He does indeed say that the account given of the wJwle matter 
 " is grossly and notoriously false ', and that almost in every circum- 
 stance, as can be made to appear by sufficient evidence" 
 
 He might have added that it was obviously contradictory 
 and absurd. The writer of the supplement admits that the 
 charter was obtained " in a public manner, by petition, and 
 passed the seal in the same legal manner that other grants of 
 the King do," and, further, " that a draft of the charter was laid 
 before Mr. Hamilton in Council'' Had age and infirmity ren- 
 dered the other members of the Council, as well as the Presi- 
 dent, unequal to the task devolved upon them ? Without the 
 consent of the Council, Mr. Hamilton could not have given the 
 petitioners a charter, if he had been disposed to do so. It is 
 clearly implied, in the charges under consideration, that almost 
 immediately after the death of Governor Morris the petitioners 
 applied to Governor Hamilton, in Council. Governor Morris 
 died on the 2 1st of May, 1746; the charter was given five 
 months after, viz., on the 22d of October of the same year. 
 Surely there was no hot haste in this thing, especially as the 
 labor of maturing the plan had all been done by the parties 
 seeking the charter. It is hardly to be supposed that a Chief 
 Justice of the acknowledged ability of Chief-Justice R. H. 
 Morris would require several months to determine whether the 
 granting of the charter would be illegal, when, according to 
 the writer of the supplement, the petitioners themselves " were
 
 THE ORIGIN OF THE COLLEGE. 
 
 53 
 
 well convinced of its illegality." With his well-known hostility 
 to the granting of a charter, if such an inquiry was ever made 
 of him, it cannot be uncharitable to suppose that he wilfully 
 deferred making his response as to the legality of the proposed 
 grant until President Hamilton and the Council, as well as the 
 petitioners, were annoyed by the delay and determined to wait 
 no longer. And it is by no means improbable that the writer 
 of No. XL. of the "Watch-Tower" had allusion to something 
 of this kind when he made the remark, "-But if he [Chief-Justice 
 R. H. Morris] requests it, a particular account of the manner in 
 which the first charter was obtained shall be published, together 
 with a full and candid Disquisition of any Accusation lie may 
 be pleased to bring." In these words there is an evident inti- 
 mation that in the conduct of the Chief Justice relative to the 
 charter there were things that would not redound to his credit. 
 
 While making the intimation just mentioned, the writer of 
 No. XL. of the "Watch-Tower" says nothing respecting the 
 statement made by the writer of the supplement, that the peti- 
 tioners "were ordered to lay a copy of the charter before the 
 Chief Justice for his opinion, whether it was legal to grant it or 
 not." Although, possibly for some unexplained reason, this may 
 have been so, yet it is far more probable that the Chief Justice, 
 being a member of the Council, requested that all action in re- 
 gard to the charter might be deferred until he could carefully 
 examine its provisions and satisfy himself as to the propriety of 
 his giving his consent, as a member of the Council, to the prayer 
 of the petitioners. Beyond all question, the usual course in 
 regard to all important grants was to refer them to the Attorney- 
 General of the Province for his opinion as to the legality of the 
 grants therein contained. The Attorney-General at this time 
 was J. Warrell, Esq., the same gentleman who, upon the grant- 
 ing of the charter of 1748 by Governor Belcher, signed the fol- 
 lowing declaration at the close of the charter : [L. s.] " I have 
 perused and considered the written charter, and find nothing 
 contained therein inconsistent with his Majesty's interest or the 
 honor of the Crown." 
 
 On the charter given in July, 1718, to the Episcopal Church 
 in Perth Amboy, by Governor Hunter, there is a like declara-
 
 54 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 tion, signed by Thomas Gordon, the Attorney- General at that 
 time. But whatever may be the precise facts in the case of the 
 first charter of the College, whether it was referred to the Chief 
 Justice or the Attorney-General, one thing is certain, that the 
 petitioners for a college were under no obligation to the Chief 
 Justice for any favor extended to them by him. 
 
 Although President Hamilton was in feeble health during the 
 time he administered the government, from May 21, 1746, to 
 June 17, 1747, when he died, he appears to have attended per- 
 sonally to the duties of his office until the latter part of Decem- 
 ber ; and the first official information we have that his health 
 prevented his corresponding with the Home Government is con- 
 tained in a letter written at his request by Messrs. James Alex- 
 ander and R. Hunter Morris to the Board of Trade. The date 
 of this letter is the 24th of December, 1746, two months after 
 the College charter had passed the seal of the Province. 
 
 The two gentlemen here named were members of the Council. 
 In any record of what Mr. Hamilton did at this time there is no 
 evidence of an infirm state of mind. His consenting to grant 
 the petition for a college charter is in full accord with what 
 would have been expected of him in his best days. 
 
 The above sketch shows what was the condition of civil 
 affairs in the Province of New Jersey, and also the state of the 
 Presbyterian Church in the country at large, so far as they had 
 any bearing, either directly or indirectly, upon the erection of 
 the College of New Jersey. It also shows who were the parties 
 engaged in accomplishing this important work, and that the 
 College owes its origin to the need felt by them of more ample 
 provision than any at that time within convenient reach, for the 
 thorough training of candidates for the holy ministry, in both 
 their preparatory and professional studies. But in the erection 
 of this College its founders did not limit their views simply to 
 the educating of candidates for the ministry. It was also their 
 aim to make full provision for the instruction of all classes of 
 youth who might desire to obtain a liberal education and be 
 disposed to avail themselves of the advantages furnished by 
 such a seminary of learning.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF THE COLLEGE. 55 
 
 With the modes of conveyance then in use, Harvard and 
 Yale, the only Colleges in New England, were too remote for 
 the convenience of youth residing in the middle Provinces. 
 The stand taken by the authorities of these Colleges in opposi- 
 tion to the extravagances which in not a few instances attended 
 the great religious awakening of that period, and seemingly to 
 the awakening itself, alienated from them more or less some of 
 the best and most moderate men in the Presbyterian Church. 
 Suspicions, not fully warranted by the facts of the case, were 
 beginning to find vent that they were tinctured with Armin- 
 ianism, and were tending to even greater departures from the 
 thorough Calvinism of their founders and early friends.* 
 
 It has been said that the College owes its origin to the ex- 
 pulsion of David Brainerd, the celebrated missionary, from Yale 
 College, and to the refusal of the Presidentf and Trustees to 
 admit him to the first degree in the Arts at the same time with 
 the members of his class. The following extract is taken from 
 Dr. D. D. Field's " Genealogy of the Brainerd Family," page 265 : 
 
 " It is clear enough that the Rev. Jonathan Edwards was not satisfied with the 
 refusal of a degree to David Brainerd by the Faculty and Trustees of Yale College, 
 after all his readiness to confess his faults, and to confess them openly and fully. 
 Others in New England sympathized with him, and others at a distance. Among 
 the former were the Rev. Moses Dickinson, pastor of the church in Norwalk, Con- 
 necticut ; among the latter, the Rev. Jonathan Dickinson, pastor of the church in 
 Elizabethtown, New Jersey, and the Rev. Aaron Burr, pastor of the church in 
 Newark, who pleaded for Brainerd before the authorities of Yale College in behalf 
 of the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge in Foreign Parts, which 
 had appointed him their missionary. 
 
 " And now I will state a fact that may not be known to very many that will read 
 
 * See Governor Belcher's letter of the 3lst of May, 1748, to the Rev. Jonathan 
 Edwards, and also President Quincy's " History of Harvard University," vol. ii. 
 pp. 52 and 67. 
 
 f It is to be regretted that a man of the eminent ability and piety of President 
 Clap should not have discriminated more nicely between what was genuine and 
 what was false in the great religious awakening of his day, and that he should have 
 treated with marked severity any of his pupils whose strong religious feelings may 
 have betrayed them into the use of unguarded language or into a disregard of col- 
 lege rules. For his inflexible adherence to what he deemed to be his duty, in 
 those times of high excitement in matters of religion, he is to be held in honor and 
 esteem. There is abundant evidence that he was sound in doctrine, and a faithful 
 servant of Christ.
 
 56 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 this book. I once heard the Hon. John Dickinson, Chief Judge of the Middlesex 
 County Court, Connecticut, and son of the Rev. Mr. Dickinson, of Norwalk, say 
 that the establishment of Princeton College was owing to the sympathy felt for 
 David Brainerd, because the authorities of Yale College would not give him his 
 degree, and that the plan of the College was drawn in his father's house. 
 
 " Perhaps I have not given every word as he uttered the declaration. But . . . 
 I am certain that I have declared the precise fact that Judge Dickinson uttered. 
 There is evidence that the Rev. Aaron Burr said, after the rise of Princeton Col- 
 lege, that it would never have come into existence had it not been for the expulsion 
 of David Brainerd from Yale College. It is a significant fact, that three of the men 
 most conspicuous in their sympathy and efforts for Brainerd were the first three 
 Presidents of that College, Jonathan Dickinson, Aaron Burr, and Jonathan 
 Edwards." 
 
 The evidence here referred to respecting Mr. Burr's declara- 
 tion, is probably that given in Dr. A. Alexander's work, en- 
 titled "The Log College," page 127, in these words: "Some 
 years ago the writer heard the relict of the late Dr. Scott, of 
 New Brunswick, say, that when she was a little girl, she heard 
 the Rev. Mr. Burr declare in her father's house in Newark, if 
 it had not been for the treatment received by Mr. Brainerd at 
 Yale, New Jersey College would never have been erected." 
 
 Mrs. Scott was a Miss Crane, daughter of Mr. Elihu Crane, 
 of Newark, and a step-daughter of President Dickinson. 
 
 These statements were given from memory long after they 
 were uttered; and if they be in every particular strictly accu- 
 rate, it does not follow that the College of New Jersey owes its 
 existence to the treatment which Brainerd received from the 
 authorities of Yale College. The originators of the plan for 
 the erection of a college in New Jersey may have needed the 
 stimulus, which that occurrence gave them, to mature, without 
 further delay, their plan for a seminary of learning, which for 
 several years they had deemed necessary to the proper training 
 of candidates for the ministry in their branch of the Church, 
 and for the liberal education of youths designed for other em- 
 ployments; and it may have been that without this additional 
 incitement their plan for such an institution would not have 
 been perfected at that time, nor the requisite steps taken to 
 secure a charter, which in those days was deemed essential to 
 the establishment of a college, or at least to the conferring of 
 literary degrees.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF THE COLLEGE. 
 
 57 
 
 It has also been said that the Log College was the germ of 
 the College of New Jersey, and Whitefield somewhere speaks 
 of the Neshaminy school as having grown into a large college, 
 now erecting in the Jerseys.* But we cannot see the matter 
 in this light. For, as shown in the preceding narrative, the 
 friends and patrons of the Neshaminy school stood aloof when 
 the College of New Jersey was first established. With no more 
 propriety, therefore, can we look to the Log College to dis- 
 cover the origin of the College of New Jersey than we can to 
 the head-waters of the Neshaminy to ascertain the fountain- 
 head of the Delaware, of which river the Neshaminy is but a 
 branch and a tributary. 
 
 After the College was in operation, and when it was pro- 
 posed to enlarge the institution, and to obtain a new charter, 
 the friends of the Log College came into the measure, and 
 became earnest and most efficient friends of the enterprise, and 
 contributed very largely to its success. 
 
 In New England the College of New Jersey had many well- 
 wishers, and prominent among these Jonathan Edwards and 
 Moses Dickinson. There is also reason to believe that some 
 of the more extravagant among the Revivalists in New Eng- 
 land, after they had seen and renounced their errors, took an 
 interest in the institution designed to promote fervent piety and 
 sound learning, and to be the advocate of such genuine works 
 of grace as were often witnessed in the revivals of those times. 
 In this class may be placed James Davenport and Timothy 
 Allen, men of talent, learning, and piety, yet for a time erratic 
 and even fanatical, but afterwards sober-minded and desirous to 
 repair the evils of their wild and unwarrantable courses. With 
 the aid of some friends, they erected, in New London, Connecti- 
 cut, an institution called by them " The Shepherd's Tent," to 
 educate men of the right stamp for the ministry. They were led 
 to do this in consequence of the opposition of Harvard and Yale 
 to their teaching and measures, and also on account of the severe 
 treatment which Mr. Davenport received at the hands of both 
 the civil and Church authorities of Connecticut. By prohibiting 
 
 * Dr. Stearns's History of the First Church of Newark. 
 VOL. I. 5
 
 58 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 the establishment of seminaries by private persons, the Legis- 
 lature of Connecticut compelled the friends of this school to 
 remove it to Rhode Island, where it lingered for a time, and 
 was given up. 
 
 Mention is made of the " Shepherd's Tent" by the Synod of 
 Philadelphia in their letter of the 3<Dth of May, 1746, to Presi- 
 dent Clap, of Yale College,* and, from the manner in which it 
 is spoken of, it is evident that the Synod had about the same 
 opinion of it which they had entertained of Mr. Tennent's 
 school. They assure the President that they will be shy of the 
 proposals of the New York Synod for a friendly correspond- 
 ence " till they show us in what way they intend to have their 
 youth educated for the ministry, and be as ready to discourage 
 all such methods of bringing all good learning into contempt, 
 as the ' Shepherd's Tent.'" The Synod of Philadelphia knew 
 full well that Mr. Dickinson and his friends of the New York 
 Presbytery were as earnestly in favor of a thorough education 
 of candidates for the ministry as they themselves were ; but the 
 Synod also knew that the majority of the Synod of New York 
 were not so ; and they were apprehensive that if the Synod of 
 New York took order in regard to the erection of a school or 
 college, it would be of the character and standing of the Log 
 College, or of the Shepherd's Tent. The language of the 
 Synod of Philadelphia makes it evident that the Synod was not 
 aware that even before this time the leading members of the 
 Presbytery of New York had sought to obtain a charter for a 
 college. 
 
 Between the supporters of the Shepherd's Tent and the pe- 
 titioners for authority to erect a college in New Jersey there 
 was not at that time a full accord in doctrine, and there was 
 but little, if any, sympathy. The principal of the Tent and 
 several other ministers of like mind united in controverting the 
 views of President Dickinson, as set forth in his dialogue " On 
 the Display of Divine Grace," and in condemning him, for teach- 
 ing what they then regarded as an inexcusable error, viz., that 
 the proof of our justification is to be found in the evidence of 
 
 * See the printed minutes of the Synod.
 
 THE ORIGIN OF THE COLLEGE. 
 
 59 
 
 our sanctification. (See Webster's " Church History," page 584.) 
 But, as intimated above, Messrs. Allen and Davenport changed 
 their views and openly renounced their errors in doctrine and 
 in practice, and subsequently connected themselves with the 
 Presbyterian Church. For some years they resided in New 
 Jersey, and labored here in the ministry, and were members of 
 the Presbytery of New Brunswick.* The Rev. Timothy Symes, 
 one of the ministers who had united with Allen in condemning 
 the work of President Dickinson, settled in East Jersey in 1746, 
 and became a member of the Presbytery of New York. As 
 they had become Presbyterians, and had settled within the 
 bounds of a Synod the members of which were now all earn- 
 estly united in favor of the then only Presbyterian college in the 
 land, they too could not fail to give it their best wishes. 
 
 The union of the Synods of New York and of Philadelphia, in 
 1757, served to promote a friendly feeling towards the College 
 on the part of sundry ministers of the Philadelphia Synod; and 
 in the autumn of 1766 a proposition from a number of gentle- 
 men in Philadelphia and Lewistown, Pennsylvania, was made to 
 the Trustees, that the Faculty of the College should be further 
 enlarged by the appointment of several professors, to be chosen 
 without respect to former divisions or parties in the Church, 
 with the promise of pecuniary aid in case their proposal should 
 be accepted. 
 
 It was found that this arrangement could not be carried into 
 effect. Still, a friendly feeling was promoted. 
 
 Thus from the different sources here enumerated, and from 
 others less prominent, including several academies, there were 
 raised up friends for the new College, who all contributed more 
 or less to its prosperity. But for its first establishment, as will 
 be more fully shown, the College was indebted, under God, to 
 Jonathan Dickinson, John Pierson, Ebenezer Pemberton, Aaron 
 Burr, and their immediate friends and helpers. They engaged 
 with earnestness in this undertaking, because they knew and 
 felt the need of just such an institution to train for the Church 
 
 * See article Davenport, in Sprague's Annals of the American Pulpit, vol. iii. 
 page 90.
 
 60 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 a pious and learned ministry, and for the other learned profes- 
 sions a body of intelligent and godly men. 
 
 May the time be far distant, or, rather, may it never arrive, 
 when this College shall be an "institution devoted exclusively 
 [or even mainly] to the advancement of science or general liter- 
 ature"! On the contrary, may it ever be regarded as an insti- 
 tution consecrated to the service of God for the defence of 
 revealed truth and for the promotion of fervent piety and sound 
 learning !
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE DESIGN OF THE COLLEGE, AND ITS RELATIONS TO THE 
 CHURCH AND THE STATE. 
 
 IN tracing the origin of the College, its design was almost 
 necessarily brought into view ; but not so fully as the impor- 
 tance of that design demands. 
 
 The chief aim of the founders and early friends of the College 
 was to furnish the Church, and more especially their own branch 
 of it, with a pious and learned ministry. But this was not their 
 only aim. It was a part of their plan to provide liberally for 
 the proper intellectual and religious culture of all classes of 
 youths who might be disposed to avail themselves of the facili- 
 ties afforded by this institution for such culture. 
 
 The Trustees under the second charter were in full accord 
 with those under the first, and all had one object in view. Mr. 
 Burr, the first President under the second charter, was Mr. Dick- 
 inson's successor under the first charter; and it is highly prob- 
 able that all the surviving Trustees of the first charter were 
 Trustees under the charter given by Governor Belcher two 
 years after. The correspondence of the Governor -furnishes 
 complete evidence that he and the early friends of the College 
 were all of one mind as to the objects to be attained through 
 the instrumentality of the College, which was already in opera- 
 tion when he entered upon the administration of public affairs 
 in New Jersey. In offering to give the College " a new and 
 better charter," it was not his aim to change the character of the 
 College, but only to enable it the more readily and effectually 
 to accomplish the design of its founders. 
 
 The view here given of this design is fully established by 
 the following extracts from the minutes of the Trustees, and 
 from the minutes of the Synod of New York. At a meeting 
 
 61
 
 62 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 of the Board, held October 13, 1748, after accepting the char- 
 ter offered them by Governor Belcher, the Trustees voted to 
 present an address to the Governor, and to " thank his Excel- 
 lency for the grant of the charter." The further record of this 
 matter is as follows : 
 
 " An address being drawn up by the Rev. Mr. Burr, was read and approved. 
 
 " Ordered, That the Rev. Mr. Cowell wait upon his Excellency and present the 
 address to him. 
 
 " Ordered, That a copy of the address be taken by the Clerk and inserted in the 
 minutes. 
 
 " To His Excellency 
 
 "JONATHAN BELCHER, ESQ., 
 
 " Captain- General and Governor-in-Chief of the Province of New Jersey and ter- 
 ritories thereon depending in America, and Vice-Admiral of the same : 
 " The Humble Address of the Trustees of the College of New Jersey. 
 " May it please your Excellency, 
 
 " We have adored the wise and gracious Providence which has placed your 
 Excellency in the chief seat of government in this Province, and have taken our 
 parts with multitudes in congratulating New Jersey upon that occasion. 
 
 " Your long known and well approved friendship to religion and learning left 
 us no room to doubt your doing all that lay in your power to promote so valuable 
 a cause in these parts, and upon this head our most raised expectations have been 
 abundantly answered. We do, therefore, cheerfully embrace this opportunity of 
 paying our most grateful and sincere acknowledgments to your Excellency for 
 granting so ample and well-contrived a charter for erecting a seminary of learning 
 in this Province, which has been so much wanted and so long desired. 
 
 " And as it has pleased your Excellency to intrust us with so important a charge, 
 it shall be our study and care to approve ourselves worthy of the great confidence 
 you have placed in us, by doing our utmost to promote so noble a design. 
 
 " And since we have your Excellency to direct and assist us in this important 
 and difficult undertaking, we shall engage in it with the more freedom and cheer- 
 fulness; not doubting but by the smiles of Heaven, under your protection, it may 
 prove a flourishing seminary of piety and good literature ; and continue not only 
 a perpetual monument of honor to your name, above the victories and triumphs of 
 renowned conquerors, but a lasting foundation for the future prosperity of Church 
 and State. 
 
 " That your Excellency may long live, a blessing to this Province, an ornament 
 and support to our infant college, that you may see your generous designs for the 
 public good take their desired effect, and at last receive a crown of glory that 
 fadeth not away, is and shall be our constant prayer. 
 
 " By order of the Trustees. 
 
 " THOMAS ARTHUR, Cl. Cor. 
 
 "NEW BRUNSWICK, October 13, 1748." 
 
 To which his Excellency was pleased to return the following 
 answer:
 
 THE DESIGN OF THE COLLEGE, ETC. 63 
 
 " GENTLEMEN : 
 
 " I have this day received by one of your members, the Rev. Mr. Cowell, your 
 kind and handsome address; for which I heartily return you my thanks; and shall 
 esteem my being placed at the head of this government a still greater favor from 
 God and the King, if it may at any time fall in my power, as it is my inclination, 
 to promote the kingdom of the great Redeemer, by taking the College of Nezu Jersey 
 under my countenance and protection, as a seminary of true religion and good 
 literature. 
 
 "J. BELCHER." 
 
 In an address to the Governor by the Trustees, the date 
 being September 24, 1755, mention is made of his ardor for the 
 promotion of true piety and sound learning among the inhabitants 
 of New Jersey, and of the indebtedness of the College to him, 
 under God, for its then flourishing state. In his reply he says : 
 
 " It seemed to me that a seminary of religion and learning should be promoted 
 in this Province, for the better enlightening the minds and polishing the manners 
 of this and the neighboring colonies. . . . This important affair I have been, 
 during my administration, honestly and heartily prosecuting in all such laudable 
 ways and measures as I have judged most likely to effect what we all aim at, 
 which I hope and believe is the advancing the kingdom and interest of the 
 blessed Jesus and the general good of minkind." 
 
 These extracts furnish abundant evidence that the promotion- 
 of true religion and of sound learning was the aim of all concerned 
 in laying the foundations of the College of Ne^v Jersey. 
 
 Although the Synod of New York, as a body, took no part 
 in the first efforts to establish the College of New Jersey, but 
 left this important measure to the fostering care of sundry 
 leading ministers and laymen connected with the Presbytery 
 of New York, yet when the new charter was given to the Col- 
 lege by Governor Belcher, the entire Synod became interested 
 in promoting the design of the College. And when, in 1753, 
 the Trustees of the College had obtained the consent of the 
 Rev. Gilbert Tennent and of the Rev. Samuel Davies to visit 
 Great Britain and Ireland, to solicit funds for the erection of 
 suitable buildings, the Synod, upon the petition of the Trustees, 
 appointed these distinguished gentlemen to this work, gave 
 them letters of commendation, and sent with them an earnest 
 appeal to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland for 
 aid in behalf of the College. After reciting their utter inability 
 to meet the demand for ministers, to supply the Presbyterian
 
 64 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 churches in connection with the Synod, in the Provinces of 
 New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and 
 Carolina, the Synod say: 
 
 " Now, it is from the College of New Jersey only that we can expect a remedy 
 for these inconveniences; it is to that [college] your petitioners look for the in- 
 crease of their numbers ; it is on that the Presbyterian churches through the six 
 colonies above mentioned principally depend for a supply of accomplished minis- 
 ters ; from that has been obtained considerable relief already, notwithstanding the 
 many disadvantages that unavoidably attend it in its present infant state; and 
 from that may be expected a sufficient supply, when brought to maturity. 
 
 " Your petitioners, therefore, earnestly pray that this very reverend Assembly 
 would afford the said College all the countenance and assistance in their power. 
 The young daughter of the Church of Scotland, helpless and exposed in foreign 
 lands, cries to her tender and powerful mother for relief. The cries of ministers 
 oppressed with labors, and of congregations famishing for want of the sincere 
 milk of the word, implore assistance. And were the poor Indian savages sensible 
 of their own case they would join in the cry, and beg for more missionaries to be 
 sent to propagate the religion of Jesus among them." 
 
 In the conclusion of their address they add: 
 
 ".Now, as the College of New Jersey appears to be the most promising expedient 
 to redress these grievances, and to promote religion and learning in these Provinces, 
 your petitioners most heartily concur with the Trustees, and humbly pray that an act 
 /may t>e passed by this venerable and honorable Assembly for a national collection 
 in behalf of said College." (See printed minutes, pp. 255 and 256, of the Synod 
 of New York.) 
 
 Funds more than sufficient to defray the expense of erecting 
 Nassau Hall was the result of this action of the Synod. The 
 above extracts from the address of the Synod to the General 
 .Assembly of the Church of Scotland show clearly why the 
 .members of the Synod labored so assiduously to establish 
 .and to sustain with vigor the College of New Jersey. They 
 regarded it as the most effectual means of supplying their 
 churches with an able ministry. 
 
 The authorities above cited* are amply sufficient to establish 
 the positions assumed above as to the views and aims of those 
 who founded and built up this institution. Prompted by a 
 strong desire to further the interests of religion, and more 
 especially to furnish their own branch of the Church with an 
 able and learned ministry, they sought to lay the foundation of 
 
 * See also the Rev. David Cowell's letter, urging Mr. Davies to accept the presi- 
 dency of the College, in Dr. Hall's "History," page 132, or Webster's, page 444.
 
 THE DESIGN OF THE COLLEGE, ETC. 65 
 
 an institution of learning which should be commensurate with 
 the wants of the whole community, and so to conduct its affairs 
 as to promote, at one and the same time, the welfare of the 
 Church and of the State. 
 
 Having obtained a charter, to use their own expression, " so 
 ample and well contrived," the Trustees were not only content, 
 but perfectly satisfied with its provisions. It gave them all they 
 wanted. They were left untrammelled by the State, and yet 
 were under its protection. They enjoyed the confidence of the 
 Church, and yet were perfectly free to adopt such measures as 
 they deemed best adapted to the success of the institution, and 
 through it to advance the civil and religious interests of the 
 country ; and, being wise, active, and pious men, their labors 
 were not in vain. 
 
 The view here presented accords fully with that given by 
 President Green in his " Historical Sketch of the Origin and 
 Design of the College," as the following extract from that work 
 will fully show : 
 
 " It is apparent not only from the motives which so powerfully influenced those 
 who first projected the College, and who labored so long and earnestly to establish 
 it, but from the express and repeated declarations of Governor Belcher, in his re- 
 plies to the addresses to the original Trustees (those named in the second charter), 
 that this institution was intended, by all the parties concerned in founding it, to be 
 one in which religion and learning should be unitedly cultivated in all time to 
 come. This ought never to be forgotten. There is scarcely anything more un- 
 righteous in itself, or more injurious to society, than disregarding and perverting 
 the design of the founders of charitable, religious, or literary institutions. It is 
 doing base injustice to the dead, and at the same time a powerful and often an 
 .effectual discouragement to those among the living, who might, otherwise, make 
 exertions and bestow their property to found and endow establishments of the 
 greatest public utility. It is hoped that the guardians of Nassau Hall will forever 
 keep in mind that the design of its foundation would be perverted if religion 
 should ever be cultivated in it to the neglect of science, or science to the neglect of 
 religion ; if, on the one hand, it should be converted into a religious house like a 
 Monastery, or a Theological Seminary, in which religious instruction should claim, 
 almost exclusively, the attention of every pupil; or if, on the other hand, it should 
 become an establishment in which science should be taught, how perfectly soever, 
 without connecting with it, and constantly endeavoring to inculcate, the principles 
 and practice of genuine piety. Whatever other institutions may exist or arise in 
 our country, in which religion and science may be separated from each other by 
 their instructors or governors, this institution, -without a gross perversion of its 
 original design, can never be one."
 
 66 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 It is worthy of note that Governor Belcher and the Trustees, 
 in speaking of the College as an institution designed for the 
 promotion of religion and learning, always mention religion 
 first ; and it is evident from what they said and did with respect 
 to the College, that the religious culture of the pupils was the 
 thing uppermost in their minds, and that to which they attached 
 the most importance. Between true religion and sound learn- 
 ing there cannot be any real or substantial disagreement ; nor 
 will the volume of Nature when thoroughly unfolded be found 
 to contradict the volume of Inspiration properly interpreted. 
 Science, falsely so called, may call into question the teachings of 
 revealed truth, but such a thing as this can never be allowed in 
 this institution, unless its guardians lose sight of its' original 
 design and prove recreant to the trust confided to them. Yea, 
 more, if due regard be had to this sacred trust, the promo- 
 tion of true religion will ever be regarded by the authorities of 
 the College as having the first claim upon their attention, in 
 all their plans for the extension and the improvement of the 
 course of instruction given in the College. It must ever be the 
 solemn duty of the Trustees to see to it, in the selection of 
 persons to fill the vacancies in their own Board, that none 
 be chosen in regard to whom any doubt can be entertained 
 as to their approval of the original design of the College, or in 
 regard to their earnest desire to secure the very purposes for 
 which the College was erected. In the good providence of 
 God, the College has an ample charter, that is equal to all its 
 legitimate aims ; and we trust that it will undergo no radical 
 changes, in deference to the varying opinions of the day and 
 to a public clamor for experiment and innovations. If the Col- 
 lege were a State institution, founded, supported, and governed 
 by State authorities, it might with some show of reason be 
 expected to conform its teachings, discipline, and mode of select- 
 ing its guardians and instructors to the wishes and whims of 
 those who, from time to time, may represent the opinions of 
 the community at large: but this is not the case with the Col- 
 lege of New Jersey. It was founded, not by the State, although 
 with the sanction and under the protection of the civil power, 
 to accomplish certain definite purposes, and in a certain definite
 
 THE DESIGN OF THE COLLEGE, ETC. 67 
 
 way. Nor was it founded directly by the Church, although 
 one branch of the Church extended to it a fostering care, and 
 prominent members of that Church were the first to devise the 
 plan of it and to lay its foundations. The founders of the 
 College were both members of the Commonwealth and mem- 
 bers of the Church, and they were in every respect suitable 
 men to be intrusted with the important enterprise of erecting 
 and controlling an institution for the education of youth, in 
 whose education both the State and the Church were deeply 
 interested. In both charters it was stipulated that none should 
 be excluded from the privileges of the College on account of 
 any different religious sentiments, as was the case in the Eng- 
 lish Universities, but, on the contrary, that all should enjoy 
 equal liberties and privileges ; yet the very terms of the stipu- 
 lation show that the College was expected to have a religious 
 faith, although none were to be required to adopt the religious 
 views embraced by the College authorities as a condition of 
 enjoying the privileges afforded to its members. 
 
 The petitioners for the College charter were known to be 
 Presbyterians, and it was also known that the governing motive 
 with them in seeking a charter was to provide for the youth of 
 their own Church, and more especially for their candidates for 
 the ministry, a thorough training in all the various branches 
 of a liberal education, including, as a matter of the highest in- 
 terest, full instruction in the doctrines of the Christian faith, 
 according to their understanding of them. 
 
 Either the superior judgment of those concerned in the 
 foundation of our College, and their great liberality of senti- 
 ment, or else the circumstances of their position, perhaps all 
 combined, led them to adopt the very best plan possible for the 
 right founding and the right ordering of such an institution. 
 They made it neither a State College nor a Church College, 
 but committed it to the oversight and care of a select number 
 of the very best men interested in this enterprise, and who had 
 the confidence and respect of the whole community, being lead- 
 ing men both in the Church and in the State. 
 
 It has been sometimes a matter of remark and even censure 
 that the Legislature of New Jersey never contributed any funds
 
 68 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSE\. 
 
 for sustaining its oldest college, which has been a source of 
 many benefits to the State, and the occasion of large sums of 
 money being expended here. But in this matter we incline to 
 the opinion that the Legislature has acted wisely for the State 
 and happily for the College. Had the College been liberally 
 endowed by the State, this might have given the Legislature a 
 pretext, if nothing more, for interfering with the government and 
 course of instruction ; which we are happy to say it has never 
 attempted to do. In the charter of the College the Legislature 
 has never made a change, except at the request of the Trustees ; 
 and never refused to make one desired by the Board. And, 
 further, the Legislature has at different times enacted special 
 laws for the protection of the students from extortion and for 
 the guarding of their health and morals. 
 
 Had the College been a State institution, under the control 
 of a Board of Trustees chosen from time to time by the State 
 authorities, and with a course of instruction and a system of 
 government presented by the Legislature, the State would doubt- 
 less have regarded it as a duty to do all in its power to sustain 
 the College, and to provide the requisite means for an ample 
 and most liberal course of instruction. But in this case prob- 
 ably the course of religious instruction, the most important 
 given in any school or college, must have been circumscribed 
 and of a comparatively limited extent, if not wholly excluded: 
 lest the rights of conscience should be invaded. 
 
 The only effectual course to guard against such a result is to 
 have this matter of a higher education in the hands of a select 
 number of prominent citizens, bearing the twofold relation of 
 citizens and of church-members, with power to perpetuate them- 
 selves, by filling at their own discretion all vacancies in their 
 own body, and let all who are disposed and are able to estab- 
 lish such institutions be encouraged to do so, by granting them 
 corporate privileges without regard to the particular religious 
 denomination with which they are associated. In this way full 
 provision may be made in the academic curriculum for all the 
 religious instruction which the interests of either the State or 
 the Church call for. Each pupil, or his parent for him, can 
 select the college he prefers, in view of all the advantages prof-
 
 THE DESIGN OF THE COLLEGE, ETC. 69 
 
 fered, and neither pupil nor parent can properly complain that 
 the student is required to give attention to the whole of the 
 prescribed course, including the religious as well as the literary 
 and scientific parts of that course. 
 
 On this plan, too, each religious denomination will have a 
 guarantee that the children of their own Church will have a 
 sound religious training according to their views of truth. For 
 such colleges must to a great extent depend for their patronage 
 and support upon that' religious denomination with which the 
 trustees and teachers are connected ; and thus indirectly the 
 Church, or the particular branch of it under whose auspices a 
 college has been established, will have a voice in its manage- 
 ment, and that too without being subjected to any of those in- 
 conveniences and troubles to which a more direct control might 
 readily and naturally give rise, introducing jealousies and col- 
 lisions into the ecclesiastical bodies themselves. Happily for the 
 College of New Jersey, it is not and never has been a State or 
 a Church college ; yet through the whole period of its exist- 
 ence it has merited and received the countenance and favor of 
 that branch of the Church most interested in its establishment, 
 and also the confidence and protection of the State authorities 
 which gave and confirmed its charter. Yea, more, such from 
 the beginning has been its catholic spirit, that not a few of its 
 warmest friends have been found in other denominations than 
 the Presbyterian ; and it has had the honor to educate for other 
 branches of the Church some of their brightest intellects, who 
 have not failed to acknowledge their indebtedness to their 
 Alma Mater. 
 
 While, therefore, the friends of this College are not called 
 upon to speak disparagingly of colleges directly under either 
 State or Church control, they may be thankful that the College 
 of their affections was intrusted to the exclusive care of a few 
 wise and select men, who, in the fear of God, laid deep its 
 foundations, and upon them erected an institution for the ad- 
 vancement of piety and learning, and had a special reference 
 to the supplying of their own branch of the Church of Christ 
 with a godly and well-trained ministry.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE CHARTERS OF 1746 AND 1748. 
 
 THE first charter of the College passed the great seal of the 
 Province on the 22d of October, 1746, and it was attested by 
 John Hamilton, Esq., President of his Majesty's Council, and 
 Commander-in-Chief of the Province of New Jersey, as appears 
 from a memorandum made in Book C of Commissions and 
 Charters, etc., page 137, in the office of the Secretary of State 
 for New Jersey. 
 
 The charter itself is not given in these records. By the par- 
 ties to whom it was granted it is spoken of as ".a charter with 
 full and ample privileges," and one by which " equal liberties 
 and privileges are secured to every denomination of Christians, 
 any different religious sentiments notwithstanding." 
 
 In an advertisement in the " New York Gazette and Weekly 
 Post Boy" of February 2, 1746-47, it is mentioned that this 
 charter was granted to Jonathan Dickinson, John Pierson, 
 Ebenezer Pemberton, Aaron Burr, ministers of the gospel, 
 and some other gentlemen, as Trustees of said College. 
 
 According to a memorandum made by Mr. Nathaniel Fitz 
 Randolph, of Princeton, the gentleman who gave to the College 
 the land upon which Nassau Hall is erected, the whole number 
 of Trustees under the first charter was twelve. 
 
 This comprises all that is now positively known respecting 
 this charter, of which neither the original nor any copy is to be 
 found. 
 
 In his biographical sketches of Presbyterian ministers in this 
 country, the late Rev. Richard Webster mentions that the Rev. 
 Thomas Arthur was one of the original Trustees of the Col- 
 lege. This is by no means improbable ; but on what authority, 
 or with what understanding of its import, this statement is made, 
 70
 
 THE CHARTERS OF 1746 AND 1748. ji 
 
 is not known. Mr. Arthur was the pastor of the Presbyterian 
 church in New Brunswick, and a member not of the Presbytery 
 of New Brunswick, but of the Presbytery of New York, of which 
 body Messrs. Dickinson, Pierson, Pemberton, and Burr were all 
 members. Mr. Arthur is named in the second charter as one 
 of the Trustees under that grant. 
 
 The second charter was given two years after the first, by 
 Jonathan Belcher, Esq., his Majesty's Governor of New Jersey, 
 and it passed the great seal of the Province on the I4th of 
 September, 1748. Under this second charter the number of 
 clerical and lay Trustees, exclusive of the President of the Col- 
 lege, was equal. It is, therefore, most probable that one-half 
 of the Trustees under the first charter were laymen. And as 
 all the ministers who are known to have been Trustees under 
 the first charter, and alive at the date of the second charter, are 
 named as Trustees in this second instrument, so it is probable 
 that most, if not all, of the lay members of the Board under 
 the first charter, who were living at the date of the second, 
 continued to be Trustees under the second. 
 
 The ministers of the gospel known to have been Trustees 
 under the first charter all resided either in East Jersey or in 
 New York City; and this renders it highly probable that the 
 lay Trustees associated with them were also residents in the 
 same districts. 
 
 Of the lay Trustees named in the second charter, William 
 Smith and P. V. B. Livingston were members of the First Pres- 
 byterian Church in the city of New York, of which church the 
 Rev. Ebenezer Pemberton was the pastor ; and it is certain that 
 Mr. Pemberton was a Trustee under both charters. Wm. Pear- 
 tree Smith, who was a Trustee from 1748 to 1793, forty-five 
 years, also resided in the city of New York, at the respective 
 dates of the first and of the second charter. Subsequently he was 
 a prominent citizen of Elizabethtown, New Jersey, and a Trustee 
 of the Presbyterian church there. James Hude, a member of 
 his Majesty's Council for New Jersey, was connected with the 
 Presbyterian church in New Brunswick, under the pastoral care 
 of the Rev. Thomas Arthur. Andrew Johnston, who was not 
 only a Trustee, but also the first person chosen Treasurer of the
 
 72 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY, 
 
 College under the second charter, was a member of his Ma- 
 jesty's Council for New Jersey, and a resident of Perth Amboy, 
 the residence of President Hamilton, and the seat of govern- 
 ment for East Jersey. Messrs. Hude and Johnston were 
 members of the Council when President Hamilton, with the 
 consent of the Council, granted the first charter. The five 
 civilians here named as included among the Trustees under 
 the second charter were all gentlemen of high standing, and 
 for the reasons suggested above we deem it morally certain 
 that some if not all of them ,were Trustees of the College 
 under the first charter as well as under the second ; and that 
 Samuel Smith, the earliest historian of New Jersey, was sub- 
 stantially correct in saying that " the College was first founded 
 by a charter from President Hamilton, and enlarged by Gov- 
 ernor Belcher." (See Smith's " History of New Jersey," page 
 490.) Mr. Smith was a personal friend of Governor Belcher, 
 and for some years a townsman. 
 
 It is true, indeed, that in the second charter there is no reference 
 made to the one previously granted by President Hamilton of 
 his Majesty's Council; and there appears to have been a dis- 
 position upon the part of some of the friends of the College to 
 lose sight of the first charter, and to regard the College under 
 the second charter as a new and distinct institution. Thus, in 
 an account of the College prepared by Mr. Samuel Blair, then 
 a Tutor in the College, under the direction of President Finley, . 
 and published in 1766, we meet with the following statement 
 upon page 7 : 
 
 " Yet even in this dark period there were not wanting several gentlemen, both 
 of the civil and of the sacred character, who, forming a just estimate of the im- 
 portance of learning, exerted their utmost efforts to plant and cherish it in the 
 Province of New Jersey. After some disappointments and fruitless attempts, appli- 
 cation was at length made to his Excellency Jonathan Belcher, Esq., at that time 
 Governor of the Province; and in the year 1748 he was pleased, with the approba- 
 tion of his Majesty's Council, to grant a charter incorporating sundry gentlemen 
 of the clergy and laity, to the number of twenty-three, as Trustees, investing them 
 with such powers as were requisite to carry the design into execution, and consti- 
 tuting his Majesty's Governor, for the time being, ex officio their President." 
 
 The writer of No. XL. of the " Watch-Tower" uses the fol- 
 lowing language (see pages 50 and 51, ante}:
 
 THE CHARTERS OF 1746 AND 1748. 73 
 
 " The present constitution of New Jersey College has no dependence upon the 
 charter obtained from Governor Hamilton, nor indeed any relation to it; as that 
 by which it is now established is in sundry respects different, the majority of the 
 Trustees being also different persons. Whether the charter obtained from Governor 
 Hamilton in his declining state was a valid one I am not able to determine. The 
 contrary, however, has always appeared to me most probable, and that it was 
 therefore wisely resigned; though, indeed, the Episcopal church in Newark is 
 established by a charter obtained of the same gentleman and in the same circum- 
 stances, the validity of which I have not heard called in question." 
 
 The writers of the " Watch -Tower" were opposed to the 
 founding of a college in New York by charter from a Gov- 
 ernor, and insisted it should be by an act of the Assembly, of 
 course with the concurrence of the Governor and Council; and 
 they were therefore, in all probability, the more predisposed 
 to question the validity of a charter granted not even by the 
 regularly commissioned Governor, but by one for the time being 
 administering the government; and they were not unwilling to 
 throw doubt upon the right of Lieutenant-Governor De Lancey, 
 then at the head of affairs in New York, to grant a charter for 
 a college to be established in that Province, by giving utterance 
 to any doubt they may have had respecting the validity of the 
 charter granted by the acting Governor of New Jersey. 
 
 As to the fact that a majority of the Trustees under the 
 second charter were different persons from those under the 
 first, it has nothing to do in deciding the matter in question, 
 viz., whether the College under the second charter was the same 
 with that under the first charter. Under the first the number 
 of Trustees was tivelve, and under the second twenty-three. Of 
 the former, one at least had died ; and this itself would make 
 the nnv Trustees a majority of the whole number under the 
 second charter. 
 
 It is true that the first charter ceased to be of any force upon 
 the acceptance of the second; and inasmuch as the first was 
 never recorded, and as all persons who could claim any rights 
 or privileges under it had transferred their interests to a new 
 corporation, no formal surrender of it was tendered to the 
 granting power; nor was any such surrender required. This 
 view of the matter accords with what, in a letter of the date of 
 July 4, 1748, Governor Belcher said to the Rev. Gilbert Ten- 
 
 VOL. I. 6
 
 74 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 nent, and probably in reply to an inquiry made by Mr. Tennent, 
 viz., " as the old charter was not recorded, upon the appearance 
 of the present one the old one would become a nonentity." 
 By "the present one" is meant the charter prepared by himself, 
 or under his instructions, which at the date of his letter was 
 probably ready for revision by the Council. 
 
 In a letter dated July 28, 1748, and addressed to the Rev. 
 Mr. Pemberton, Governor Belcher says : 
 
 " The charter has passed the seal, and is ready in all respects, and I think it is 
 best that you and Mr. Burr come hither [to Burlington] as soon as you can, to re- 
 ceive it from me, and that I may talk with you about the College." 
 
 And on the 3<Dth of the same month he writes to Mr. Ten- 
 nent : 
 
 " I have wrote to Mr. Pemberton, desiring he and Mr. Burr would be here as 
 soon as they could, and when they come they should give you notice to come 
 hither also, when I shodld deliver the charter to you gentlemen on behalf of the 
 Trustees." 
 
 In these extracts, written in July, 1748, it is distinctly said 
 that "the new charter has passed the seal, and is ready in all 
 respects;" and yet it appears from the charter now in the pos- 
 session of the Trustees, that it was attested by the Governor 
 and passed the seal of the Province on the I4th day of Sep- 
 tember, 1748. The only solution of the discrepancy here men- 
 tioned is this, viz., that Messrs. Pemberton, Burr, and Tennent 
 were not altogether satisfied with some clauses of the charter as 
 at first prepared by the direction of Governor Belcher, and that 
 at their request the charter was altered, and passed the seal a 
 second time on the I4th of September, 1748, the day after its 
 final approval by the Council of the Province. 
 
 It was doubtless from viewing the first charter as a nullity 
 upon their acceptance of the second, and from their regarding 
 a charter as essential to the very being of a college, that the 
 Trustees, in one of their written addresses to Governor Belcher, 
 viz., in that of November 24, 1755, speak of him as "\hzfounder, 
 patron, and benefactor of the College." 
 
 As to the validity of the charter given by President Hamil- 
 ton, there is no more room for doubt than there is with re-
 
 THE CHARTERS OF 1746 AND 1748. 75 
 
 spect to the validity of the one granted by Governor Belcher. 
 From the instructions given to Lord Cornbury, Governor of the 
 Province from 1702 to 1708 (see Smith's "History of New 
 Jersey," pages 258 and 259), it is evident that, upon the death or 
 absence of the Governor and the Lieutenant-Governor, the senior 
 Councillor became the acting Governor, and was in express 
 terms authorized to exercise all the powers of the Governor: 
 
 ..." It is our will and pleasure, therefore, that if, upon your death or absence, 
 there be no Lieutenant-Governor or Commander-in-Chief, the eldest Councillor, 
 whose name is first placed in our instructions to you, and who shall be, at the time 
 of your death or absence, residing in our said Province of New Jersey, shall take 
 upon him the administration of the government, and execzite our said commission- 
 arid instructions, with the several powers and authorities therein contained, in the 
 same manner, and to all intents and purposes, as either otir Governor or Commander- 
 in-Chief should or might to do, in case of your absence, or until your return, or in 
 all cases until our further pleasure be known.'" 
 
 August 23, 1743, the Secretary of the Board of Trade wrote 
 to John Hamilton, Esq., in reply to his letter of June 9, that 
 the Board looked upon him to be the legal President and Com- 
 mander-in-Chief of New Jersey from the 28th of March, 1736,. 
 till Mr. Morris took possession of the government. Upon the 
 death of Governor Morris, 1746, Mr. Hamilton, being the senior 
 Councillor, again took upon himself the administration of the 
 affairs of the Province as President of the Council and Com- 
 mander-in-Chief; and as such he granted, in the name of the 
 King, with the consent of the Council, the first charter of the 
 College. 
 
 It is a far more serious question whether a charter given by 
 a Governor was a valid one before it received the sanction of 
 his Majesty by the advice of his Council. The one hundredth 
 article of the instructions given to Lord Cornbury is in these 
 words : 
 
 "And if anything shall happen that shall be of advantage and security to our 
 said Province, which is not herein or by our commission to you provided for, we do 
 hereby allow you, with the advice and consent of our Council of our said Province, 
 to take order for the present therein, giving to us, bjr one of our principal Secre- 
 taries of State, and to our Commissioners for Trade and Plantations, speedy notice.' 
 thereof, that so you may receive our ratification, if we shall approve the same.!' 
 
 Lord Cornbury was the first Governor of New Jersey ap-
 
 76 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 pointed by the royal authority upon the surrender of the gov- 
 ernment by the Proprietors of East and West Jersey ; and this 
 no doubt accounts for the fulness and particularity of the instruc- 
 tions given to him, as they would serve for the guidance of his 
 successors in office. 
 
 There does not appear to have been any subsequent aug- 
 mentation of the powers intrusted to the Governor, but, on the 
 contrary, further restrictions were imposed. 
 
 The granting of charters was regarded by the Crown and its 
 advisers as a special prerogative of the Crown. The Provincial 
 Governors, as representatives of the regal authority, considered 
 .themselves authorized to give their consent to legislative acts 
 .granting charters for various purposes ; and among them were 
 charters to erect institutions for the advancement of knowledge 
 and for its increase among the people. But these charters were 
 liable to be revoked by the royal authority; and in one instance, 
 at least, the royal assent was refused to a charter to Harvard 
 College, viz., to the one granted in 1692 by the General Court 
 of Massachusetts, although it had the sanction of his Majesty's 
 'Governor for that Province ; and in other instances the Gov- 
 ernor refused his consent to the action of the General Court in 
 reference to that institution. 
 
 The charters granted by President Hamilton and Governor 
 Belcher the first charters ever granted by a Governor with 
 merely the consent of his Council were neither ratified nor 
 revoked by the supreme authority. Although they both passed 
 the seal of the Province, the first was never recorded, and the 
 one given by Governor Belcher on the I4th of September, 1748, 
 was not recorded until the 4th of October, 1750, more than two 
 years after it had passed the seal ; and then it was placed on 
 record by an order of the Trustees, given on the 26th of Sep- 
 tember immediately preceding. The order was in these words : 
 
 " Ordered, That the Clerk take care to have the charter recorded in the Secre- 
 tary's Office at Amboy and at Burlington, with all possible speed ; and be allowed 
 lo pay the charges out of the Lottery money in the hands of Mr. Hude." 
 
 There is scarcely room for doubt that the Trustees were 
 prompted to this measure by the sudden and severe illness of
 
 THK CHARTERS OF 1746 AND 1748. 77 
 
 Governor Belcher at this time, and from an apprehension that 
 if the charter were not placed on the records of the Province 
 it might, in case of the Governor's decease, be altered or even 
 altogether revoked by his successor in office. Of the alarming 
 illness of the Governor there is abundant evidence. Cadvval- 
 lader Golden, in a letter of the date of October 6, 1750, to R. 
 H. Morris, then in London, says, " Governor Belcher has been 
 seized with palsy while attending Commencement at Newark." 
 Governor Belcher himself, writing to his son in Ireland, July 3, 
 1752, says that his paralytic affection had so increased that for 
 eighteen months he had not been able to hold a pen. His sub- 
 sequent correspondence shows that he never entirely recovered 
 from the effects of this shock. 
 
 It has been conjectured that the reason why the charter 
 given by Governor Belcher was not sooner delivered to the 
 Trustees was owing to the necessity he was under of submitting 
 it to the inspection of the Home Government and of obtaining 
 the King's permission before issuing the instrument. (See Dr. 
 Green's " Notes.") But the correspondence of the Governor 
 with Messrs. Pemberton, Burr, Tennent, and Edwards, respecting 
 the charter, shows conclusively that the charter was not sent 
 to England before its delivery to the Trustees. Extracts from 
 this correspondence, establishing this fact, will hereinafter be 
 given. 
 
 That a copy of it was not sent to the authorities in London, 
 after it had passed the seal and had been delivered to the 
 Trustees, is morally certain from the delay in recording the 
 instrument and from the circumstance that the recording of it 
 took place by order of the Trustees themselves, and not in 
 virtue of any statute requiring it to be done ; and it is beyond 
 dispute that, although given in the name of George the Second, 
 the charter never received his Majesty's ratification. This is 
 evident from the " Diary" of the Rev. Samuel Davies, who, in 
 company with the Rev. Gilbert Tennent, visited England and 
 Scotland in the years 1753 and 1754 to solicit funds to aid 
 the Trustees in their efforts to erect suitable buildings for the 
 recently-established college. Under the head of February 6, 
 1754, Mr. Davies thus writes:
 
 78 HISTORY OF 7 HE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 " Went to Mr. Stennet's, who went with us to introduce us to the Duke of Ar- 
 gyle to deliver Governor Belcher's letter. We found eight or ten Gentlemen and 
 Noblemen waiting in his Grace's Levee. His Grace took us into his Library, a 
 spacious, elegant room. . . . His Grace told us, after reading the letter, that as 
 the College related to the Plantations, we ought first to apply to the Lords of Trade 
 and Plantations, and, if they approved of it, he would willingly countenance it, 
 both here and in Scotland. He advised us to apply to Lord Halifax or Lord 
 Duplin, and Mr. Stennet went to the latter, . . . and showed our Instructions from 
 the Trustees, and the petition we had drawn up. Mr. Stennet told him he applied 
 to him in confidence, and his Lordship assured him he would do nothing to injure us. 
 He thereupon told him that we had our Charter only from a Governor, and asked 
 him whether he thought it would be deemed valid in Court. His Lordship replied 
 that he doubted it, but he would soon satisfy himself by enquiring into the extent of 
 the Governor's commission ; and in case it appeared valid, he would advise us to 
 lay the matter before the Archbishop of Canterbury, and that he himself would go 
 with Mr. Stennet to Mr. Pelham [the Prime Minister] in our Favor, and introduce 
 the matter in Court. For my part, I am afraid of all applications to that Quarter, 
 lest we lose our Charter and stir tip opposition ; and it is against my mind that the 
 matter has been carried so far. Dined at Mr. Stennet's, who gave us five guineas 
 for the College. Went home anxiotis as to the Fate of our Application to the Lords 
 of Trade and to the Court.' 1 ' 1 
 
 Monday, February the nth, there is the following entry: 
 
 " Visited Mr. Mill, and delivered Mr. Donald's letter. He and his partner, Mr. 
 Oswald, advised us to apply to the Lords of Trade to encourage our Embassy. But I 
 am afraid of the consequence. Went to Mr. Denham, a Presbyterian minister, and 
 had a long and difficult dispute with him about the importance and necessity of our 
 College, the validity of our Charter, withozit the Royal approbation, etc., which he 
 managed with great dexterity. It was my happiness to have my thoughts ready, 
 and I made such a defence as silenced him. His name is of great importance, 
 and I was solicitous to obtain it to our Petition, had lost all hope of it, when, to 
 my agreeable surprise, he subscribed." 
 
 Under the head of Thursday, the I4th of February, Mr. 
 Davies says : 
 
 " Waited on Mr. Stennet to hear Lord Duplin's opinion of the validity of our 
 Charter, but he was indisposed and had not waited on his Lordship." 
 
 On Wednesday, the 6th of March, Mr. Pelham, the Prime 
 Minister, died, and his death diverted the attention of Lord 
 Duplin from any further inquiry with respect to the extent of 
 Governor Belcher's powers, and as to the validity of the charter, 
 matters of more immediate importance at home demanding 
 all his time. At any rate, no further mention of the charter is 
 made in Mr. Davies's " Diary," nor any allusion to it.
 
 THE CHARTERS OF i 74 6 AND 1748. 79 
 
 In reference to Mr. Pelham's death and its results, mentioned 
 on page 176 of his " Diary," Mr. Davies observes: 
 
 " This day died the Honorable Henry Pelham, Esq., Prime Minister, which has 
 struck the town [London] with consternation. He has left a general good char- 
 acter behind him ; and the Court is puzzled whom to choose in his place." 
 
 Again, under the date of Tuesday, the igih of March, Mr. 
 Davies writes : 
 
 " The Court is all in confusion about choosing one to fill up Mr. Pelham's place, 
 and the King is much perplexed. He says he "hoped to spend his old age in 
 Peace, but all his Peace is buried in Mr. Pelham's grave." (" Diary," vol. i. 
 pages 188-89.) 
 
 Elections were held soon after in the city of London, and, 
 the state of things there not being favorable to the prosecution 
 of their agency, Messrs. Tennent and Davies left London for 
 Edinburgh; and, although they returned to London before 
 sailing for America, nothing more appears to have been said 
 or done in reference to the charter. 
 
 Whether the approval of the King was requisite to give 
 validity to the charter is now, happily, a matter of no moment 
 to the College. Its validity was never called in question by 
 any court in Great Britain or in the Province, and by an act 
 passed the I3th of March, 1780, the Legislature of the State 
 recognized and confirmed its grants. 
 
 It is, however, a matter of interest to many friends of the 
 College whether under the second charter it was a new insti- 
 tution, and entirely distinct from the College under the first 
 charter, or whether it was the same College under both charters. 
 The facts recited above tend to show, if they do nothing more, 
 that the College of New Jersey under the first charter and 
 the College of New Jersey under the second charter were 
 one and the same institution. Its powers and privileges may 
 have been, and doubtless were, somewhat enlarged, and the 
 number of Trustees nearly doubled ; but the Trustees and 
 students of the one became Trustees and students of the 
 other ; and the Rev. Mr. Burr, who, upon the death of Mr. 
 Dickinson, had the oversight and instruction of the students 
 and the general interests of the College intrusted to him, was
 
 80 HISTORY OF 7 HE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 unanimously chosen President by the Trustees of the second 
 charter. Before the second charter was prepared, it must have 
 been fully understood that he was to be the President under 
 the second charter, as appears from these two facts: ist, that 
 the whole number of Trustees, exclusive of the Governor of 
 the Province and the President ot the College, was limited to 
 twenty-one ; and, 2d, that in the charter itself twenty-two names 
 are inserted, and one of them is that of Aaron Burr, who, upon 
 being chosen President, became ex officio a Trustee, and this 
 reduced the number to the limit prescribed in the charter itself. 
 
 If the view here presented be the correct one, President Dick- 
 inson is justly regarded as the first President of the College of 
 New Jersey; and he has a right to the place so long conceded 
 to him in the triennial catalogue of the College as its first Presi- 
 dent ; and to him and his associates sJiould also be conceded the 
 honor of being' the founders of the College. 
 
 The advertisement taken from the " New York Gazette" of 
 February 2, 1746-47, and inserted at the beginning of this 
 chapter, is of itself sufficient to show that the first charter of 
 the College was obtained, not by the Synod of New York, but 
 by the most prominent members of the Presbytery of New 
 York. Had it been obtained through any action of the Synod, 
 or by any concert among the leading members of that body, 
 there can be no doubt that Gilbert Tennent and Samuel Blair 
 would have been mentioned with Messrs. Dickinson, Pierson, 
 Pemberton, and Burr as those to whom the charter had been 
 granted. They were both far too prominent in the Church not 
 to have been named in such an announcement to the public, 
 had they been Trustees under the first charter, and men of 
 too much influence not to have had their names inserted in the 
 charter, had they consented to take any part in the effort to 
 obtain it. Beyond all question, Mr. Tennent was the most in- 
 fluential member in the Presbytery of New Brunswick, and Mr. 
 Blair the leading man in the Presbytery of New Castle ; and 
 had the first efforts to establish the College, and to procure for 
 it a charter, originated with the Synod, the whole matter would 
 not have been given up to the ministers and laymen connected 
 with the Presbytery of New York. The Presbytery of New
 
 THE CHARTERS OF 1746 AND 1748. 8 1 
 
 Brunswick embraced a larger number of ministers and churches 
 than did the Presbytery of New York, and included several in 
 Pennsylvania, as well as a majority of those in New Jersey. 
 
 In the attempt to enlarge the sphere of the College and to 
 increase the number of its friends, the first effort was naturally 
 made to secure the countenance and support of the friends of 
 the Neshaminy school, and to bring into the Board of Trustees 
 Messrs. Gilbert and William Tennent, and some of their par- 
 ticular friends, which was done ; and also, as far as practi- 
 cable, to gain for the College the good will of other gentlemen 
 of position and influence, both in West Jersey and in Pennsyl- 
 vania. Hence we find in the second charter the names of Chief- 
 Justice Kinsey and Judge Edward Shippen, of Philadelphia, 
 and of the Rev. Mr. Cowell, of Trenton, then a member of 
 the Presbytery of Philadelphia, and of the Rev. Samuel Blair, 
 of Fagg's Manor, Pennsylvania. 
 
 In the list of ministers whom it was proposed to make 
 Trustees, under the second charter, Mr. Blair's name was not 
 included at the first; possibly from a doubt of his willingness to 
 be a Trustee in an institution which might interfere with the one 
 established by himself, or might require him, in case of its suc- 
 cess, to change the character of his own school. But whatever 
 may have been the reason, the fact was as here stated ; and this 
 is evident from Governor Belcher's letter of the 6th of April, 
 1748, to the Rev. Mr. Pemberton, in which he says, " I am well 
 pleased to add the name of the Rev. Samuel Blair to the 
 Trustees, for you must remember that we cannot have too 
 many friends in our present infant state." 
 
 The circumstance just mentioned, independently of the evi- 
 dence given heretofore, would of itself make it morally certain 
 that Mr. Blair was not a Trustee under the first charter. 
 
 The ground taken above as to the oneness of the College under 
 both charters is abundantly strengthened by the following extracts 
 from Governor Belcher's letters. The dates, and the names of 
 the persons to whom the letters are addressed, precede the ex- 
 tracts. Governor Belcher arrived in this country from England 
 August 8, 1747. 
 
 October 8, 1747, to President Dickinson:
 
 82 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 " I duly received your favor of the loth ult., enclosing a catalogue, but for some 
 reason I shall not send it forward till I see you, which I hope may be next month, 
 when the Assembly sits here, the i/th, and I shall be glad Mr. Pemberton could 
 so order as to come with you, and that you may be prepared to lay something before 
 the Assembly for the service of the embryo College, as a Lottery, or anything else." 
 
 Mr. Dickinson died on the /th of October, 1747, the day 
 before this letter was written. 
 
 October 8, 1747, to Rev. Mr. Pemberton, of New York: 
 
 " Mr. Dickinson has sent me a catalogue, which I have not thought proper to 
 send forward till I shall talk with him and you, and which I hope may be next 
 month, when the Assembly of the Province meets here (i7th), and I would have 
 you come prepared to lay something before the Assembly for the service of. our 
 infant College. I say our, because I have determined to adopt it for a child, and 
 to do everything in my power to promote and establish so noble an undertaking." 
 
 October 8, 1747, to Mr. Smith, New York. After acknowl- 
 edging the receipt of several other things sent to him by Mr. 
 Smith, the Governor adds : 
 
 " I have also the Lottery scheme, which may be of service in the affair of our 
 infant College. What went into the newspapers was carefully done." 
 
 These are extracts from three letters written on the same 
 day, but cited in the reverse order from that in which they 
 were written, one to the President of the College, one to the 
 Rev. Mr. Pemberton, who beyond all doubt was a Trustee under 
 both charters, and the third evidently addressed to one deeply 
 interested in the prosperity of the then existing College. The Mr. 
 Smith to whom one of these letters is addressed was prob- 
 ably Mr. Wm. Peartree Smith, of whom Governor Belcher, 
 in a letter to the Rev. Mr. Sergeant, of the date of February 23, 
 1748, makes mention as being his correspondent in the city of 
 New York. Mr. Smith was one of the Trustees named in the 
 second charter, and most probably he was also a Trustee under 
 the first. In addition to the other reasons for this opinion 
 assigned above, there is a confirmation of it in the form of ex- 
 pression used in his letter to this gentleman, " our infant Col- 
 lege" compared with the same expression in the Governor's 
 letter to Mr. Pemberton of the same date, in which he explains 
 his meaning in his use of this phrase, "our infant College:" "I 
 say our, for I have determined to adopt it for a daughter." This
 
 THE CHARTERS OF 1746 AND 1748. 83 
 
 was a very proper expression in writing to a Trustee of a col- 
 lege recently organized, but not an appropriate one had he 
 been writing to a person who had no particular connection with 
 the College. Mr. Pemberton, we know, was a Trustee at this 
 time, and we infer it to be highly probable that Mr. Smith was 
 also. Mr. Dickinson is urged by the Governor to come pre- 
 pared to present a petition to the Assembly for a lottery, or for 
 something else, for the service of the College. In his letter 
 to Mr. Smith, the Governor speaks of having also the Lottery 
 scheme, which may be of service in the affairs of our infant Col- 
 lege, that is, in case the Assembly will authorize the Trustees 
 to raise funds for the College by means of a lottery. 
 October 2, 1747, to his friend Mr. Walley: 
 
 " There has been a striving at what place the College should be built, but I have 
 persuaded those concerned to fix it at Princeton, and I think as near the centre as 
 any, and a fine situation. I believe they must have a new and better charter, which 
 I shall give them." 
 
 This letter was written a few days before the death of Presi- 
 dent Dickinson, and it determines another point of interest, 
 viz., that the question of another charter was agitated before the 
 death of President Dickinson. 
 
 November, 1747, to Mr. Pemberton: 
 
 " I shall be glad to see you here for the sake of the College. . . . The death of 
 that eminent servant of God, the learned and pious Dickinson, is a considerable 
 Rebuke of Providence, and is to remind us that we have such precious treasure 
 in earthen vessels, and that our eyes and hearts must be lifted to the great head of 
 the Church, who holds the stars in his right hand. Then let us not despond or 
 murmur." 
 
 December 15, 1747, to Mr. Allen, of Boston: 
 
 " The death of the late excellent, now ascended, Dickinson, is indeed a consid- 
 erable loss to my adopted daughter ; but God lives, and is always better than we 
 deserve, and with whom we must wrestle for his mercy and blessing to fall upon 
 our Infant College, so shall it rise into youth, and in God's best time become an 
 Alma Mater for this and the neighboring colonies." 
 
 January 25, 1747-48, to Mr. Pemberton: 
 
 " As to a new charter, if you and the rest of the gentlemen will digest that mat- 
 ter, and with enlargement, in the best manner you can, and let me have a Rough of 
 it, to see if it can be made better, you will be sure of all my Protection."
 
 84 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 This last extract shows that at the date of this letter nothing 
 had been done towards the preparing of a new charter. 
 
 March 21, 1747-48, to Mr. Burr, the successor of President 
 Dickinson: 
 
 " You cannot be more thoughtful or solicitous for the growth and prosperity of 
 my adopted daughter, and our future Alma Mater, than I am. In order to the per- 
 fecting of the charter, you know it will be necessary for me to go to Philadelphia, 
 and which I intend soon. You say Commencement is designed the third Wednesday 
 of May next ; so I -will try to get the charter to you before that time. I much ap- 
 prove a wise frugality at the solemnity you mention, more especially in our Infant 
 Days, for I think the too common Extravagances and Debauchery at such times be 
 no honor to what may laudably pride itself in being called a Seminary of Religion 
 and Learning. So soon as the charter shall be completed, a meeting of the Trustees 
 will be very proper and necessary." 
 
 The above extract shows that the Governor had no expec- 
 tation that the charter would be ready much before the third 
 Wednesday of May. It was not, however, prepared and issued 
 until the \^th of September, and the Commencement was post- 
 poned from time to time until the 9th of November, at the 
 request of Governor Belcher. 
 
 May 31, 1748, to the Rev. Jonathan Edwards : 
 
 " As to our Embryo College, it is a noble design, and if God pleases may prove 
 an extensive blessing. I have adopted it for a daughter, which I hope in time may 
 become an Alma Mater to this and the neighboring Provinces. ... I am getting 
 the best advice and assistance I can in a draft of a charter which I intend to give 
 our Infant College ; and I thank you for all the kind hints you have given for the 
 service of this excellent undertaking," etc. 
 
 This is conclusive as to the fact that the charter was not 
 matured at the date of this letter, May 31. 
 
 June 1 8, 1748, to the Rev. Gilbert Tennent. In this letter 
 the Governor alludes to the first charter, viz., the one given by 
 President Hamilton, in these words : 
 
 " Perhaps it may be more satisfactory to a majority of the intended Trustees to 
 proceed on the old Patent, in which I am quite easy." And he adds, "If I have 
 any further to do in the matter, I shall immediately send it [the charter] to Mr. 
 Gillnawary of your city [Philadelphia] to be engrossed, who I think did the last." 
 
 This extract shows that the charter had not been engrossed 
 as late as the :8th of June. 
 
 Extracts from other letters, showing the same facts, might be
 
 THE CHARTERS OF 1746 AND 1748. 85 
 
 given ; but the above will probably be regarded as more than 
 sufficient to establish these two points: I, that the charter given 
 by Governor Belcher could not have been sent to England for 
 the King's approbation before its delivery to the Trustees ; and, 
 2, that it was given, not for a new college, but for the College 
 of New Jersey, already established and in operation, under a 
 charter granted, in the name of the King, by President Hamil- 
 ton, of his Majesty's Council for New Jersey. It is not for a 
 new institution, but for a new charter, that we are indebted to 
 Governor Belcher. An infant is not a nonentity, nor a some- 
 thing that is to be, but a reality, a thing in actual existence. 
 So in this case, the infant College of New Jersey, the adopted 
 daughter of the Governor, was in being and engaged in its 
 appropriate work before Governor Belcher gave it " a new and 
 better charter," and even before his arrival in the Province. 
 The charter of 1748 doubtless gave increased vigor to the 
 institution, and added largely to the number of its friends. 
 Under this new charter the College became, what its name 
 indicates it aspired to be, " The College of New Jersey," and 
 not simply of East Jersey, sending abroad throughout the land 
 a wholesome influence for the promotion of genuine piety and 
 sound learning. Under this charter additions were made to 
 the number of the Trustees, by introducing into the Board 
 several distinguished ministers and laymen in Pennsylvania and 
 New Jersey, and among these the most prominent members 
 of the Presbyteries of New Brunswick and of New Castle, 
 and thus securing to the College the friendship and patronage 
 of the entire Synod of New York. 
 
 It has been conjectured that the reason why the first charter 
 was never recorded was this, that its grants were of so limited 
 a character that the founders of the College were much dis- 
 satisfied with it, and, knowing that Governor Belcher was to be 
 the Governor of the Province, they hoped that he would give 
 them one with ampler powers and privileges. Dr. Green, in 
 his Sketch of the Origin and Design of the College, takes 
 this view of the matter ; and most others, if not all, who have 
 had occasion to advert to it have done the same. Had they 
 ever met with the advertisement respecting the College inserted
 
 86 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 in the "New York Gazette" of February 2, 1746-7, they would 
 have seen that the conjecture was not well founded as to any 
 dissatisfaction with the charter granted by President Hamilton. 
 Had there been any such dissatisfaction, the Trustees in their 
 notice to the public could not have used the language they did: 
 " Whereas a charter with full and ample Privileges has been 
 granted by his Majesty, under the seal of the Province of 
 New Jersey, bearing date the 22d of October, 1746, for erecting 
 a college within said Province, ... by which charter equal 
 Liberties and Privileges are secured to every denomination of 
 Christians, different religious sentiments notwithstanding," etc. 
 There is some evidence that the charter was drawn by the 
 petitioners, and that they obtained all they asked for. (See 
 chap, i., " On the Origin of the College," page 44.) How- 
 ever this may be, the acknowledgment by the Trustees, that 
 they had received a charter of the description just mentioned, 
 takes away entirely the foundation of the above conjecture as 
 to the reason why the first charter was not recorded. 
 
 Was the second charter left unrecorded for two years or more 
 because of any dissatisfaction with it ? 
 
 The first charter may not have been in all respects as liberal 
 as the second ; but in what the second differed from the first, 
 excepting with respect to the larger number of Trustees, and 
 in making the Governor of the Province for the time being 
 President of the Board, can now be only a matter of conjec- 
 ture. Possibly the first charter was more restrictive as to the 
 power of conferring degrees, and as to the amount of pro- 
 ductive property which the Trustees were permitted to hold. 
 In its liberal provision for the admission of all classes of Chris- 
 tians to the privileges of the College, the first was on the same 
 footing with the second; and, in fact, the language of the second 
 as to this matter is evidently taken from the first. The reference 
 in the second charter to the concessions of Carteret, seemingly 
 for the purpose of assigning a good and sufficient reason why 
 all should be admitted to the privileges of the College, in ac- 
 cordance with the prayer of the petitioners, was also probably 
 intended to meet, by indirection, the objection to granting cor- 
 porate powers to a body of Dissenters ; the right to do which
 
 THE CHARTERS OF 1746 AND 1748. 87 
 
 had been called in question upon an application for a church 
 charter for the First Presbyterian Church in the city of New 
 York. The connection in which these things occur in the 
 second charter renders it highly probable that the provision 
 for admitting all classes of Christians, and the reference to 
 the concessions of Carteret, were both borrowed from the first 
 charter. 
 
 William Smith, the most distinguished lawyer of his day 
 in New York, was a prominent member of the Presbyterian 
 Church in that city. For reasons given near the beginning of 
 this chapter, it is more than probable that he was a Trustee of 
 the College under both charters ; and it is by no means improb- 
 able that he prepared the first charter, and also "the rough" of 
 the second, which Governor Belcher desired Mr. Pemberton to 
 send him for his inspection. There was no person among Mr. 
 Pemberton's friends better, if so well, qualified to do this work, 
 and no one upon .whom Mr. Pemberton would be so likely to 
 call for just such a service. For many years, and to the end 
 of his life, Mr. Smith was an earnest friend of the College, and 
 one of the most honored and influential members of the Board. 
 
 Governor Belcher was disposed to possess himself of the 
 views and wishes of those interested in the College, but at the 
 same time he purposed to mould the charter to suit his own 
 views ; and therefore, while he sought, and in some cases ac- 
 cepted, advice, he desired not to have a charter fully prepared 
 for his approval and signature, but only the " rough" of one, 
 which he might examine and see if it could be made better. 
 He was to give " a new and better charter," and he must decide 
 for himself what that new and better charter must be ; and to 
 this end he had it prepared under his own direction, as is fully 
 evident from his letters to Messrs. Pemberton and others. He 
 introduced in the second charter the clause making the Gov- 
 ernor of the Province ex officio President of the Board of Trus- 
 tees, in opposition to the wishes of some of the friends of the 
 College and the earnest remonstrance of the Rev. Gilbert Ten- 
 nent. But the Governor was inflexible as to this point, and 
 said he could not give a charter without such a provision. It 
 is not to be supposed that Mr. Tennent, or any other friend of
 
 88 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 the College, had any objection to making Governor Belcher 
 President of the Board : the objection was to establishing it 
 as a fixed rule that the Governor for the time being should 
 be President of the Board. The opposition to this measure 
 doubtless arose from an apprehension that it would sometimes 
 happen that the Governor would not be in sympathy with the 
 Trustees, and that he might embarrass their deliberations, even 
 if he should not directly oppose their measures. But the ex- 
 perience of more than a hundred years has shown that there 
 was no sufficient cause for any such apprehension, and that the 
 measure has worked to the advantage of the College, and not 
 to its injury. It is but right that the State to which the College 
 is indebted for its corporate privileges, and which has a deep 
 interest in the proper training of her youth, should be repre- 
 sented at the Board and have a voice in directing the affairs of 
 the institution ; and the Chief Magistrate of the State seems 
 to be the proper person to represent her in her highest seats of 
 learning, and to see that the interests of the State are properly 
 cared for and the directions of the charter properly observed. 
 From a remark made by Governor Belcher in his letter of 
 April 2, 1748, to Mr. Pemberton, it is not improbable that the 
 Governor would have been disposed to make several members 
 of Council ex officio members of the Board of Trustees, as well 
 as the Governor of the Province, for in this letter he says : 
 
 " As to the matter of the President of the Trustees, I think Mr. Burr was con- 
 vinced with what I said, that it would be best to be always the King's Governor 
 for the time being, which may be of service on many accounts. He is to be con- 
 fined to a single vote, nor is he to call, or adjourn, a meeting but in conformity to 
 the constitution. It is now thirty years since my first being one of the Trustees 
 of Harvard College, by virtue of my being one of his Majesty's Council for the 
 Massachusetts Bay. I could never observe any Inconvenience in that part of the 
 Charter. However, I will consider and talk further with some of the Trustees on 
 this article." 
 
 The first four persons named as Trustees of the College in 
 the charter given by Governor Belcher were members of his 
 Majesty's Council for New Jersey, but they were not Trustees 
 ex officio, but by special designation. There was probably an 
 earnest desire on the part of the friends of the College to 
 have these gentlemen for Trustees, but they never would have
 
 THE CHARTERS OF 1746 AND 1745. gg 
 
 assented to have their successors in his Majesty's Council to be 
 ex officio their successors in the Board of Trustees. The Col- 
 lege was a Presbyterian College, established by Presbyterians, 
 supported by Presbyterians, and controlled by Presbyterians, 
 and they never would have consented to run the risk that might 
 arise, either to the religious or Presbyterian character of their 
 institution, from having so large a number of the Board chosen, 
 not by the other Trustees, but by the civil power. Knowing 
 the feeling on this subject on the part of the friends of the 
 College, Governor Belcher, even if willing to make sundry 
 members of the Council ex officio members of the Board, was 
 content with carrying out his plan of making the Governor 
 for the time being President of the Board. In doing this he 
 did the College good service. Had he gone further in this 
 direction, he would have turned away from the College some 
 of those who proved to be among its most efficient friends and 
 advocates. 
 
 The following extract is from a letter of Rev. Jonathan 
 Edwards to Rev. Dr. John Erskine, of Scotland, of the date 
 of May 20, 1749, and written from Northampton: 
 
 " I have heard nothing new that is very remarkable concerning the College in 
 New Jersey. It is in its infancy ; there has been considerable difficulty about 
 settling their charter. Governor Belcher, who gave the charter, is willing to en- 
 courage and promote the College to his utmost, but differs in his opinion concern- 
 ing the Constitution which will tend most to its prosperity from some of the prin- 
 cipal ministers that have been concerned in founding the Society. He insists upon 
 it that the Governor for the time being and four of his Majesty's Council for the 
 Province should always be of the Corporation of Trustees, and that the Governor 
 should always be the President of the Corporation. The ministers are all very 
 willing that the present Governor, who is a religious man, should be in this stand- 
 ing ; but their difficulty is with respect to the future Governors, who they suppose 
 are as likely to be men of no religion and Deists as otherwise. However, so the 
 matter is settled, to the great uneasiness of Mr. Gilbert Tennent, who, it is feared, 
 will have no further concern with the College on this account. Mr. Burr, the 
 President of the College, is a man of religion and singular learning, and I hope 
 the College will flourish under his care." 
 
 The following is a list of the gentlemen named in the charter 
 given by President Hamilton in 1746, as far as positive evidence 
 exists on this head, viz., Jonathan Dickinson, John Pierson, 
 Ebenezer Pemberton, and Aaron Burr. 
 VOL. i. 7
 
 9 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 The following is a list of the Trustees named in the charter 
 given by Governor Belcher in 1748, viz., John Reading, James 
 Hude, Andrew Johnston, Thomas Leonard, John Kinsey, Ed- 
 ward Shippen, William Smith, Peter Van Brugh Livingston, 
 William Peartree Smith, Samuel Hazard, John Pierson, Eben- 
 ezer Pemberton, Joseph Lamb, Gilbert Tennent, William Ten- 
 nent, Richard Treat, Samuel Blair, David Cowell, Aaron Burr, 
 Timothy Johnes, Thomas Arthur, and Jacob Green. 
 
 As already shown, it is very probable that at least nine of the 
 gentlemen here named were Trustees under the first charter. 
 
 CHARTER OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 GEORGE THE SECOND, by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France, 
 and Ireland, king, defender of the faith, &c., to all to whom these 
 presents shall come, greeting 
 
 Preamble. WHEREAS sundry of our loving subjects, well-disposed and public- 
 
 spirited persons, have lately, by their humble petition, presented to our 
 trusty and well-beloved Jonathan Belcher, Esquire, governor and com- 
 mander in chief of our province of New Jersey in America, represented 
 the great necessity of coming into some method for encouraging and 
 promoting a learned education of our youth in New Jersey, and have 
 expressed their earnest desire that a college may be erected in our said 
 province of New Jersey in America, for the benefit of the inhabitants 
 of the said province and others, wherein youth may be instructed in 
 the learned languages, and in the liberal arts and sciences. AND 
 WHEREAS by the fundamental concessions made at the first settlement 
 of New Jersey by the Lord Berkley and Sir George Carteret, then 
 proprietors thereof, and granted under their hands and the seal of the 
 said province, bearing date the tenth day of February, in the year of 
 our Lord one thousand six hundred and sixty-four, it was, among other 
 things, conceded and agreed, that no freeman within the said province 
 of New Jersey should at any time be molested, punished, disquieted or 
 called in question, for any difference in opinion or practice in matters 
 of religious concernment, who do not actually disturb the civil peace 
 of the said province ; but that all and every such person or persons 
 might, from time to time, and at all times thereafter, freely and fully 
 have and enjoy his and their judgments and consciences, in matters of 
 religion, throughout the said province, they behaving themselves peace- 
 ably and quietly and not using this liberty to licentiousness, nor to the 
 civil injury or outward disturbance of others, as by the said concessions 
 on record in the secretary's office of New Jersey, at Perth Amboy, in 
 lib. 3, folio 66, &c., may appear. WHEREFORE and for that the said 
 petitioners have also expressed their earnest desire that those of every
 
 THE CHARTERS OF 1746 AND i 74 8. g t 
 
 religious denomination may have free and equal liberty and advantages 
 of education in the said college, any different sentiments in religion 
 notwithstanding. WE being willing to grant the reasonable requests 
 and prayers of all our loving subjects, and to promote a liberal and 
 learned education among them 
 
 KNOW YE THEREFORE, that we, considering the premises, and being 
 willing for the future that the best means of education be established in 
 our said province of New Jersey, for the benefit and advantage of the 
 inhabitants of our said province and others, do, of our special grace, 
 certain knowledge and mere motion, by these presents, will, ordain, 
 grant and constitute, that there be a college erected in our said prov- College 
 ince of New Jersey, for the education of youth in the learned Ian- founded, 
 guages and in the liberal arts and sciences ;* and that the trustees of Trustees a 
 the said college and their successors for ever, may and shall be one corporation, 
 body corporate and politic, in deed, action and name, and shall be 
 called, and named and distinguished, by the name of THE TRUSTEES Corporate 
 OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY and further, we have willed, name - 
 given, granted, constituted and appointed, and by this our present 
 charter, of our special grace, certain knowledge, and mere motion, we 
 do, for us, our heirs and successors, will, give, grant, constitute, and 
 ordain, that there shall, in the said college from henceforth for ever, be Charter per- 
 a body politic, consisting of trustees of the said College of New Jersey, petnal. 
 And for the more full and perfect erection of the said corporation and 
 body politic, consisting of trustees of the College of New Jersey, we, 
 of our special grace, certain knowledge and mere motion, do, by these 
 presents, for us, our heirs and successors, create, make, ordain, consti- 
 tute, nominate and appoint, the governor and commander in chief of 
 our said province of New Jersey, for the time being, and also our trusty 
 and well-beloved John Reading, James Hude, Andrew Johnston, Names of 
 Thomas Leonard, John Kinsey, Edward Shippen and William Smith, corporators. 
 Esquires, Peter Van-Brugh Livingston, William Peartree Smith and 
 Samuel Hazard, gentlemen, John Pierson, Ebenezer Pemberton, Joseph 
 Lamb, Gilbert Tennent, William Tennent, Richard Treat, Samuel Blair, 
 David Cowell, Aaron Burr, Timothy Johnes, Thomas Arthur and Jacob 
 Green, ministers of the gospel, to be trustees of the said College of 
 New Jersey. 
 
 That the said trustees do, at their first meeting, after the receipt of Oaths to be 
 these presents, and before they proceed to any business, take the oath taken by 
 appointed to be taken by an act, passed in the first year of the reign tr 
 of the late king George the First, entitled, " An act for the further 
 security of his Majesty's person and government, and the succession 
 of the crown in the heirs of the late princess Sophia, being protest- 
 ants, and for extinguishing the hopes of the pretended prince of 
 Wales and his open and secret abettors ;" as also that they make and 
 subscribe the declarations mentioned in an act of parliament, made 
 
 * Extended by the Act of March n, 1864.
 
 p 2 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 in the twenty-fifth year of the reign of king Charles the Second, 
 entitled " An act for preventing dangers which may happen from 
 popish recusants ;" and likewise take an oath for faithfully executing 
 By whom the office or trust reposed in them, the said oaths to be administered 
 oaths to be to them by three of his Majesty's justices of the peace, quorum unus ; 
 and when any new member or officer of this corporation is chosen, 
 they are to take and subscribe the aforementioned oaths and declara- 
 tions before their admission into their trusts or offices, the same to be 
 administered to them in the presence of the trustees, by such person 
 as they shall appoint for that service.* 
 
 Notice of That no meeting of the trustees shall be valid or legal for doing any 
 
 meeting of business whatsoever, unless the clerk has duly and legally notified each 
 
 ees ' and every member of the corporation of such meeting ; and that before 
 
 the entering on any business, the clerk shall certify such notification 
 
 under his hand, to the board of trustees. 
 
 To fill va- That the said trustees have full power and authority or any ^thirteen 
 
 cancies. or greater number of them, to elect, nominate and appoint, and asso- 
 ciate unto them, any number of persons as trustees upon any vacancy, 
 Number of so that the whole number of trustees exceed not ^twenty-three, whereof 
 trustees. t ne president of said college for the time being, to be chosen as here- 
 after mentioned, to be one, and twelve of the said trustees to be always 
 Residence. sucn persons as are inhabitants of our said province of New Jersey. And 
 we do further, of our special grace, certain knowledge, and mere mo- 
 tion, for us, our heirs and successors, will, give, grant and appoint, -that 
 Perpetual the gajj trustees and their successors shall, for ever hereafter, be in 
 deed, fact and name, a body corporate and politic ; and that they, the 
 said body corporate and politic, shall be known and distinguished in 
 all deeds, grants, bargains, sales, writings, evidences, muniments or 
 otherwise howsoever, and in all courts for ever herereafter, plead and 
 be impkaded, by the name of THE TRUSTEES OF THE COLLEGE OF 
 NEW JERSEY. 
 
 Property. And that they the said corporation, by the name aforesaid, shall be 
 
 able and in law capable, for the use of the said college, to have, get, ac- 
 quire, purchase, receive and possess lands, tenements, hereditaments, 
 jurisdictions and franchises, for themselves and their successors, in fee 
 simple or otherwise howsoever ; and to purchase, receive or build, any 
 house or houses, or any other buildings, as they shall think needful or 
 convenient for the use of the said College of New Jersey, and in such 
 place or places in New Jersey, as they the said trustees shall agree 
 upon, and also to receive and dispose of any goods, chattels, and 
 
 * The entire clause relative to oaths repealed and supplied by Act of 
 March 13, 1780. 
 
 f Altered to nine, provided that the Governor of the State, or the 
 President of the College, or the senior Trustee, be one of the nine ; by 
 the Act of November 2, 1781, p. 18. 
 
 J Altered to twenty-seven by the Act of April 6, 1868.
 
 THE CHARTERS OF 1746 AND 1748. 93 
 
 other things of what nature soever, for the use aforesaid : and also to 
 have, accept and receive any rents, profits, annuities, gifts, legacies, 
 donations and bequests of any kind whatsoever, for the use aforesaid, 
 so, nevertheless, that the yearly clear value of the premises do not Limitation 
 exceed the sum of * two thousand pounds sterling : And therewith or of value of 
 otherwise to support and pay, as the said trustees and their successors, 
 or the major part of such of them as (according to the provision herein 
 afterwards) are regularly convened for that purpose, shall agree and 
 see cause, the president, tutors and other officers or ministers of the 
 said college, their respective annual salaries or allowances, and all Salaries, 
 such other necessary and contingent charges as from time to time shall 
 arise and accrue, relating to the said college ; and also to grant, bar- 
 gain, sell, let, set or assign, lands, tenements or hereditaments, goods 
 or chattels, contract or do all other things whatsoever, by the name Contracts, 
 aforesaid, and for the use aforesaid, in as full and ample manner, to all 
 intent and purposes, as any natural person or other body politic or cor- 
 porate is able to do, by the laws of our realm of Great Britain, or of 
 our said province of New Jersey. 
 
 And of our further grace, certain knowledge and mere motion, to the Who to pre- 
 intent that our said corporation and body politic may answer the end side - 
 of their erection and constitution, and may have perpetual succession 
 and continue for ever, WE do for us, our heirs and successors, hereby 
 will, give and grant, unto the said trustees of the College of New 
 Jersey, and to their successors for ever, that when any thirteen of the 
 said trustees or of their successors are convened and met together as 
 aforesaid, for the service of the said college, the governor and com- 
 mander in chief of our said province of New Jersey, and in his 
 absence, the president of the said college, and in the absence of the 
 said governor and president, the eldest trustee present at such meeting, 
 from time to time, shall be president of the said trustees in all their 
 meetings : and at any time or times such thirteen trustees convened Q 
 and met as aforesaid, shall be capable to act as fully and amply, to all 
 intents and purposes, as if all the trustees of the said college were per- 
 sonally present ; provided always, that a majority of the said thirteen 
 trustees be of the said province of New Jersey, except after regular notice 
 they fail of coming, in which case those that are present are hereby 
 empowered to act, the different place of their abode notwithstanding ; 
 and all affairs, and actions whatsoever, under the care of the said trus- 
 tees, shall be determined by the majority or greater number of those quorum to 
 thirteen, so convened and met together, the president whereof shall decide, 
 have no more than a single vote. 
 
 And we do for us, our heirs and successors, hereby will, give and Meetings, 
 grant, full power and authority, to any six or more of the said trustees, how called, 
 to call meetings of the said trustees, from time to time, and to order 
 
 * Altered to one hundred thousand dollars, by the Act of March 1 1 , 
 1864.
 
 94 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 notice to the said trustees of the times and places of meeting for the 
 service aforesaid. 
 
 Election of And also we do hereby for us, our heirs and successors, will, give 
 President. anc i grant, to the said trustees of the College of New Jersey, and to 
 their successors for ever, that the said trustees do elect, nominate and 
 appoint such a qualified person as they, or the major part of any thirteen 
 of them convened for that purpose as above directed, shall think fit, to 
 be the president of the said college, and to have the immediate care of 
 the education and government of such students as shall be sent to, and 
 admitted into the said college for instruction and education ; and also 
 Tutors and that the said trustees do elect, nominate and appoint so many tutors 
 Professors. anc j professors, to assist the president of the said college, in the educa- 
 tion and government of the students belonging to it, as they, the said 
 trustees, or their successors, or the major part of any thirteen of them, 
 which shall convene for that purpose as above directed, shall, from time 
 to time, and at any time hereafter, think needful and serviceable to the 
 interests of the said college ; and also, that the said trustees and their 
 successors, or the major part of any -thirteen of them, which shall con- 
 Power of re- vene for that purpose, as above directed, shall at any time displace and 
 moval. discharge from the service of the said college such president, tutors and 
 
 professors, and to elect others in their room and stead ; and also, that 
 Other offi- * ne sa '^ trustees or their successors, or the major part of any thirteen 
 cers. of them, which shall convene for that pupose, as above directed, do 
 
 from time to time, as occasion shall require, elect, constitute and appoint 
 a treasurer, a clerk, an usher, and a steward, for the said college, 
 and appoint to them, and each of them, their respective business and 
 trusts, and displace and discharge from the service of the said college 
 such treasurer, clerk, usher or steward, and to elect others in their 
 Powers of room and stead ; which president, tutors, professors, treasurer, clerk, 
 officers. usher and steward, so elected and appointed, we do for us, our heirs 
 and successors, by these presents, constitute and establish in their sev- 
 eral offices, and do give them, and every of them, full power and 
 authority to exercise the same in the said College of New Jersey, 
 according to the direction, and during the pleasure of the said trustees, 
 as fully and freely as any other, the like officers in our universities or 
 any of our colleges, in our realm of Great Britain, lawfully may and 
 ought to do. 
 
 Election of And also that the said trustees, and their .successors, or the major 
 trustees. part of any thirteen of them, which shall convene for that purpose as 
 above directed, as often as one or more of the said trustees shall hap- 
 pen to die, or by removal or otherwise shall become unfit or incapable, 
 according to their judgment, to serve the interest of the said college, 
 do, as soon as conveniently may be, after the death, removal or such 
 unfitness or incapacity of such trustee or trustees to serve the interest of 
 the said college, elect and appoint such other trustee or trustees as shall 
 supply the place of him or them so dying, or otherwise becoming unfit 
 or incapable to serve the interest of the said college ; and every trustee
 
 THE CHARTERS OF 1746 AND 1748. 95 
 
 so elected and appointed shall, by virtue of these presents, and of such 
 election, and appointment, be vested with all the power and privileges 
 which any of the other trustees of the said college are hereby invested 
 with. 
 
 And we do further, of our special grace, certain knowledge and mere Laws for the 
 motion, will, give and grant, and by these presents do, for us, our heirs government 
 and successors, will, give and grant, unto the said trustees of the Col- ' 
 lege of New Jersey, that they and their successors, or the major part of 
 any thirteen of them, which shall convene for that purpose as above 
 directed, may make, and they are hereby fully empowered from time 
 to time, freely and lawfully to make and establish such ordinances, 
 orders and laws, as may tend to the good and wholesome government 
 of the said college, and all the students and the several officers and min- 
 isters thereof, and to the public benefit of the same, not repugnant to 
 the laws and statutes of our realm of Great Britain, or of this our prov- 
 ince of New Jersey, and not excluding any person of any religious de- 
 nomination whatsoever from free and equal liberty and advantage of 
 education, or from any of the liberties, privileges, or immunities of the 
 said college, on account of his or their being of a religious profession 
 different from the said trustees of the said college ; and such ordi- 
 nances, orders and laws, which shall be so as aforesaid made, we do, 
 by these presents, for us, our heirs and successors, ratify, allow of and 
 confirm, as good and effectual, to oblige and bind all the said students 
 and the several officers and ministers of the said college ; and we do 
 hereby authorize and empower the said trustees of the college, and the 
 president, tutors and professors by them elected and appointed, to put 
 such ordinances and laws in execution, to all proper intents and pur- 
 poses. 
 
 And we do further, of our especial grace, certain knowledge and Degrees, 
 mere motion, will, give and grant, unto the said trustees of the College 
 of New Jersey, that, for the encouragement of learning and animating 
 the students of the said college to diligence, industry, and a laudable 
 progress in literature, that they and their successors, or the major part 
 of any thirteen of 'them, convened for that purpose as above directed, 
 do, by the president of the said college for the time being, or by any 
 other deputed by them, give and grant any such degree and degrees 
 to any of the students of the said college, or to any others by them 
 thought worthy thereof, as are usually granted in either of our univer- 
 sities or any other college in our realm of Great Britain ;* and that 
 they do sign and seal diplomas or certificates of such graduations, Diplomas, 
 to be kept by the graduates as perpetual memorials or testimonials 
 thereof. 
 
 And further, of our especial grace, certain knowledge and mere mo- Seal. 
 tion, we do, by these presents, for us, our heirs and successors, give and 
 grant unto the said trustees of the College of New Jersey and to their 
 
 * Extended by the Act of March 29, 1866.
 
 96 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 successors, that they and their successors shall have a common seal, 
 under which they may pass all diplomas, certificates of degrees, and 
 all other the affairs and business of and concerning the said corporation, 
 or of and concerning the said College of New Jersey, which shall be 
 engraven in such form and with such inscription as shall be devised 
 by the said trustees of the said college, or the major part of any thir- 
 teen of them, convened for the service of the said college as above 
 directed. 
 
 Inferior offi- And we do further, for us, our heirs and successors, give and grant 
 unto the said trustees of the College of New Jersey and their succes- 
 sors, or the major part of any thirteen of them, convened for the ser- 
 vice of the college as above directed, full power and authority from 
 time to time, to nominate and appoint all other inferior officers and 
 ministers, which they shall think to be convenient and necessary for 
 the use of the college, not herein particularly named or mentioned, 
 and which are accustomary in our universities, or in any of our col- 
 leges in our realm of Great Britain, which officers or ministers we do 
 hereby empower to execute their offices or trusts as fully and freely 
 as any other the like officers or ministers, in and of our universities 
 or any other college in our realm of Great Britain, lawfully may or 
 ought to do. 
 
 And lastly, our express will and pleasure is, and we do by these 
 presents for us, our heirs and successors, give and grant unto the said 
 trustees of the College of New Jersey and to their successors for ever, 
 that these our letters patent, or the enrolment thereof, shall be good 
 and effectual in the law, to all intents and purposes, against us, our 
 heirs and successors, without any other license, grant or confirmation 
 from us, our heirs and successors, hereafter by the said trustees to be 
 had or obtained ; notwithstanding the not reciting or misrecital, or not 
 naming or misnaming of the aforesaid offices, franchises, privileges, im- 
 munities, or other the premises, or any of them: and notwithstanding a 
 writ of ad quod dantnum hath not issued forth to inquire of the premises 
 or any of them, before the ensealing hereof; any statute, act, ordi- 
 nance or provision, or any other matter or thing to the contrary 
 notwithstanding ; to have, hold and enjoy, all and singular the privi- 
 leges, advantages, liberties, immunities and all other the premises 
 herein and hereby granted and given, or which are meant, men- 
 tioned, or intended to be herein and hereby given and granted, unto 
 them the said trustees of the said College of New Jersey, and to their 
 successors for ever. 
 
 IN TESTIMONY whereof we have caused these our letters to be made 
 patent, and the great seal of our said province of New Jersey to be 
 hereunto affixed. WITNESS our trusty and well-beloved Jonathan 
 Belcher, Esquire, governor and commander in chief of our said prov- 
 ince of New Jersey, this fourteenth day of September, in the twenty- 
 second year of our reign, and in the year of our Lord, one thousand 
 seven hundred and forty-eight.
 
 THE CHARTERS OF 174.6 AND 1748. 
 
 f I have perused and considered the written charter of 
 
 incorporation, and find nothing contained therein incon- 
 sistent with his Majesty's interest or the honor of the 
 ^^^^^* Crown. 
 
 J. WARRELL, Aft. Gen'!. 
 
 September the I3th, 1748. This charter, having been read in 
 Council, was consented to and approved of. 
 
 CHA. READ, Cl. Con. 
 
 Let the Great Seal of the Province of New Jersey be affixed to this 
 charter. 
 
 J. BELCHER. 
 
 To the Secretary of the Province of New Jersey.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MEMOIR OF GOVERNOR BELCHER, AND BRIEF NOTICES OF THE 
 TRUSTEES NAMED IN THE TWO CHARTERS OF THE COLLEGE. 
 
 THE Governor was not, properly speaking, the founder of the 
 College, in the sense of being its originator, for the College was 
 in existence, and in active operation, before his arrival. He was 
 not, therefore, to use a phrase of Lord Coke's, its " Fundator 
 Incipiens" although, in view of what he did towards the build- 
 ing up of the institution, he may be regarded as its " Fundator 
 Perficiens;" and in this latter sense only can the statement in 
 one of the addresses of the Trustees to the Governor be justified, 
 when they assign as a reason why the first College edifice should 
 be called "Belcher Hall," that "the College of New Jersey 
 views you in the light of its founder, patron, and benefactor." 
 That this view of Governor Belcher's relations to the College is 
 a perfectly accurate one is evident from the extracts given in 
 this work from his letters to various correspondents, and from 
 his replies to the addresses presented to him by the Trustees of 
 the College. The extracts here referred to are those given in 
 the narrative of the two charters of 1746 and of 1748, in the 
 chapter on the Design of the College, and in the History of 
 President Burr's Administration. 
 
 Governor Belcher was the son of the Hon. Andrew Belcher, 
 of Cambridge, one of his Majesty's Council for Massachusetts 
 Bay, and he was born on the 8th of January, 1682. He was 
 graduated at Harvard in 1699; and soon after he went to 
 Europe, where he resided six years. During this period he 
 formed an acquaintance with the Princess Sophia Dorothea, of 
 Hanover, and with her son, George Augustus, which opened 
 the way for his future advancement, upon the accession of this 
 prince, in 1727, to the throne of England, as George the Second. 
 98
 
 MEMOIR OF GOVERNOR BELCHER. gg 
 
 On his return he married and settled in Boston, where he be- 
 came a merchant of great reputation and considerable wealth. 
 His wife was a daughter of Lieutenant-Go vernor Partridge, of 
 New Hampshire. She died on the 1st of October, 1736. He 
 was appointed a member of the Provincial Council, and in 1729 
 he was sent to England as agent of the Province ; and on the 
 2Qth of November of the same year he was made Governor of 
 Massachusetts and of New Hampshire, which office he held for 
 twelve years. Upon becoming Governor he relinquished his 
 mercantile pursuits and devoted himself to his official duties. 
 His home was distinguished for its elegant hospitality, and he 
 is said to have impaired his private fortune in upholding the 
 dignity of his office, of which, both in Massachusetts and in 
 New Jersey, he had a very high estimate. 
 
 We learn from President Quincy's " History of Cambridge 
 University" that Governor Belcher, as Governor Burnet had 
 done before him, made a formal and public visit to Harvard. 
 Of this visit the President gives the following account : 
 
 " The visit of Governor Belcher to the College appears, according to the records, 
 to have been attended with like ceremonies. He was, on the 9th of September, 
 1730, accompanied to Cambridge by a'' military troop, then waited on by two com- 
 panies of foot.' When he arrived at the College, after having been for a while in 
 Mr. Flynt's chamber, the bell tolled, and the scholars assembled in the Hall, into 
 which the Governor and Corporation having entered, Mr. Hobby made a Latin 
 oration, and his Excellency made a very handsome answer in Latin. This done, 
 and his Excellency the Governor, his Majesty's Council, the Tutors, Professors, and 
 sundry gentlemen, who came on the occasion, dined together in the library, with 
 the Corporation. 
 
 " These forms and ceremonies, of the last and preceding age," adds President 
 Quincy, " are interesting as characteristic of the customs and manners of Massa- 
 chusetts under the Colonial and Provincial Governments." 
 
 The " History of the College of New Jersey" furnishes ex- 
 amples of somewhat similar ceremonies, on occasions of the 
 first visits made to the College by the Colonial Governors. 
 
 On the death of President Wadsworth, of Harvard, which 
 occurred on the i6th of March, 1737, the other members of the 
 Corporation were equally divided in opinion as to the proper 
 person to be chosen his successor, one half being in favor of 
 electing the Rev. Mr. Holyoke, a minister of Marblehead, and
 
 100 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 the other half being for the Rev. Joshua Gee, whom President 
 Quincy describes as a man of considerable genius, not deficient 
 in learning, holding all the peculiar doctrines of Calvin with a 
 bigoted pertinacity, and naturally of a fiery zeal, which, if it 
 had not been quenched by constitutional indolence, would 
 probably have rendered him a firebrand among the churches. 
 Perhaps this description of a rigid Calvinistic divine, by one of 
 such liberal views in matters of religion as President Quincy, 
 should be taken cum grano salts. Still, it may be sufficiently 
 near the mark to account for Governor Belcher's influence being 
 finally cast in favor of Mr. Holyoke, of whose thorough Calvin- 
 ism some of the stricter sort stood in doubt, without ascribing 
 the Governor's course " to the tact of a politician, who saw 
 clearly that the times of denunciation and exclusion were fast 
 passing away," and who was satisfied, or willing to appear to be 
 convinced, upon the sole authority of Barnard" (also a minister 
 of Marblehead, and an intimate friend of Holyoke), " although 
 the terms in which he vouched for the Calvinism of Holyoke 
 placed his Catholicism and liberality in high relief, and con- 
 veyed a severe sarcasm on those who were counteracting his 
 election by scattering doubts concerning the soundness of his 
 principles." Upon hearing Mr. Barnard's account of the char- 
 acter and religious views of Mr. Holyoke, Governor Belcher said, 
 "Then I believe he must be the man." "And accordingly," 
 adds President Quincy, "he was the man, and was elected in 
 both Boards* unanimously." This statement shows at once 
 the sound judgment of his Excellency, his freedom from undue 
 bias, and his great influence, at that time, in shaping the meas- 
 ures of the authorities of Harvard. 
 
 Governor Belcher presided at the inauguration of President 
 Holyoke, and also on this occasion made a speech in Latin, in 
 the course of which he delivered to the President the charter, 
 key, etc. The President replied in Latin. Governor Belcher's 
 
 * The Boards referred to above were the Corporation, consisting of the President 
 and six Fellows, whose privilege it was to nominate the officers of the College, and 
 the Board of Overseers, consisting of the Governor, Deputy-Governor, members of 
 the Council, and others, who had the power to confirm or to reject.
 
 MEMOIR OF GOVERNOR BELCHER. IOI 
 
 course with respect to the University was such as naturally 
 tended to gratify the friends of the institution generally; and 
 had he been equally fortunate in pleasing the supporters and 
 opponents of his administration, he might possibly have held 
 the government during life. But his insisting, as his prede- 
 cessors had done, that a sufficient and fixed salary for the sup- 
 port of the Governor should be voted by the General Court, 
 and his opposition to a measure known as "the land bank 
 company," helped to undermine his influence and to prepare 
 the way for his removal. As the representative of the King, he 
 was not indisposed to exercise all the authority given him in his 
 commission ; and in deciding upon the course he ought to pursue 
 in reference to measures bearing upon the honor of the Crown, 
 the welfare of the Province, or the interests of religion and 
 learning, he was not distrustful of his own judgment, although 
 as to particular points he deemed it prudent to avail himself of 
 the opinions of others whose position, ability, and good sense 
 commanded his respect and confidence; and sometimes, though 
 not always, he yielded his own judgment to theirs. In religion 
 he was a decided Calvinist; also an ardent friend to revivals, 
 and a favorite of those engaged in promoting them. That emi- 
 nent evangelist, the Rev. George Whitefield, was most kindly 
 received by him, both in Massachusetts and in New Jersey. 
 
 His freedom in the utterance of his opinions was very marked, 
 and not always the most discreet; and this is said to have been 
 one and a principal cause of the hostility against him on the 
 part of those who succeeded in their efforts to have him re- 
 moved from his office as Governor of Massachusetts and New 
 Hampshire. 
 
 That he had been misrepresented by his political enemies, 
 he gave to King's Council, at the English Court, such clear 
 evidence that he was promised the first vacancy in the guber- 
 natorial chairs of the American Provinces; and happily for the 
 interests of the country, and more especially for the interests of 
 sound learning and fervent piety, this first vacancy occurred in 
 the Province of New Jersey, in which, at this very time, efforts 
 were making to establish the institution ever since known as 
 " The College of New Jersey," although it is not unfrequently
 
 1 O2 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 spoken of under the names of " Princeton College" and " Nassau 
 Hall." 
 
 Upon being superseded by Governor Shirley, in 1741, Gov- 
 ernor Belcher went to England, and did not return to America 
 until the summer of 1747, when he came back with the commis- 
 sion of Captain-General and Governor of the Province of New 
 Jersey, etc. The date of his commission was that of July 18, 
 1746, and it was approved in Council August 22 of that same 
 year ; but such appear to have been the straitened circum- 
 stances of the Governor at this time, that he was unable for 
 many months to pay the requisite fees ; and for the funds with 
 which they were paid he was indebted to the liberality of sundry 
 persons, members of the Society of Friends, in England. 
 
 Sailing from England in the Scarborough, an English vessel 
 of war, he arrived here on the 8th of August, 1747, after a 
 tedious passage of nearly ten weeks; and, as mentioned by him 
 in a letter of the i6th of September, to a friend in London 
 (Rev. Mr. Bradbury), he was received by the people with all 
 possible appearance of respect and satisfaction. In this letter 
 he also speaks of putting forward the building of a college, 
 and in a letter to the Committee of the West Jersey Society of 
 London he says: 
 
 " The people of New Jersey are in a poor situation for educating their children, 
 and the project for a college had been started before my arrival, and where it 
 should be placed was a matter of dispute between the gentlemen of East and West 
 Jersey, but I have got them to agree upon Princeton." 
 
 And in a letter of October 2, of the same year, he says, to 
 another friend (Mr. Walley): 
 
 " Princeton is fixed upon for the site of the College, and such a nursery for 
 religion and learning is much wanted." 
 
 We are not to infer from these statements that there was any 
 formal vote or agreement among the friends of the College that 
 it should be permanently established at Princeton, but that those 
 of them with whom the Governor conversed had intimated to 
 him a willingness to accede to his suggestion, "if," to use an 
 expression common in ecclesiastical parlance, "the way should 
 be clear."
 
 NOTICES OF THE TRUSTEES, 
 
 103 
 
 For ten years Governor Belcher administered, with great 
 ability and much to the satisfaction of the people generally, the 
 government of this Province. The disturbances existing before 
 his coming were quelled by his mild and conciliatory course, 
 and he had the esteem and encouragement of the friends of 
 evangelical piety and sound learning in his efforts to place upon 
 a firm foundation the College which, to use his own expression, 
 " he had adopted as a daughter." 
 
 Governor Belcher was the first to follow the notable example 
 set by acting Governor John Hamilton, in granting a charter, 
 with the consent of Council, without any reference to the As- 
 sembly, and without waiting for any special instructions from 
 the English Court. (See chapter i., page 45.) In this respect, 
 Hamilton first, and Belcher next, in boldness and consummate 
 judgment, went beyond the much-lauded measure of Governor 
 Dudley, of Massachusetts, in prompting and approving the 
 declaration by the General Court of that Province in 1707, that 
 the act of 1650, respecting Harvard College, having never been 
 repealed, was to be deemed the law governing that institution, 
 and thus secured its perpetuity and its freedom from further 
 interference by the Crown, which had annulled its charters, 
 granted subsequently to that act. The example of President 
 Hamilton was followed not only by Governor Belcher, but by 
 other of the Provincial Governors, as in the cases of King's 
 College, New York City ; Dartmouth College, New Hampshire ; 
 Queen's College, New Jersey; which were all, in a measure at 
 least, indebted for their existence to these precedents of 1746 
 and of 1748. 
 
 Of the Rev. Jonathan Dickinson, and of the Rev. Aaron 
 Burr, Trustees of the College under the first charter, memoirs 
 will be given in connection with the narratives of their admin- 
 istrations as Presidents of the College. 
 
 The Rev. John Pierson, a Trustee under both charters, was 
 pastor of the Presbyterian church in Woodbridge, Middlesex 
 County, New Jersey. He was a graduate of Yale in 1711, and 
 was a son of the Rev. Abraham Pierson, the first rector or 
 President of that College; and he was the maternal grand- 
 father of the Rev. Dr. Ashbel Green, the eighth President of
 
 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 the College of New Jersey. Mr. Pierson was the Moderator 
 of the Synod of New Jersey in 1749. 
 
 The Rev. John Pemberton, D.D., also known to be a Trustee 
 under both charters, was graduated at Harvard College in 1721. 
 His father, of the same name, was at this time minister of 
 the South Church, Boston. Dr. Pemberton, the Trustee, was 
 pastor of the Presbyterian church in the city of New York 
 from 1727 until 1753 or 1754, when he removed to Boston 
 and took charge of a church in that city. In 1746 he was the 
 Moderator of the Synod of New York. He died on the pth of 
 September, 1777, at the age of seventy-two years. It was only 
 during his residence in New York that he held the position of 
 Trustee. 
 
 The Hon. John Reading, the first person named as a Trustee 
 in Governor Belcher's charter, was a resident of Hunterdon 
 County, and the settlor member of the Governor's Council at 
 the time this charter was given ; and upon the death of Gov- 
 ernor Belcher he became the acting Governor of the Province, 
 as he had been for nearly a year before Governor Belcher's 
 arrival. 
 
 Hon. James Hude, a native of Scotland, emigrated to this 
 country while yet a young man, and made New Brunswick the 
 place of his residence. He took an active part in the erection 
 of the First Presbyterian Church in that city, of which church 
 he was an elder during the pastorate of the Rev. Mr. Arthur. 
 Mr. Hude was for some time Mayor of New Brunswick, and at 
 the time of his appointment as Trustee of the College he was 
 a member of Governor Belcher's Council. 
 
 Hon. Andrew Johnston was a resident of Perth Amboy, an 
 attendant at the Episcopal church of that city, a member of 
 Governor Belcher's Council, Treasurer of East Jersey, and was 
 the first person chosen Treasurer of the College. 
 
 Both Mr. Hude and Mr. Johnston were members of the Pro- 
 vincial Council when the Honorable John Hamilton, President 
 of the Council, gave the first charter, and it is quite probable 
 that they were Trustees of the College under that charter also. 
 (See page 47.) 
 
 Hon. Thomas Leonard was a member of Governor Belcher's
 
 NOTICES OF THE TRUSTEES. 
 
 105 
 
 Council, a resident of Princeton, and a gentleman of wealth 
 and influence. He laid the corner-stone of " Nassau Hall." 
 
 The Leonards of New Jersey were of English origin, and 
 they were descended from a family of that name settled at 
 Raynham, Massachusetts, in 1652. At this place they intro- 
 duced the first forge set up in America, and in 1797 it was in the 
 possession of this family of the sixth generation. The Leonards 
 were remarkable for their longevity, promotion to public office, 
 a hereditary attachment to the manufacture " of iron, and kind- 
 ness to the Indians." " Of the great ages attained by this 
 family, it is stated that in 1793 it was known that one had 
 died aged one hundred, two over ninety, seventeen over eighty, 
 fifty-three over seventy-three. Thirteen had been graduated at 
 Cambridge."* 
 
 King Philip's hunting-house stood a mile and a quarter from 
 the forge, and Philip and the Leonards lived on such friendly 
 terms that as soon as the war of 1675 broke out, which ended 
 in the death of the King and in the ruin of his tribe, "he issued 
 strict orders to all his Indians never to hurt the Leonards."* 
 As early as 1721, Mr. Leonard was a member of the Assembly 
 of New Jersey, from Somerset County; and he died in 1760. 
 
 The Hon. John Kinsey, the next in the list of Trustees, was, 
 at the date of the charter, Chief Justice of Pennsylvania. He 
 was a member of the Society of Friends. In the preparation 
 of this instrument Governor Belcher sought his advice, and 
 he placed it in his hands for revision before submitting it to 
 the Attorney- General of New Jersey for his approval. At the 
 earnest desire of Governor Belcher, Chief-Justice Kinsey con- 
 tinued to serve as a Trustee. 
 
 He was a native of England, and upon coming to this 
 country settled first in New Jersey. In 1716 he was a repre- 
 sentative to the Provincial Assembly from Middlesex County, 
 and the same year, and for several years in immediate succes- 
 sion, he was chosen Speaker of this body; and again in 1730 
 and 1733. From New Jersey he removed to Philadelphia, where 
 he was elected a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly, of 
 
 * Morse's American Gazetteer. 
 VOL. i. 8
 
 I0 6 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 which he was the Speaker for several sessions. (See Elmer's 
 " Reminiscences.") 
 
 David Paul Brown, author of the " Forum and Bar," speaks 
 of Mr. Kinsey as being for some years, with Andrew Hamilton, 
 the only great lawyer in the Province. In the case of the Rev. 
 Wm. Tennent, tried for perjury, Mr. Kinsey was associated 
 with Mr. Wm. Smith, of New York, and with Mr. John Coxe, 
 of New Jersey, as counsel for the defence. 
 
 A few years after the establishment of the Court of Chancery 
 in Pennsylvania by Governor Sir W. Keith, he caused Mr. 
 Kinsey's hat to be taken off by an officer of the court, whilst 
 Mr. K. was attending to some business before him as Chancel- 
 lor. This gave great offence to the Quakers, and, although they 
 were afterwards allowed to wear their hats, the court itself was 
 soon after entirely set aside. (See Field's "Provincial Courts" 
 and Proud's " History of Pennsylvania.") 
 
 In 1738, Mr. Kinsey was Attorney-General of Pennsylvania, 
 and in 1743 he was made Chief Justice of that Province: this 
 latter office he retained until his death, which occurred at 
 Burlington, New Jersey, in May, 1750. 
 
 In writing to Mr. Richard Partridge, then in London, Gov- 
 ernor Belcher, in a letter of the date of April 22, 1748, says of 
 Mr. Kinsey, " He is the next man in honor and power to the 
 Governor of Pennsylvania." And again, in writing to the same 
 gentleman, in November, 1750, he says, " My friend Kinsey is 
 dead." 
 
 Hon. Edward Shippen was by profession a merchant, but in 
 1749 he was made a Judge of the Common Pleas, and also of 
 the Orphans' Court and Quarter Sessions, of Philadelphia. He 
 had for his associates on the bench Franklin, Lawrence, and 
 Maddox. (See Brown's " Forum.") 
 
 He was evidently a man of note and influence, and took an 
 active part in promoting the interests of the College. Owing 
 to his advanced age, he resigned his place at the Board in 1767. 
 
 His son, Edward Shippen, was for some years Chief Justice 
 of the State of Pennsylvania; and his younger son, Joseph 
 Shippen, a graduate of the College in 1753, was Secretary of 
 the Province of Pennsylvania. Judge Shippen was a scholarly
 
 NOTICES OF THE TRUSTEES. 
 
 IC>7 
 
 man, and occasionally corresponded with his sons in the Latin 
 and French languages. 
 
 Hon. Wm. Smith was an eminent lawyer of New York City. 
 He was born in Buckinghamshire, England, in 1696, and emi- 
 grated to America in 1715. He was graduated at Yale Col- 
 lege in 1719, and was a Tutor in the same from 1722 to 1724. 
 In 1736 he was made Recorder of the city of New York, and 
 subsequently a member of the King's Council, and also a Judge 
 of the Supreme Court of the Province. Of the part he took 
 in the Zenger trial for libel, and of the consequences to him- 
 self and to his friend James Alexander, Esq., mention was 
 made in the first chapter of this work ; but nothing is there 
 said of the grounds of the exceptions taken by them to the 
 competency of the court to try the case. They were these : 
 
 " I. Because the commission was granted during pleasure, whereas it ought to 
 be granted during good behavior. 
 
 " 2. That the commission was granted by a Justice of the Common Pleas, whereas 
 it could only be granted by a Judge of the King's Bench. 
 
 " 3. That the form of the commission was not warranted by law. 
 
 " 4. It appears that the commission was allowed by William Cosby, Esq., Gov- 
 ernor of the Colony, and without the advice or consent of his Majesty's Council 
 of this Colony, without which the Governor could not grant the same. 
 "When these exceptions were offered to the Court, April 15, 1735, the Chief 
 Justice said to Messrs. Alexander and Smith that they ought well to consider the 
 consequences of what they offered ; to which they answered, they had well con- 
 sidered the consequences ; and Mr. Smith further said, that he was so well satisfied 
 of the right of the subject to take an exception to the commission of a judge, if 
 he thought such commission illegal, that he durst venture his life upon that point. 
 
 " The next day Mr. Smith asked to be heard by the Court on these two points : 
 
 " I. Whether the subject has the right to take such exceptions. 
 
 " 2. That the exceptions were legal and valid. 
 
 " To which the Chief Justice said, ' That they would neither hear nor allow the 
 exceptions; . . . and that either we must go from the bench or you from the bar.' 
 
 " Accordingly, by order of the Court, they were ' excluded from any further 
 practice in this Court.' " (See Brown's " Forum," pp. 287, 288.) 
 
 " In 1754, with the aid of Messrs. James Alexander, P. V. B. and W. Livingston, 
 and J. Morin Scott, he raised .600 to buy books to lend to the people, which led 
 to the establishment of the New York Society Library." (Duer's " Life of Lord 
 Stirling.") 
 
 The following obituary notice of Mr. Smith appeared in the 
 "New York Gazette," November 22, 1769: 
 
 " Last Wednesday morning departed this life, in the seventy-third year of his
 
 I0 8 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 age, the Honorable Wm. Smith, Esq., one of the Justices of the Supreme Court, 
 and late one of his Majesty's Council for this province. He was born in England, 
 and arrived here in 1715. He practised the law with great reputation, and was 
 esteemed one of the most eminent in his profession. In 1753 he was made one of 
 his Majesty's Council, which office he afterwards resigned, and in the year 1763 he 
 was made one of the Judges of the Supreme Court. He was a gentleman of great 
 erudition, and was the most eloquent speaker in the province. He was of an amiable 
 and exemplary life and conversation, and a zealous and inflexible friend to the 
 cause of religion and liberty." 
 
 Peter Van Brugh Livingston, Esq., was an eminent merchant 
 in the city of New York, and a man of great public spirit. He 
 was a son of Philip Livingston, of Livingston Manor, and the 
 eldest brother of Governor Livingston, of New Jersey. He 
 was graduated at Yale in 1731. He married Mary, a daughter 
 of James Alexander, above mentioned. In the latter part of 
 his life he removed to Elizabeth, New Jersey, in the vicinity 
 of which he purchased a farm, that has remained in possession 
 of his family ever since, the present proprietor being John 
 Kean, Esq. 
 
 Wm. Peartree Smith was the grandson of Wm. Smith, 
 Governor-General of the island of Jamaica, who was married 
 at Port Royal to Frances Peartree, and who died at New York 
 April 2, 1714, leaving two sons, the younger of whom, Wil- 
 liam, was the father of William Peartree Smith, who was born 
 in New York in 1723. He was graduated at Yale College in 
 1742, and studied law, but did not engage in the practice of it, 
 finding sufficient employment in attending to his own estate 
 and in promoting useful objects. Governor Belcher, as early 
 as 1748, speaks of him as his correspondent in New York, and 
 as being "a very worthy and religious young man." The fam- 
 ily was one of much taste and refinement. He married Mary 
 Bryant, daughter of Captain Bryant, of Amboy, and left one 
 daughter, the wife of the Hon. Elisha Boudinot, and one son, 
 Wm. Pitt Smith, M.D. Ten other children died in early life. 
 He joined Cummings, Livingston, and Scott in publishing the 
 "Watch-Tower," in the city of New York, in 1755. He was 
 an ardent patriot, and took a great interest in the struggle be- 
 tween the Provinces and the mother-country, and lost much of 
 his property by the depreciation of the currency. " He was,"
 
 NOTICES OF THE TRUSTEES. lO g 
 
 says Dr. Hatfield, " one of the most distinguished civilians 
 of the day." Upon the marriage of his daughter he removed 
 to Elizabethtown, New Jersey, and while living there he was 
 arrested by the British and taken to New York, and, had it not 
 been for the interposition of his numerous friends in that city, 
 would have been sent to the prison-ship. He resigned his 
 place at the Board in 1793, having been for at least forty-five 
 years a trustee of the College. He died in 1801. 
 
 Samuel Hazard, Esq., was the second son of Nathaniel Haz- 
 ard, a merchant of New York. He removed to Philadelphia, 
 and continued to reside there. He had two sons, one of whom, 
 Ebenezer Hazard, a graduate of Nassau Hall, succeeded Mr. 
 Bache as Postmaster-General of the United States. 
 
 Mr. Hazard, the Trustee, and Mr. Robert Smith, the Archi- 
 tect, were a committee to select the site for Nassau Hall. 
 
 Of the Rev. John Pierson and the Rev. Ebenezer Pem- 
 berton, the first two ministers of the gospel named in the 
 second charter, mention was made above as being Trustees 
 under the first charter. 
 
 The next in order is the Rev. Joseph Lamb. He was grad- 
 uated at Yale in 1717, and was ordained by the Presbytery of 
 Long Island, and installed pastor of Mattituck. Being called 
 to Baskingridge, May, 1744, he joined the New Brunswick Pres- 
 bytery. He was the Moderator of the Synod of New York in 
 1748, his predecessors in that office being, Jonathan Dickinson, 
 1745 ; Ebenezer Pemberton, 1746; Gilbert Tennent, 1747. Mr. 
 Lamb died in July, 1749. 
 
 The Rev. Gilbert Tennent and the Rev. William Tennent were 
 born in Ireland, and came to America with their father, the 
 Rev. William Tennent, Senior, September, 1716. Their father 
 accepted a call to Neshaminy in 1726, at which place he estab- 
 lished the famous Log College, " at which," says Whitefield, 
 " eight ministers trained by him were sent out before the autumn 
 of 1 739. Of these, four were his own sons." As frequent men- 
 tion will be elsewhere made in this history of these two distin- 
 guished and devoted servants of Christ, and our object being 
 mainly to identify, as far as can be done, the first Trustees 
 under each of the two College charters, we shall merely state
 
 IIO HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 in this connection that the Rev. Gilbert Tennent, D.D., was 
 first settled as pastor of the Presbyterian church at New Bruns- 
 wick, in 1726, and removed to Philadelphia in 1744, where he 
 had charge of the Second Presbyterian Church until his death, 
 in January, 1764. He was an eloquent preacher, and an earnest 
 controversialist, both in the pulpit and out of it, making a 
 liberal use of the press in maintaining his own opinions, and 
 in attacking, and not always in the mildest terms, the opinions 
 of those from whom he differed. He was beyond question the 
 leading man among his brethren of the Presbytery of New 
 Brunswick not to say of the Synod of New York after the 
 death of Mr. Dickinson. 
 
 Of Dr. Gilbert Tennent, and also of his father and three 
 brothers, William, Jr., John, and Charles, interesting memoirs 
 are given in Dr. A. Alexander's " History of the Log Col- 
 lege." 
 
 The Rev. William Tennent, Jr., was ordained by the Pres- 
 bytery of Philadelphia in October, 1733, and succeeded his 
 younger brother, John Tennent, as pastor of the Freehold 
 Presbyterian church, now known as the Tennent Church, 
 Monmouth County, New Jersey. On different occasions he 
 was chosen pro tern. President of the College. A sketch of 
 his life, recording several extraordinary incidents, was published 
 by Hon. Elias Boudinot, LL.D., in " The Assembly's Mission- 
 ary Magazine" of 1806. 
 
 The accuracy of this sketch with respect to some matters 
 connected with Mr. William Tennent's trial, on the charge of 
 perjury in the case of Mr. Roland, before Chief-Justice Robert 
 Hunter Morris, has been called in question by two such emi- 
 nent lawyers as Judge R. S. Field and Chancellor H. W. Green, 
 who, in the opinion of the writer, have made good the excep- 
 tions taken by them to some of the details. Chancellor Green's 
 paper was published in the "Princeton Review" for 1868, and 
 Judge Field's in the " Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical 
 Society," vol. vi. 
 
 The errors in the narrative of the trial can be readily ac- 
 counted for, if we bear in mind that it was written between 
 sixty and seventy years after the trial took place, and about
 
 NOTICES OF THE TRUSTEES. IU 
 
 thirty years after Mr. Tennent's decease; and further, that the 
 incidents mentioned were given upon the authority of persons 
 who had no personal knowledge of any of the facts, and whose 
 belief in the truthfulness of what they had heard respecting the 
 trial rested solely upon mere traditions, in which the facts were 
 so intermingled with wrong deductions from them as to give to 
 the entire narrative an air of fiction. If all the incidents, both 
 those known and those unknown to the author of the narrative, 
 had been given in their proper order, there would have been no 
 difficulty in showing that they were such as might have oc- 
 curred in the usual course of divine providence, without re- 
 quiring any supernatural interposition through the medium of 
 dr.eams. Granting that two of the witnesses had the very 
 dreams they are reported to have had, it is far more likely that 
 the dreams were in consequence of what they had previously 
 heard respecting the bills of indictment found against Mr. Ten- 
 nent and Mr. Stevens, than that their first information on the 
 subject was derived from the dreams ; which, indeed, is not 
 directly affirmed, but is left to be inferred from the manner in 
 which they are introduced into the narrative. The trial took 
 place in June, 1742, ten months after the indictment, and of 
 course there was ample time to summon all the witnesses 
 required in the case. 
 
 There is another objection to the narrative, inasmuch as it 
 exalts Mr. Tennent's piety at the expense of his judgment, the 
 right exercise of which would have led him, contrary to what is 
 said in the narrative, to employ every lawful means within his 
 reach to meet the unjust and cruel charge brought against 
 him, and from which he was triumphantly vindicated by the 
 testimony adduced at the trial and by the verdict of the jury. 
 
 The Rev. Richard Treat, D.D., was born in Milford, Con- 
 necticut, September 25, 1705, and was a descendant or near 
 relative of Governor Robert Treat. He was graduated at Yale 
 in 1725, and was ordained by the Presbytery of Philadelphia, 
 and installed pastor of the church of Abington, December 30, 
 1731. But upon the division in the Synod of Philadelphia, by 
 which the Presbytery of New Brunswick and their adherents 
 were excluded from the Synod, he joined this Presbytery, of
 
 H2 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 which he was an influential member. He died November 20, 
 1778. 
 
 Rev. Samuel Blair was born in Ireland, June 14, 1712; he 
 came to this country while yet a lad. He pursued his studies 
 at the "Log College," and was licensed November, 1733, at 
 Abington, by the Philadelphia Presbytery. He accepted a call 
 to Middletown and Shrewsbury, New Jersey, and was ordained 
 by the East Jersey Presbytery in 1734. At the earnest invita- 
 tion of the people at Fagg's Manor, Pennsylvania, he removed 
 to that place, and was installed pastor of their church in April, 
 1740. Here he established a classical and theological school, 
 which under his wise and skilful guidance, and that of his 
 brother, the Rev. John Blair, his successor at Fagg's Manor, 
 rose to be an institution of much note. He died July 5, 1751. 
 The Rev. Samuel Davies, in writing to the Rev. Dr. Bellamy, 
 says, "The greatest light in these parts is just about to take 
 wing." (See Rev. R. Webster's " History.") 
 
 Rev. David Cowell was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, 
 in 1704, and was graduated at Harvard in 1732. He was 
 ordained by the Presbytery of Philadelphia, November 3, 1736, 
 and installed pastor of the church at Trenton. He was an 
 ardent and devoted friend of the College, and had much to do 
 in placing Mr. Davies in the presidency of that institution. To 
 Mr. D. he wrote, " I am sensible that your leaving Virginia is 
 attended with great difficulties, but I cannot think your affairs 
 are of equal importance with the College." 
 
 He died December i, 1760, and his funeral sermon was 
 preached by President Davies, who said of him, " In the 
 charter of the College of New Jersey he was nominated one 
 of the Trustees, and but few invested with the same trust dis- 
 charged it with so much zeal, diligence, and alacrity ;" adding, 
 " The College of New Jersey has lost a father, and I have lost 
 a friend." (See Rev. Dr. Hall's " History of the First Church, 
 Trenton.") 
 
 He was the only member of the Synod of Philadelphia whose 
 name appears in the charter; for, although Drs. Tennent and 
 Treat resided in Pennsylvania, they were members of the Synod 
 of New York.
 
 NOTICES OF THE TRUSTEES. H^ 
 
 Rev. Timothy Johnes, D.D., was of Welsh descent, and was 
 born at South Hampton, Long Island, New York, May 24, 
 1717. He was graduated at Yale in 1737. He was ordained 
 February 9, 1743, and was pastor of the church at Morristown 
 until his death, September, 1794, at the age of seventy-eight 
 years. In 1783 he received from Yale the degree of Doctor in 
 Divinity. 
 
 Rev. Thomas Arthur was graduated at Yale in 1743, and was 
 ordained by the Presbytery of New York in 1746, and settled as 
 pastor of the Presbyterian church at New Brunswick, at which 
 place he died, February 2, 1751, aged twenty-seven. " He was 
 a good scholar, a graceful orator, and a finished preacher." 
 
 Rev. Jacob Green was born at Maiden, Massachusetts, Jan- 
 uary 22, 1723. He was graduated at Harvard in 1744. He 
 came to New Jersey, and was ordained and installed at Hanover 
 in 1746. 
 
 On the 22d of November, 1758, he was chosen Vice-President 
 of the College pro tern., and for six months discharged the 
 duties pertaining to the office of President. 
 
 He was father of the Rev. Dr. Ashbel Green, the eighth 
 President of the College. He was a member of the Provincial 
 Congress of New Jersey of 1776, and the chairman of the 
 committee that prepared the first Constitution of the State. 
 
 In the second charter the names of the lay Trustees appear 
 to be inserted in the order of their rank, if they held office, 
 and of their age or social position, if not in office. Hence the 
 names of the members of the Governor's Council are given 
 first. Then occur the names of Chief-Justice Kinsey and Judge 
 Shippen, of Pennsylvania. The name of William Smith, the 
 distinguished attorney and counsellor of New York, comes 
 next. He was not made a judge till 1763. After him are 
 named Peter V. B. Livingston, William Peartree Smith, and 
 Samuel Hazard, in order of age, most probably. 
 
 The names of the clergy are given according to the dates of 
 their respective ordinations.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE REV. JONATHAN DICKINSON, 
 FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 IN the Introduction to this work it has been made to appear 
 that the College owed its origin mainly to the foresight and 
 efforts of the Rev. Messrs. Dickinson, Pierson, Pemberton, Burr, 
 and their coadjutors. 
 
 The first named of these eminent and good men was the one 
 selected by his associates to take the oversight of their infant 
 seminary of learning. 
 
 In the triennial catalogue of the College, Mr. Dickinson is 
 spoken of as President in 1746; but this is an error, and it 
 arose from confounding the date of the first charter with the 
 time when Mr. Dickinson was chosen President of the College, 
 which most probably took place in April, 1747, and certainly 
 not before February of that year. For on the 2d of February, 
 O. S., corresponding to the I3th of February, N. S., the Trus- 
 tees announced to the public that a charter for a College had 
 been granted to them, and that the College would be opened 
 some time in May next, at the latest ; but in this their first ad- 
 vertisement they make no mention of the choice of a President, 
 nor of the location of the College. In their next public notice, 
 of the date of April 27, 1747, they say that "the Trustees of 
 the College of New Jersey have appointed the Rev. Jonathan 
 Dickinson President of said College, which" (they add) " will 
 be opened in the fourth week of May next, at Elizabethtown. 
 At which Time and Place all Persons suitably qualified may 
 be admitted to an Academic Education." 
 
 That the first term of the College began at the time here 
 specified there can be no reasonable doubt; and the evidence 
 adduced shows that the charter under which Mr. Dickinson 
 114
 
 ADMINISTRATION OF REV, JONATHAN DICKINSON. u$ 
 
 conducted the instruction and the government of the College 
 was in full force until it was superseded by the one given by 
 Governor Belcher in 1748.* 
 
 Within one year from the opening of the College there were 
 several students ready to receive their first degree in the Arts. 
 And this fact renders it morally certain that some of these can- 
 didates, if not all, had been in training under the supervision 
 and instruction of President Dickinson. As just mentioned, 
 the first term began in the fourth week of May, 1747. Mr. 
 Dickinson died on the 7th of October of the same year. The 
 third Wednesday of May, 1748, was the day selected for the 
 first Commencement ; and had it taken place at that time the 
 first graduates of the College of New Jersey would have been 
 admitted to their Bachelor's degree under the charter given by 
 President Hamilton in 1746. But Governor Belcher, desirous 
 that they should receive this honor from himself and the gen- 
 tlemen to be associated with him as Trustees under the charter 
 which he was then preparing, requested that the Commence- 
 ment might be deferred for a fortnight, in order that he might 
 have it in his power to attend the Commencement, and to 
 deliver the new charter to the Trustees on that occasion. The 
 promised charter was not ready at the time the Governor ex- 
 pected, and a further delay occurred in the holding of the first 
 Commencement. And when the charter prepared under the 
 direction of Governor Belcher was ready to' be delivered to the 
 Trustees therein named, it did not prove to be in all respects 
 satisfactory to the leading friends of the College. It was there- 
 fore altered, and it passed the seal of the Province a second 
 time on the I4th of September, 1748; and this delay in the 
 preparation of the second charter occasioned a still further 
 postponing of the Commencement, which finally took place at 
 Newark on the Qth of November of that year, when the ex- 
 pectant candidates received their deferred honors. From the 
 above statement it is evident that these first graduates are to 
 be regarded as foster-sons of the College under the first charter 
 rather than under the second, and as connected with the ad- 
 
 * See extracts from the Governor's letters on pages 82-84.
 
 H6 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 ministration of President Dickinson as well as with that of 
 President Burr. 
 
 Of the course of study or of the number of pupils during 
 Mr. Dickinson's administration, so far as is now known, there 
 is no official record, nor is there any memorandum of these 
 matters by any person conversant with the condition of the 
 College at that time. With respect to the number of students 
 during the presidency of Mr. Dickinson, different estimates 
 have been made ; but, as they can be little else than mere con- 
 jectures, they hardly call for particular consideration. 
 
 From the well-known ability and learning of the President, 
 and from the character of the prominent gentlemen associated 
 with him, there can be no doubt that they sought to establish 
 a curriculum which would compare well with those of the older 
 colleges ; and further, it is certain beyond all question, that in 
 ordering the course of instruction they had a special reference 
 to the training of young men for the gospel ministry. Not 
 only was this their avowed object and their strongest induce- 
 ment to engage in this enterprise, but the catalogue of gradu- 
 ates shows that the first class consisted of six members, five of 
 whom became ministers of the gospel ; and that of the seven 
 graduates of the following year, five entered the ministry. 
 Another of the seven, of whose professional pursuits nothing 
 is known, died about two years after leaving College. 
 
 It is said by Dr. Hatfield, in his " History of Elizabeth," 
 that President Dickinson was assisted in the instruction of the 
 students by the Rev. Caleb Smith, a graduate of Yale College, 
 and that this gentleman was the first Tutor of the College of 
 New Jersey. It is quite probable that it was so ; although the 
 evidence is not so complete as we could desire. From a " Brief 
 Account of Mr. Smith," published in 1765, and within two or 
 three years after his decease, it appears that he was teaching at 
 Elizabeth, and pursuing his theological studies there under the 
 direction of Mr. Dickinson ; and that he was licensed to preach 
 the gospel by the Presbytery of New York in April, 1747, 
 which was about the time that Mr. Dickinson was chosen 
 President of the College. If not formally appointed a Tutor 
 by the Trustees, he may have been, and most probably was,
 
 ADMINISTRATION OF REV. JONATHAN DICKINSON, j^ 
 
 employed by the President under an authority given him by 
 the Trustees to engage for a limited time the services of a 
 competent assistant. From what is known of Mr. Smith's 
 talents and scholarship, he must have been a very suitable 
 person for such a position. There is reason to believe that Mr. 
 Smith continued to reside at Elizabethtown after the decease 
 of Mr. Dickinson, until his ordination and settlement at Newark 
 Mountains, now Orange, in the autumn of 1748. Of the char- 
 acter of this early friend of the College, and of the important 
 services which he rendered to it, we hope to have an oppor- 
 tunity to speak more fully than we can in this connection. 
 
 A BRIEF SKETCH OF THE LIFE AND LABORS OF PRESIDENT 
 
 DICKINSON.* 
 
 President Dickinson was born in Hatfield, Massachusetts, on 
 the 22d of April, 1688. His father was Hezekiah Dickinson, 
 and his grandfather was Nathaniel Dickinson, one of the first 
 settlers of Wethersfield, Connecticut. His mother was Abi- 
 gail, daughter of Samuel, and granddaughter of the Rev. Adam 
 Blackman, or Blakeman, the first minister of Stratford, Con- 
 necticut, and a graduate of the University of Oxford. 
 
 Mr. Dickinson was graduated at Yale College in 1706, and 
 while there he was a pupil of the Rev. Abraham Pierson, the 
 first Rector or President of that institution, which was founded 
 in 1701 and incorporated in 1702, and to which the College of 
 New Jersey is indebted for the academic training of her first 
 three Presidents, Dickinson, Burr, and Edwards. 
 
 After leaving college, Mr. Dickinson engaged in the study 
 of theology, but under whose guidance we have no tradition. 
 He went to Elizabethtown in 1708, and his preaching was so 
 acceptable to the people of that place that he was invited to 
 become their pastor, and, accepting this invitation, he was or- 
 dained on Friday, the 29th of September, 1709. The services 
 on this occasion were performed by the ministers of Fairfield 
 
 * In preparing this sketch, the writer has freely availed himself of the labors 
 of Drs. Green, Sprague, Stearns, and of the Rev. Richard Webster; but more 
 especially of the admirable sketch of " President Dickinson's Life and Labors," 
 by the Rev. Dr. Edwin F. Hatfield, in his " History of Elizabeth, New Jersey."
 
 US HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 County, Connecticut, who the year before had formed a con- 
 sociation according to the Saybrook Platform, and who on this 
 occasion were assisted by the pastors of some of the churches 
 in New Jersey. 
 
 At the time of his ordination and of his engaging in pastoral 
 labors Mr. Dickinson was not twenty-one years of age. 
 
 " It was," says Dr. Hatfielcl, " a weighty charge to be laid on such youthful 
 shoulders. And yet not too weighty, as the sequel proved. Quickly and diligently 
 he applied himself to his work, and his profiling presently appeared to all. It was 
 not long before he took rank among the first of his profession." 
 
 Some months before his ordination, and while supplying the 
 pulpit of the church at Elizabethtown, he married Joanna Mel- 
 yen, daughter of Jacob Melyen, and sister of the Rev. Samuel 
 Melyen. The father was one of the associates in the purchase 
 of the Elizabethtown tract, under Governor Nicolls's grant ; the 
 brother was for two or three years pastor of the church of that 
 place prior to Mr. Dickinson's settlement there.* 
 
 The church at Elizabethtown was originally Independent, and 
 conducted its affairs after the model of the Congregational 
 churches of New England. At the time Mr. Dickinson became 
 the pastor of this church it had been established about forty 
 years, and for several years after his settlement it continued to 
 be an Independent church. But, influenced more or less by his 
 
 * The family was from Holland, and Cornelis Melyn, the grandfather of Mrs. 
 Dickinson, was a patroon, or large landed proprietor, having obtained of the 
 Dutch Government a grant of Staten Island, which he afterwards relinquished to 
 the West India Company. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Dickinson had nine children. Their youngest daughter, Martha, 
 was married to the Rev. Caleb Smith, of Newark Mountains, now Orange, and 
 their eldest to Jonathan Sergeant, the father of the Hon. Jonathan Dickinson Ser- 
 geant and the grandfather of the Hon. John Sergeant and of the Hon. Thomas 
 Sergeant, of Philadelphia, and also of Mrs. Sarah Sergeant Miller, wife of the Rev. 
 Dr. Samuel Miller, of Princeton. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Smith's descendants are numerous, and several of them highly 
 distinguished in their respective callings. Among these are John C. Green, Esq., 
 of New York, who has reared a noble monument to his eminent ancestor, in the 
 erection of Dickinson Hall, at Princeton, the Hon. Henry M. Green, LL.D., 
 late Chancellor of New Jersey, and the Rev. William Henry Green, D.D., LL.D., 
 Professor in the Princeton Theological Seminary, and who in the spring of 1868 
 was chosen President of the College, but declined the appointment.
 
 ADMINISTRATION OF REV. JONATHAN DICKINSON, ng 
 
 views and wishes, the members consented to change their form 
 of government, and placed themselves under the care of the Pres- 
 bytery of Philadelphia. This change probably occurred in the 
 spring of 1717, as in the autumn of that year Mr. Dickinson's 
 name is given in the list of members present at the meeting of 
 the Synod of Philadelphia, which held its first sessions in the 
 city of Philadelphia, in September, 1717. Although it appears 
 from certain memoranda kept by the Presbytery that Mr. Dick- 
 inson was present and took part in the ordination of the Rev. 
 Robert Orr, on the 2Oth of October, 1715, yet there is no 
 reason to believe that he was at that time a member of the 
 Presbytery, as his name does not appear in the list of members 
 at that meeting, or at any previous one. He was also present 
 at the ordination of his friend the Rev. John Pierson, at Wood- 
 bridge, New Jersey, on the 29th of April, 1717; and, as he was 
 a member of the Synod in the following autumn, he was proba- 
 bly received as a regular member at the meeting held for Mr. 
 Pierson's ordination. 
 
 The first Presbytery in this country, viz., that of Philadelphia, 
 was organized in 1705. It increased rapidly, and in 1716 it re- 
 solved itself into a Synod, consisting of three Presbyteries, one 
 of them retaining the name of the Presbytery of Philadelphia. 
 Of this body Mr. Dickinson was a member until the formation 
 of the Presbytery of East Jersey, in 1 733. This last-named Pres- 
 bytery comprised most if not all of the ministers in the east- 
 ern division of the Province, and to it was united, in 1738, the 
 small Presbytery of Long Island. Upon the union of the two 
 they received the name of the Presbytery of New York ; and of 
 this Presbytery Mr. Dickinson was the leading member until 
 his decease, in the autumn of 1747. It was as a member of this 
 Presbytery that Mr. Dickinson took the prominent part men- 
 tioned in the Introduction to this work, in favor of establishing 
 a seminary of a high order for the education of candidates for 
 the holy ministry. 
 
 Mr. Dickinson was held in great reverence by his brethren 
 in the sacred office. He was twice chosen Moderator of the 
 Synod of Philadelphia, once in 1721 and again in 1742, and 
 he was the first Moderator of the Synod of New York, organ-
 
 12Q HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 ized in 1745. He was also from year to year a member of 
 the most important committees of the Synod. From choice a 
 Presbyterian, he was nevertheless not forgetful of his training 
 as an Independent, and he was altogether indisposed to coun- 
 tenance the assumption, by Presbytery or Synod, of any doubt- 
 ful power. Hence, at the meeting of the Synod in 1721, he 
 drew up a protest against the action of the Synod in adopting 
 a certain measure which, he apprehended, would prepare the 
 way for the introduction of rules and regulations touching the 
 government and discipline of the Church, the enacting of which 
 by the Synod would, according to his view of the case, transcend 
 its legitimate powers as a Church court. At the next meeting 
 of Synod, as Moderator of the previous one, he preached the 
 opening sermon, and in this discourse he took occasion to 
 define fully and clearly his own views in regard to the limits 
 of ecclesiastical authority. This full discussion of the subject 
 led to the withdrawal of the protest of the year before, and to 
 the presentation of a paper by Mr. Dickinson and his friends, 
 in which paper the true limits of Church power were so satis- 
 factorily exhibited that it commanded the hearty approval of 
 the entire body, and its unanimous adoption called forth, on 
 the part of the Synod, to use the words of the minute, " a 
 thanksgiving prayer and joyful singing of the 13 3d Psalm." 
 
 In the autumn of 1728 an overture was introduced into the 
 Synod, " having reference to the subscribing of the [West- 
 minster] Confession of Faith, and proposing that every minister 
 and candidate should be required to give his hearty consent to 
 it." Deeming this proposition to be one of grave importance, 
 the Synod deferred the consideration of it until the following 
 year. In the mean while the overture was printed, and Mr. 
 Dickinson published an answer to it, although he was an earn- 
 est Calvinist and cordially assented to the system of doctrine 
 set forth in the Confession and the Catechisms of the West- 
 minster Assembly. When this subject again came before the 
 Synod, it was referred to a committee, of which Mr. Dickinson 
 was a member. After an evidently careful survey of the whole 
 matter, the committee agreed upon a unanimous report, and 
 presented the overture with such alterations as secured for it
 
 ADMINISTRATION OF REV. JONATHAN DICKINSON. I2 i 
 
 the assent of the entire Synod, with the exception of one 
 member, who declared that he was not prepared to vote. The 
 changes made in the overture are ascribed to the ground taken 
 by Mr. Dickinson, and the paper as adopted by the Synod is 
 known, in the Presbyterian Church, as " the Adopting Act" 
 
 The record of this act is accompanied by the following 
 , minute : " The Synod, observing that unanimity, peace, and 
 unity which appeared in all their consultations and determina- 
 tions relating to the affair of the Confession, did unanimously 
 agree in giving thanks to God in solemn prayer and praises." 
 
 It was Mr. Dickinson's constant aim to promote harmony 
 among his brethren, and to engage them in earnest endeavors 
 for the advancement of sincere and fervent piety and of sound 
 learning. He was a man of great practical wisdom, and of 
 untiring industry. These qualities, together with his learning 
 and piety, gave him a commanding influence in the Church and 
 in the community at large, and enabled him to accomplish the 
 great and good work which in the providence of God he was 
 called to do. 
 
 He was an earnest advocate of missionary labor among the 
 Indians, and with his younger yet intimate friends, Messrs. 
 Pemberton and Burr, he made a successful appeal to the Hon- 
 orable Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge * in behalf 
 of the Indians on Long Island, in New Jersey, and in Penn- 
 sylvania. The three who united in this appeal, and who were 
 afterwards united in other important labors, were appointed 
 correspondents of the Society, and they were authorized to 
 employ missionaries to instruct the Indians, in whose welfare 
 they had taken so deep an interest. The first missionary em- 
 ployed by them was the Rev. Azariah Horton ; the second, the 
 Rev. David Brainerd, whose name is so dear to all friends of 
 Christian missions. From the time that Mr. Brainerd came to 
 New Jersey he was ever a welcome guest at the house of Mr. 
 Dickinson ; and their intimate friendship lasted till death. 
 
 Mr. Dickinson was also an earnest advocate and defender of 
 revivals ; that is to say, of those remarkable religious excite- 
 
 * Formed at Edinburgh in 1709. 
 VOL. I. 9
 
 122 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 ments which from time to time have been witnessed in the 
 churches of Christ, when the truth of God accompanied with 
 unusual power from on high has aroused the attention of the 
 hearers to the most serious and devout contemplation of their 
 spiritual condition, and has led them, sometimes in large num- 
 bers, to seek a vital union with Christ, if unconverted, or clearer 
 evidence of such union, if they are already one with Him, 
 through sanctification by the Holy Spirit and a belief of the 
 truth. 
 
 It can therefore occasion no surprise to learn that Mr. Dick- 
 inson was earnestly desirous that his own Church should share 
 in that wondrous outpouring of the Spirit which occurred in so 
 many of the churches in this country at the time of "the Great 
 Awakening," as the event here alluded to is commonly desig- 
 nated by the Revivalists and their friends of that day. His 
 prayers and his faithful labors were graciously and abundantly 
 rewarded. Writing to Mr. Foxcroft, of Boston, September 4, 
 1740, he says, " I have had more young people address me for 
 direction in their spiritual concerns in this three months than 
 in thirty years before." (See Dr. Hatfield's " History.") By 
 invitation of Mr. Dickinson, Mr. Whitefield preached on two 
 different occasions at Elizabethtown. 
 
 Although warmly in favor of revivals, Mr. Dickinson was not 
 indifferent to the abuses and errors sometimes connected with 
 them ; and to guard his own people and others against these 
 errors, he prepared and published a discourse from the words, 
 " The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are 
 the children of God." A second edition was published in 1743. 
 It was entitled " The Witness of the Spirit. A Sermon preached 
 at Newark, May 7, 1740." It gave offence to some of the 
 friends of revivals ; and even by the Tennents it was regarded 
 as being of a hurtful tendency to the interests of religion. 
 (See Webster's "History," pages 148 and 152.) Yet in the 
 estimation of the most sober-minded advocates of revivals, 
 the views entertained by Mr. Dickinson are in entire accord 
 with the teachings of the gospel. 
 
 As a preacher, and as a theological writer, Mr. Dickinson 
 attained to great distinction. He was esteemed one of the best
 
 ADMINISTRATION OF REV. JONATHAN DICKINSON. i 2 $ 
 
 preachers in the Presbyterian Church, and the ablest defender 
 of its doctrine and order. Several of his works were repub- 
 lished in Great Britain, and were much commended. 
 The following is a list of his published works : 
 
 1. In 1722. The sermon already spoken of as preached before the Synod of 
 Philadelphia on " Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction." 
 
 2. In 1724. " A Defence of Presbyterian Ordination," published at Boston, being 
 a reply to a pamphlet entitled " A Modest Proof of the Order and Government 
 settled by Christ and his Apostles in the Church." This was followed by another 
 from Mr. Dickinson's pen, both of which were afterwards revised, enlarged, and 
 published by the author. 
 
 3. In 1 729. " An Answer to the Rev. John Thomson's Overture urging the Synod 
 to adopt by a Public Agreement the Standards of the Church of Scotland." 
 R. Webster. 
 
 4. In 1732. A work entitled " The Reasonableness of Christianity, in Four Ser- 
 mons. Wherein the Being and Attributes of God, the Apostasy of Man, and the 
 Credibility of the Christian Religion are demonstrated by Rational Considerations, 
 and the Divine Mission of our Blessed Saviour proved by Scripture Arguments, 
 both from the Old Testament and the New," with a preface by Mr. Foxcroft, of 
 Boston, and published in that city. 
 
 Of these discourses the Rev. Dr. Hatfield makes these remarks : " They are ad- 
 mirable discourses, learned, discriminating, and logical ; full of pith and power ; 
 pointed and impressive. Happy the people favored with the ministry of such a 
 teacher ! Happy the children whose early years were blessed with such instruc- 
 tion!" 
 
 5. In 1733. " The Scripture Bishop vindicated," published at Boston. Dr. Hat- 
 field. 
 
 6. In 1733. A sermon preached at the funeral of Mrs. Ruth Pierson, the wife of 
 his friend the Rev. John Pierson, of Woodbridge, New Jersey, and daughter of the 
 Rev. Timothy Woodbridge, of Hartford, Connecticut. Printed at New York. Dr. 
 Green's " Notes." 
 
 7. In 1735. " Remarks on a Letter to a Friend in the Country, containing the 
 Substance of a Sermon preached at Philadelphia, in the Congregation of the 
 Rev. Mr. Hemphill." Published September, 1735. 
 
 8. In 1736. A sermon preached at Newark, Wednesday, June 2, 1736, and pub- 
 lished with the title, " The Vanity of Human Institutions in the Worship of God." 
 
 9. In 1737. A defence of this sermon. 
 
 10. In February, 1737-38. A second defence of this sermon, entitled "The 
 Reasonableness of Non-conformity to the Church of England in Point of Worship." 
 
 1 1. In 1740. His sermon on the " Witness of the Spirit," of which mention has 
 already been made. 
 
 12. In 1741. "The True Scripture Doctrine concerning some Important Points 
 of Christian Faith, particularly Eternal Election, Original Sin, Grace in Conversion, 
 Justification by Faith, and the Saint's Perseverance, represented and applied in Five 
 Discourses." This able work has been several times republished in this country 
 and in Scotland.
 
 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 13. In 1742. " A Display of God's Special Grace, in a Familiar Dialogue be- 
 tween a Minister and a Gentleman of his Congregation. About the Work of God 
 in the Conviction and Conversion of Sinners, so remarkably of late begun and 
 going on in these American Parts. Wherein the Objections against some Uncom- 
 mon Appearances among us are distinctly considered, Mistakes rectified, and the 
 Work itself particularly proved to be from the Holy Spirit : with one Addition, in a 
 Second Conference, relating to Sundry Antinomian Principles beginning to obtain 
 in some Places." 
 
 It was published first at Boston, and a second time at Philadelphia, in 1743. 
 The first edition was without the author's name, but with an attestation by the Rev. 
 Messrs. Coleman, Sewell, Prince, Webb, Cooper, Foxcroft, and Gee, all ministers 
 of Boston, and most of them men of note. 
 
 The second edition appeared having the hearty commendation of the Rev. 
 Messrs. Gilbert and William Tennent, Samuel and John Blair, Treat, and Finley. 
 
 Of this work Dr. Green, in his " Notes," observes that " no cotemporaneous 
 publication was probably so much read, or had as much influence." 
 
 14. In 1743. "The Nature and Necessity of Regeneration, considered in a 
 Sermon from John iii. 3, preached at Newark, at a Meeting of the Presbytery there. 
 To which are added some Remarks on a Discourse of Dr. Waterland's, entitled and 
 explained according to Scripture Antiquity." 
 
 Rev. Dr. Hatfield observes, " Dr. Waterland's book had been imported by 
 the Episcopal ministry, and circulated as an antidote to the revival doctrines of 
 Whitefield and his sympathizers. Dickinson's drew forth, in 1744, from the 
 Rev. John Wetmore, rector of the parish church of Rye, New York, a defence 
 of Waterland's discourse on 'Regeneration.' This was answered promptly by 
 Mr. Dickinson." 
 
 In 1745 he published his "Familiar Letters to a Gentleman, upon a Variety of 
 Seasonable and Important Subjects in Religion." A work of great ability, in which 
 the Evidences of Christianity, the Doctrine of God's Sovereign Grace in the Re- 
 demption of Men, the Way of Salvation, and the Dangers of Antinomianism are 
 fully set forth. It has been reprinted several times, both at home and abroad. It 
 is from a print in the Glasgow edition of this work that the portrait of President 
 Dickinson in the College collection of portraits, and the portraits of him in several 
 sketches of his life published in this country, were copied. 
 
 In this same year he published his work entitled " A Vindication of God's 
 Sovereign Free Grace. In some Remarks upon Mr. J. Beach's Sermon, with some 
 Brief Reflections upon Mr. H. Caner's Sermon, and on a pamphlet entitled ' A 
 Letter from Aristocles to Anthades.' " This letter was from the pen of the Rev. 
 Dr. Samuel Johnson, of Hartford, Connecticut. This work called forth a reply by 
 Dr. Johnson, which induced Mr. Dickinson to prepare " A Second Vindication of 
 God's Sovereign Free Grace," which was published after his death by his brother, 
 the Rev. Moses Dickinson. 
 
 HIS DEATH. 
 
 Mr. Dickinson died of pleurisy, October 7, 1747, in the six- 
 tieth year of his age. In reply to an inquiry made by a friend 
 who visited him when he was on his dying bed, he said, " Many
 
 ADMINISTRATION OF REV. JONATHAN DICKINSON. ^5 
 
 days have passed between God and my soul, in which I have 
 solemnly dedicated myself to Him, and I trust what I have 
 committed unto Him He is able to keep until that day." 
 
 The following notice of his death and burial appeared in the 
 " New York Weekly Post Boy" of October 12, 1747 : 
 
 " ELIZABETHTOWN, IN NEW JERSEY, October 10. 
 
 " On Wednesday morning last, about four o'clock, died here, of a pleuritic ill- 
 ness, that eminently learned and pious minister of the Gospel and President of the 
 College of New Jersey, the Rev. Mr. Jonathan Dickinson, in the sixtieth year of 
 his age, who had been Pastor of the first Presbyterian Church in this Town for 
 nearly forty years, and was the Glory and Joy of it. In him conspicuously appeared 
 those natural and acquired moral and spiritual Endowments which constitute a 
 truly excellent and valuable man, a good Scholar, an eminent Divine, and a 
 serious, devout Christian. He was greatly adorned with the gifts and graces of 
 the Heavenly Master, in the Light whereof he appeared as a star of superior 
 Brightness and Influence in the Orb of the Church, which has sustained a great 
 and unspeakable Loss in his Death. He was of uncommon and of very extensive 
 usefulness. He boldly appeared in the Defence of the great and important Truths 
 of our most holy Religion, and the Gospel Doctrines of the free and sovereign 
 Grace of God. He was a zealous Professor of godly Practice and godly Living, 
 and a bright ornament to his Profession. In Times and cases of Difficulty he was 
 a wise and able Counsellor. By his death our Infant College is deprived of the 
 Benefit and Advantage of his superior Accomplishments, which afforded a favor; 
 able prospect of its future Flourishing and Prosperity under his Inspection. His 
 remains were decently interred here yesterday, when the Rev. Mr. Pierson, of 
 Woodbridge, preached his funeral sermon ; and as he lived desired of all, so never 
 any Person in these Parts died more lamented. Our Fathers, where are they ? 
 and the Prophets, do they live forever?"* 
 
 Dr. Hatfield remarks that " this notice was probably written 
 by the Rev. Mr. Pemberton, of New York, with whom Mr. 
 Dickinson had been intimately associated for years in the de- 
 fence of the truth and the promotion of the cause of Christ." 
 
 This testimony to the worth of Mr. Dickinson is not exagger- 
 ated. He was all that he is here represented to have been. 
 President Edwards, the Rev. Dr. Bellamy, Dr. John Erskine, of 
 Scotland, Governor Belcher, all confirm its truthfulness. Ed- 
 wards speaks of him as the late learned and very excellent Mr. 
 Jonathan Dickinson. Bellamy calls him the great Mr. Dickin- 
 son. Erskine, speaking of Dickinson and Edwards, says, " The 
 
 * Dr. Stearns's "First Church, Newark," and Dr. Hatfield's " History of Eliza- 
 beth."
 
 1 2 6 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 British Isles have produced no such writers on divinity in the 
 eighteenth century." Belcher, in his letter of the I3th of No- 
 vember, 1747, to Mr. Pemberton, speaks of him as " that eminent 
 servant of God, the learned and pious Dickinson." 
 
 " It may be doubted," says Dr. Sprague, " whether, with the 
 single exception of the elder Edwards, Calvinism has ever found 
 an abler or more efficient champion in this country than Jona- 
 than Dickinson." If the writer may venture to institute a 
 comparison between those two admirable men : for profound 
 thinking, but not always correct, he would assign the palm to 
 Edwards ; but for sound judgment and practical wisdom, to 
 Dickinson. Both of them were eminently good, and both 
 eminently great. 
 
 From the autobiography of the Reverend Jacob Green, in 
 early life a pupil of Dr. Dickinson's, and the father of the 
 Rev. Dr. Ashbel Green, the eighth President of the College, it 
 appears that both Mr. Dickinson and Mr. Burr differed from 
 President Edwards in regard to the qualifications requisite for 
 admission to the sacraments; and that in regard to this im- 
 portant question they held, or inclined to, the views of Mr. 
 Stoddard, the maternal grandfather of President Edwards.
 
 C HAPTER VI. 
 
 ADMINISTRATION AND LIFE OF PRESIDENT BURR. 
 
 UPON the decease of President Dickinson, the Rev. Aaron 
 Burr took charge of the College,* and the students were re- 
 moved from Elizabethtown to Newark, the place of Mr. Burr's 
 residence. Whether Mr. Burr was formally invested with the 
 office of President at this time is uncertain, there being no Col- 
 lege records of that date, or other cotemporary authority to 
 determine this question. But it is certain that he discharged 
 the duties of the President while the College was yet under the 
 first charter. 
 
 The charter given by Governor Belcher was accepted by the 
 Trustees therein named on the I3th of October, 1748, O. S., 
 and on the Qth of November following, at a meeting of the 
 Trustees at Newark, Mr. Burr was unanimously chosen Presi- 
 dent of the College as reorganized under the second charter. 
 
 In his sketch of the College, Dr. Green observes : 
 
 " It will be seen from the following extracts from the minutes of the Trustees 
 that a class was in readiness to receive their Bachelor's degree within one month 
 from the time that Belcher's charter took effect ; and that under that charter the 
 degrees were conferred by Mr. Burr on the very day that he was elected Presi- 
 dent. Everything, therefore, must have been previously prepared and arranged 
 with a view to this event." 
 
 If the reverend and learned author of this sketch had had 
 access to Governor Belcher's correspondence with Messrs. 
 Burr, Pemberton, and Gilbert Tennent respecting the second 
 charter, he would have learned from that correspondence that 
 there was a class in readiness to receive their first degree in the 
 
 * See obituary notice of President Burr, in the " New York Mercury," Septem- 
 ber 29, 1757, or Dr. Stearns's " History," p. 206. 
 
 127
 
 128 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 Arts six months before they did receive it, and he would also 
 have known the reason of the delay in conferring upon them 
 this distinction.* 
 
 In the minutes of the Trustees there is no reference or allu- 
 sion to either of these things; yet they are important from their 
 bearing upon the question, whether the College under the first 
 charter and the College under the second charter were one and 
 the same institution. 
 
 The following is the entire record respecting the first Com- 
 mencement, and the conferring of degrees on that occasion : 
 
 " Agreed, that the commencement for graduating the candidates, that had been 
 examined and approved for that purpose, go on to-day. 
 
 " It was accordingly opened this forenoon by the president with prayer, and pub- 
 lickly reading of the charter in the meeting house. 
 
 " Adjourned till two o'clock in the afternoon. 
 
 " In the afternoon the president delivered a handsome and elegant Latin Ora- 
 tion. And after the customary scholastic disputations, the following gentlemen 
 were admitted to the degree of Bachelor of Arts, viz., Enos Ayres, Israel Read, 
 Benjamin Chestnut, Richard Stockton, Hugh Henry, Daniel Thane. 
 
 " After which his Excellency the Governor was pleased to accept of a degree of 
 Master of Arts ; this was succeeded by a salutatory oration by Mr. Thane, and the 
 whole concluded with prayer by the president." 
 
 The, above-named gentlemen, the first graduates of the Col- 
 lege, were prepared to receive this their first academic honor 
 while the first charter was yet in force. Apart from the evi- 
 dence on this head furnished by Governor Belcher's letters, 
 referred to above, the fact that they were admitted to their first 
 degree on the very day that Mr. Burr was chosen and inaugu- 
 rated President of the College under the second charter is suffi- 
 cient to establish the truth of this statement. It appears, also, 
 that this honor was conferred after the candidates had been ex- 
 amined and approved. By whom, and under whose authority, 
 was this examination held? Assuredly not by the authority of 
 the Trustees acting under the second charter, or by persons 
 designated by them. For at the meeting on the 1 3th of Octo- 
 ber their only one previous to the election of Mr. Burr and the 
 holding of the first Commencement no provision whatever was 
 
 * See extracts from Governor Belcher's letters, in the third chapter of this work.
 
 ADMINISTRATION AND LIFE OF PRESIDENT BURR. 
 
 I2 9 
 
 made for this examination. The candidates must therefore have 
 been examined and approved by the President and others acting 
 under an authority given in the first charter, although they 
 were admitted to their first degree in the Arts by a vote of the 
 Trustees of the second charter, the transition of the College 
 from the control of the one to that of the other being com- 
 pleted on the very day on which the degrees were conferred. 
 
 " Its first Commencement," says Mr. Moore, the Librarian of the New York 
 Historical Society, " was celebrated with circumstances of great pomp and cere- 
 mony equally novel and interesting. The following report of the proceedings was 
 prepared at the request of the Trustees of the College, by WILLIAM SMITH, at that 
 time a leading lawyer of the New York Bar, and published in the principal New 
 York newspaper." 
 
 [From Parker's Gazette and Post Boy, Nov. 21, 1748.] 
 
 " MR. PARKER : 
 
 "As the Acts of a publick Commencement are little known in these Parts, perhaps the 
 following Relation from an Eye and Ear Witness, may be agreeable to many of 
 your Readers. 
 
 "On Wednesday the ninth Instant, was held at Newark, the first commencement 
 of the College of New- Jersey ; at which was present his Excellency JONATHAN 
 BELCHER, Esq., Governor and Commander in Chief of the said Province, and 
 President of the Trustees, and sixteen Gentlemen, being other Trustees named 
 in the Royal CHARTER : Who after they had all taken and subscribed the Oaths to 
 the Government, and made and signed the Declaration which are appointed by 
 divers Statutes of Great Britain, and had taken the particular Oath for the faithful 
 performance of their Trust, all which were required by the said Charter, they pro- 
 ceeded to the Election of a President of the said College ; whereupon the Reverend 
 Mr. AARON BURR, was unanimously chosen. 
 
 " Which being done, his Excellency was preceded from his Lodgings at the 
 President's House ; first by the Candidates walking in Couples uncovered ; next 
 followed the Trustees two by two being covered, and last of all his Excellency the 
 Governor, with the President at his Left Hand. At the Door of the Place ap- 
 pointed for the Publick Acts, the procession (amidst a great number of Spectators 
 there gathered) was inverted, the Candidates parting to the Right and Left Hand, 
 and the Trustees in like Manner. His Excellency first entered with the President, 
 the Trustees next following in the Order in which they were ranged in the Char- 
 ter; and last of all the Candidates. Upon the Bell ceasing, and the Assembly 
 being composed, the President began the Publick Acts by solemn Prayer to God 
 in the English Tongue, for a Blessing upon the publick Transactions of the Day ; 
 upon his Majesty King GEORGE the Second, and the Royal Family; upon the 
 British Nations and Dominions ; upon the Governor and Government of New- 
 Jersey ; upon all Seminaries of true Religion and good Literature; and par- 
 ticularly upon the infant College of New- Jersey.
 
 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 "Which being concluded, the President attended in the Pulpit with the Reverend 
 Mr. Thomas Arthur, who had been constituted Clerk of the Corporation, desired 
 in the English tongue, the Assembly to stand up and hearken to his Majesty's 
 Royal CHARTER, granted to the Trustees of the College of New- Jersey. 
 
 " Upon which, the Assembly standing, the Charter was distinctly read by the 
 Reverend Mr. Arthtir, with the usual Indorsement by his Majesty's Attorney Gen- 
 eral, and the Certificate signed by the Secretary of the Province, of its having been 
 approved in Council, with his Excellency's Fiat for the Province Seal, signed with 
 his Excellency's own Hand. 
 
 " After this, the Morning being spent, the President signified to the Assembly, 
 that the succeeding Acts would be deferred till two o'clock in the Afternoon. 
 
 " Then the Procession, in Return to the President's House, was made in the 
 Order before observed. 
 
 " The like procession being made in the Afternoon as in the Morning, and the 
 Assembly being seated in their places, and composed ; the President opened the 
 publick Acts, first by an elegant Oration in the Latin Tongue, delivered memoriter, 
 modestly declaring his Unworthiness of, and unfitness for so weighty and important 
 a Trust as had been reposed in him ; apologizing for the Defects that would un- 
 avoidably appear in his part of the present Service ; displaying the manifold Ad- 
 vantages of the liberal Arts and Sciences, in exalting and dignifying the humane 
 Nature, enlarging the Soul, improving its Faculties, civilizing Mankind, qualifying 
 them for the important Offices of Life, and rendering them useful Members of 
 Church and State : That to Learning and the Arts, was chiefly owing the vast 
 Pre-eminence of the polished Nations of Europe, to the almost brutish Savages of 
 America; the Sight of which last was the constant Object of Horror and Commis- 
 eration. Then the President proceeded to mention the Honours paid by our An- 
 cestors in Great Britain to the Liberal Sciences ; by erecting and endowing those 
 illustrious Seminaries of Learning which for many Ages had been the Honour and 
 Ornament of those happy Islands, and the source of infinite Advantage to the 
 People there : Observing, that the same noble Spirit had animated their Descend- 
 ants, the first English Planters of America ; who, as soon as they were formed into 
 a civil State in the very infancy of Time, had wisely laid Religion and Learning 
 at the Foundation of their Commonwealth ; and had always regarded them as the 
 firmest pillars of their Church and State That hence very early arose Harvard 
 College, in New- Cambridge, and afterwards Yale College, in New- Haven, which 
 have now flourished with growing Reputation for many Years, and have sent forth 
 many hundreds of learned Men of various Stations and Characters in Life, that in 
 different Periods have proved the Honour and Ornament of their Country, and of 
 which, the one or the other had been the ALMA MATER of most of the Literati 
 then present. That Learning, like the Sun in its Western Progress, had now begun 
 to dawn upon the Province of New- Jersey, through the happy Influence of its 
 generous Patron their most excellent Governor ; who from his own Experience and 
 an early Acquaintance with Academic Studies, well knowing the Importance of a 
 learned Education, and being justly sensible that in nothing he could more sub- 
 serve to the Honour and Interest of his Majesty's Government, and the real Good 
 and Happiness of his Subjects in New- Jersey, than by granting them the best 
 Means to render themselves a religious, wise and knowing people ; Had therefore, 
 upon his happy Accession to his Government, made the Erection of a College in
 
 ADMINISTRATION AND LIFE OF PRESIDENT BURR, j^j 
 
 this Province for the Instruction of Youth in the liberal Arts and Sciences, the 
 immediate Object of his Attention and Care : The clearest Demonstration whereof 
 they had by the Grant of his most gracious Majesty's ROYAL CHARTER in the 
 Morning published in that Assembly, which had been conveyed to them through 
 his Excellency's Hands; which appears to have been founded in the noblest 
 Munificence, granting the most ample Privileges consistent with the natural and 
 religious Rights of Mankind, and calculated for the most extensive Good of all his 
 Majesty's Subjects. That therein we see the Ax laid to the Root of that ANTICHRIS- 
 TIAN BIGOTRY that had in every Age (wherever it had prevailed) been the Parent 
 of Persecution, the Bane of Society, and the Plague of Mankind : That by the 
 Tenour of his Majesty's Charter, it could assume no Place in the College of 
 New- Jersey ; but as a. foul Fiend was banished to its native Region, that infernal 
 PIT from whence it sprung. 
 
 " These, and many other Particulars having, more Oratorio, taken up about 
 three Quarters of an Hour, and the printed Theses being dispersed among the 
 Learned in the Assembly, the Candidates, by the Command of the President, en- 
 tered upon the publick Disputations in Latin, in which six Questions in Philosophy 
 and Theology were debated. One of which was : 
 
 " ' An Libertas agendi Secundum Dictamina Conscienticz, in Rebus mere religi- 
 osis, ab ulla Potestate huntana coerceri debeat ?' 
 
 " In English, Whether the Liberty of acting according to the Dictates of Con- 
 science, in Matters merely religious, ought to be restrained by any humane Power? 
 
 " And it was justly held and concluded, That that Liberty ought not to be re- 
 strained. Then the President addressing himself to the Trustees in Latin, asked, 
 Whether it was their Pleasure that these young Men who had performed the pub- 
 lick Exercises in Disputation should be admitted to the Degree of Batchelor of 
 the Arts ? 
 
 " Which being granted by his Excellency in the name of all the Trustees present, 
 the President descended from the Pulpit, being seated with his Head covered, re- 
 ceived them two by two; and according to the Authority to him committed by the 
 Royal Charter, after the Manner of the Academies in England, admitted six young 
 Scholars to the Degree of Batchelor of the Arts. 
 
 " In the next Place, his Excellency JONATHAN BELCHER, Esq., Governor and 
 Commander in Chief of the Province of New- Jersey, having declared his desire 
 to accept from that College the Degree of Master of Arts; the other Trustees in a 
 just Sense of the Honour done the College by his Excellency's Condescension, 
 most heartily having granted his Request, and the President rising uncovered 
 addressed himself to his Excellency ; and according to the same Authority com- 
 mitted to him by the Royal CHARTER, after the Manner of the Academies in 
 England admitted him to the Degree of Master of Arts. 
 
 " Then the President ascended the Pulpit, and commanded the Orator Salutato- 
 rius to ascend the Rostrum, who being Mr. Daniel Thane, just before graduated 
 Batchelor of Arts ; he in a modest and decent manner, first apologizing for his 
 Insufficiency, and then having spoken of the Excellency of the liberal Arts and 
 Sciences, and of the Numberless Benefits they yield to Mankind in private and 
 social life ; addressed himself in becoming Salutations and Thanks to his Excel- 
 lency and the Trustees, the President and whole Assembly : All which being per- 
 formed in good Latin from his Memory in a handsome oratorical Manner in the
 
 1^2 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 Space of about half an Hour. The President concluded in English, with Thanks- 
 giving to Heaven for the Favours received and Prayers to God for a Blessing upon 
 the Scholars that had received the publick Honours of that Day, and for the Smiles 
 of Heaven upon the infant College of New- Jersey, and dismissed the Assembly. 
 All which being performed to the great Satisfaction of all present, his Excellency 
 with the Trustees and Scholars, returned to the House of the President in the Order 
 observed in the Morning; where, after sundry BY- LAWS were made, chiefly for 
 regulating the Studies and Manners of the Students, they agreed upon a Corpora- 
 tion Seal with this Device : In the upper Part of the Circle, a Bible spread open, 
 with Latin Characters inscribed on the Left Side, signifying the Old Testament, and 
 on the right side the New, with this Motto over it: VITVE LUMEN MORTUIS REDDIT; 
 with a view to that Text, Who hath abolished Death, and hath brought Life and 
 Immortality to Light through the Gospel. Underneath on one Side a Table with 
 Books standing thereon, to signify the proper Business of the Students ; on the 
 other a Diploma, with the College Seal appended over it, being written MERITI 
 PREMIUM, to signify that the Degrees to be conferred are only to be to those that 
 deserve them. On the outside of the Circle, SIGILLUM COLLEGII NEO C^ESARI- 
 ENSIS IN AMERICA; the Seal of the College of New- Jersey, in America; and then 
 appointed the succeeding Commencement to be at New-Brunswick on the last 
 Wednesday of September next. Thus the first Appearance of a College in New- 
 Jersey having given universal Satisfaction, even the Unlearned being pleased with 
 the external Solemnity and Decorum which they saw, 'tis hoped that this infant 
 College will meet with due Encouragement from all publick spirited generous 
 Minds ; and that the Lovers of Mankind will wish its Prosperity, and contribute to 
 its Support." 
 
 In the evening of Commencement-day the Trustees held 
 another session, and took into consideration several impor- 
 tant measures for the welfare of the College, the first of them 
 having reference to its government, the minute respecting 
 which is as follows : 
 
 " A set of laws were laid before the Trustees for their approbation; and, after a 
 second and third reading, and some alterations and amendments, they were unani- 
 mously received, and ordered to be inserted with the minutes, as the laws of the 
 College of New Jersey." 
 
 It is morally certain that these laws were prepared by Presi- 
 dent Burr, and that they were the product of his experience 
 in conducting the government of the College for the twelve 
 months preceding. 
 
 The following were the rules relating to the admission of 
 students : 
 
 " I. None may expect to be admitted into College but such as being examined 
 by the President and Tutors shall be found able to render Virgil and Tully's Ora-
 
 ADMINISTRATION AND LIFE OF PRESIDENT BURR. 
 
 133 
 
 tions into English ; and to turn English into true and grammatical Latin ; and to 
 be so well acquainted with the Greek as to render any part of the four Evangelists 
 in that language into Latin or English ; and to give the grammatical connexion of 
 the words. 
 
 " 2. Every student [that] enters College shall transcribe the Laws, which being 
 signed by the President, shall be testimony of his admission, and shall be kept by 
 him, while he remains a member of the College, as the rule of his Behavior." 
 
 So far as a knowledge of Latin and Greek is concerned, it is 
 doubtful whether any advance has been made in the requisites 
 for admission into the Freshman or lowest class since the time 
 that the first of these two rules was adopted. For although 
 a more extensive reading of authors in these languages is now 
 required of candidates, yet the instances are very rare in which 
 they are found able to translate any part of the four Gospels 
 from Greek into Latin, or to turn English into true and gram- 
 matical Latin. In those days a knowledge of Latin and Greek 
 was more generally and highly appreciated by educated men than 
 it is now; not that the first classical scholars of those times were 
 superior or even equal to the best in our own times in matters of 
 critical nicety and in a thorough acquaintance with the gram- 
 matical structure of these ancient languages. Many a man can 
 speak his own language well and fluently, and with readiness 
 quote from eminent writers passages committed by him to mem- 
 ory, who possesses little or no ability to analyze his own modes 
 of speech, much less the expressions of others, and weigh with 
 exactness the import of the several words and sentences. So 
 classical scholars of the last century, in this country, could quote 
 and speak and write Latin with far greater facility than students 
 of the same relative position at the present day are able to do, 
 but in sound and thorough criticism they have been surpassed 
 by their successors. What is wanting in our schools and col- 
 leges is the union of both systems, of which there is little hope, 
 seeing the number and variety of subjects pressing their claims 
 for a place in our curriculums of study. 
 
 The next thing, after adopting a college code, was a vote : 
 
 " That the annual Commencement for the future be on the last Wednesday of 
 September, and that the next Commencement be held at New Brunswick." 
 
 The reason for selecting the last day of September as the
 
 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 day for the annual Commencement was probably owing to the 
 circumstance that at that time the Commencement at Harvard 
 took place on the second Wednesday in September in each year, 
 and that at Yale on the third Wednesday of the same month. 
 
 Notwithstanding Governor Belcher's strong preference for 
 Princeton as the permanent seat of the College, some of the 
 Trustees, perhaps a majority, were in favor of locating the 
 institution at New Brunswick, and by holding the next Com- 
 mencement there they hoped to interest the people of that 
 place in the College, and to induce them to offer liberal pecu- 
 niary aid towards the erection of suitable buildings. 
 
 The appointment of a Treasurer next claimed their attention, 
 and the minute respecting it is this : 
 
 " Voted, That the Honorable Andrew Johnston, Esq., be desired to accept the 
 office of Treasurer to the corporation." 
 
 Mr. Johnston was the Treasurer of East Jersey, and a member 
 of the Council, and in the list of Trustees mentioned in Gov- 
 ernor Belcher's charter his name stands third. He was present 
 at the meeting, on the I3th of October, 1748, when the new 
 charter was accepted, and was qualified by taking the prescribed 
 oaths. He was not present at this meeting. It is not said 
 in the minutes of the Board that he accepted the office thus 
 tendered him, but it is probable that he did, as there is no men- 
 tion made of the appointment of another person to this office 
 until nearly two years after, and then only incidentally, as seen 
 in the following extract from the minutes: 
 
 " Mr. Hude was appointed to administer the oaths required by the charter to 
 Messrs. Caleb Smith and Mr. Woodruff, Trustees, Mr. Sergeant, Treasurer, Mr. 
 Sherwood and Mr. Maltby, Tutors." 
 
 Mr. Sergeant was probably appointed Treasurer at this time, 
 September 26, 1750,35 his name does not appear in the minutes 
 before this meeting, and as in a previous minute of this same 
 meeting it is said, " Rev. John Frelinghuysen and Rev. Caleb 
 Smith chosen Trustees in the room of John Kinsey, Esq., de- 
 ceased, and of the Hon. Andrew Johnston, resigned'' It is not 
 improbable that Mr. Johnston resigned both offices at the same 
 time, while it is possible that he may never have acted as Treas-
 
 ADMINISTRATION AND LIFE OF PRESIDENT BURR. 
 
 135 
 
 urer, arid that the President of the College may have attended 
 to the fiscal concerns of the institution until the appointment of 
 Mr. Sergeant. 
 
 The other items of business at this meeting may be learned 
 from the following extracts from the minutes : 
 
 " Voted, That the seal prepared by Mr. P. Smith [one of the Trustees] be 
 accepted as the common seal of this corporation, and that the thanks of the corpo- 
 ration be returned to Mr. Smith for his care in devising the same. 
 
 " And that he be desired to get two seals engraven, of the same device, for the 
 use of the corporation, and that the Trustees be answerable for the expense thereof. 
 
 " Voted, That all diplomas and certificates of degrees be signed by the President 
 and at least six of the Trustees. 
 
 " Voted, That William Smith, Esq., be appointed to draw up an account of the 
 proceedings of the Commencement, and to get it into the ' New York Gazette' as 
 soon as he conveniently can. 
 
 " That Messrs. Pierson, Cowell, Johnes, Arthur, be appointed to make application 
 to the General Assembly of this Province, now sitting at Perth Amboy, in order to 
 get their countenance and assistance for the support of the College. 
 
 " Voted, That the following gentlemen be desired to take in subscriptions for 
 the College, viz., Messrs. Kinsey, Hazard, at Philadelphia ; P. Van Brugh Living- 
 ston, P. Smith, New York ; Read and Smith, at Burlington ; Read and Cowell, 
 at Trenton ; John Stevens, Amboy ; Samuel Woodruff, Elizabethtown ; Thomas 
 Leonard, John Stockton, Esqs., Princeton; James Hude, Esq., and Thomas Ar- 
 thur, at Brunswick; Henderson and Furman, Freehold; John Pierson, Wood- 
 bridge ; Major Johnson, at Newark. 
 
 " That all the Trustees shall use their utmost endeavors to obtain benefactions 
 to the said College, and that this vote go into the New York and Philadelphia 
 gazettes. 
 
 " That this meeting be adjourned to the third Tuesday in May, to be held at 
 Maidenhead [now Lawrenceville]. Mr. Tennent concluded with prayer." 
 
 It is evident, from the variety and importance of the matters 
 handled by the Trustees on the day of the first Commence- 
 ment, that they must have devoted themselves very earnestly 
 to the business before them, viz., the election of a President, 
 his inauguration, the public reading of the charter, attendance 
 on the Commencement exercises, including the President's 
 Latin address, the conferring of degrees, and the adopting of 
 a body of laws, besides the various matters mentioned in the 
 above extract. 
 
 The next record in the minutes is in these words : 
 
 "TRENTON, May 18, 1749. 
 
 " According to adjournment, met at Maidenhead [Lawrenceville] sundry of the 
 Trustees of the College, but were frustrated of a Quorum by the absence of several
 
 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 members. The Trustees, however, thought proper to wait upon his Excellency 
 the Governor, who was come to Trenton on his way to the meeting of the Corpora- 
 tion, where several things were disposed of with respect to the College. 
 
 " Upon the recommendation of Mr. President, the Trustees present do approve 
 of Mr. Maltby to be employed as Tutor of the College, and do recommend it to 
 the Trustees at their next meeting to establish him in that capacity. It is farther 
 recommended to the Committee appointed to wait upon the Assembly [of the Prov- 
 ince], that they renew their application to them, at their next session, at Perth 
 Amboy, and that they do Expressly request that a Lottery be granted them, for the 
 service of the College." 
 
 Public attention had not yet been called to the evils of the 
 lottery system ; and, as a lottery scheme furnished great facilities 
 for the raising of funds, the Trustees of the College at that 
 time did not scruple as to the propriety of their taking part in 
 one, provided they could obtain permission so to do. 
 
 At the next regular meeting of the Board, held at New 
 Brunswick, September 27, 1749, the committee to ask aid from 
 the General Assembly of the Province was enlarged by the 
 addition of four members, and was instructed to apply for au- 
 thority to raise by a lottery a sum not exceeding three thousand 
 pounds proc., equal to eight thousand dollars. 
 
 The application was made ; but the final report to the Board 
 on this subject was, that " the Provincial Assembly absolutely re- 
 fused to grant the petition for a Lottery," and that the committee, 
 " with the concurrence of the generality of the Trustees, had 
 agreed to erect a Lottery in Philadelphia to raise money for the 
 benefit of the College ; and that the said Lottery had been drawn." 
 This report was made at a meeting of the Trustees, held at 
 Newark, September 26, 1750. The thanks of the Board were 
 presented to the gentlemen who took upon themselves the 
 management of the lottery, and provision was made for settling 
 all matters connected with it* 
 
 It was ordered, that all moneys remaining in the hands of 
 the managers after the expiration of six months be paid to the 
 Treasurer. The committee appointed to settle with the man- 
 agers consisted of the President, the Treasurer, the Clerk of 
 the Board, and Messrs. Woodruff and Neilson. Subsequently, 
 
 * There does not appear to have been at this time in Pennsylvania any law 
 prohibiting the drawing of lotteries in that Province.
 
 ADMINISTRATION AND LIFE OF PRESIDENT BURR. 
 
 '37 
 
 viz., in the year 1753-4 (see "Minutes of the Board," pages 37 
 and 39), upon a petition from the Trustees, the General Court 
 of the Colony of Connecticut granted them the privilege of 
 drawing a lottery within the limits of that Colony, and in 
 17612 the General Assembly of New Jersey gave them au- 
 thority to draw one in this Province. What sums of money 
 were received from these lotteries cannot now be ascertained, 
 the books of the Treasurer at those periods not having been 
 preserved. It is most probable that the College received but 
 little, if any, addition to its funds from these sources. The 
 last application to the Legislature of New Jersey for a lot- 
 tery was made in the winter of 1813-14, soon after Dr. Ashbel 
 Green became President of the College, and it met with the 
 same fate that most of the previous ones had done, it was 
 refused. 
 
 In his notes respecting the College, and in reference, more 
 particularly, to the failure of the first efforts made to obtain aid 
 from the General Assembly of the Province, Dr. Green thus 
 writes : 
 
 " Petitions of the most urgent kind were addressed to the legislature of the prov- 
 ince of New Jersey in behalf of the College. But even a petition for a lottery 
 was 'absolutely rejected.' Whatever was the influence of Governor Belcher or the 
 popularity of President Burr, their united exertions could never prevail upon the 
 legislature of the province in which the College was founded, whose name it bore, 
 and of which it was the greatest ornament, to show it patronage or favor of any 
 kind. It is as grievous to the writer to record this want of liberality in the legisla- 
 ture of his native State, as it can be to any other inhabitant to read the record. 
 But historical fidelity requires that the fact should not be suppressed. All the 
 State patronage which the College has ever received shall, in its proper place, be 
 faithfully stated. The writer has only to regret that the statement will so easily 
 be made." 
 
 As the " Historical Sketch of the Origin of the College of 
 New Jersey," from which the above is copied, does not extend 
 over a period of twenty years, but ends with the administration 
 of President Finley, who died while yet President, in 1766, no 
 allusion or reference is again made to this matter in the notes 
 of President Green, except the mention of the fact that in the 
 year 1761 the General Assembly of New Jersey authorized the 
 drawing of a lottery for the benefit of the College. 
 VOL. i. 10
 
 l ? > 8 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 To the view here presented of the want of liberality on the 
 part of the Legislature the writer of this history cannot assent; 
 and for these reasons. The College of New Jersey, although 
 bearing the name of the State, was never a State institution. 
 It was not established by the Legislature. In the exercise of 
 its granted and legitimate powers it is not subject to the control 
 of that body, and therefore has no special claims upon its liber- 
 ality. On the other hand, after the American Revolution, the 
 Legislature confirmed the charter of the College, with only 
 such changes as the altered condition of the civil affairs of the 
 country required, enlarged its powers, and never refused to 
 pass any measure desired by its friends for the protection of its 
 interests. 
 
 The good will uniformly exhibited towards the College by 
 the authorities of the State calls for a grateful acknowledgment 
 on the part of the friends of the College, and they may be glad 
 that the applications to the Legislature for pecuniary aid were 
 unsuccessful. Had the aid sought been granted, this might 
 have led to more or less interference by the Legislature in the 
 management of the institution, under the plea of seeing that 
 the funds given by the State were wisely expended, or employed 
 in accordance with the design and the terms of the different 
 grants. From any and all such interference the College, hap- 
 pily, has ever been free. 
 
 The matters which more especially demanded and received 
 the attention of the Trustees during the presidency of Mr. 
 Burr were provision for the instruction of the students, the 
 selection of a permanent seat for the College, the erection of 
 suitable buildings, and the raising of the funds required for 
 these purposes. 
 
 To provide the necessary instruction, the Board, at a meeting 
 held September 27, 1749, authorized the President, "with the 
 advice of any four of the neighboring Trustees, to employ any 
 such person or persons as they shall think proper to assist him 
 in the government and instruction of the College till their next 
 meeting." Previously to this action, as appears from a minute 
 cited above, sundry Trustees, but not a quorum, met Governor 
 Belcher at Trenton, May 18, 1749, and those present expressed
 
 ADMINISTRATION AND LIFE OF PRESIDENT BURR. 
 
 139 
 
 their approval of employing Mr. Maltby as a Tutor, and also 
 recommended " that at their next meeting the Trustees should 
 establish him in that capacity." The form of the minute seems 
 to indicate that he had been assisting President Burr, or at least 
 that he was expected to do so, from that time, which corre- 
 sponded with the beginning of the second term under the 
 second charter. Whether at their next meeting, of September 
 27, 1749, the Trustees did establish Mr. Maltby in the office of 
 Tutor, the minutes of that meeting do not indicate. But the 
 minute, already cited, authorizing the President to employ such 
 assistants as he might need, with the consent of any four of the 
 neighboring Trustees, was a virtual confirmation of Mr. Maltby's 
 appointment; and at the next meeting of the Board, at Newark, 
 September 27, 1750, this gentleman took the required oaths of 
 office as a College Tutor, as also did Mr. Samuel Sherwood, who 
 was chosen a Tutor at this time. 
 
 It is a matter of some doubt whether for the first six months 
 Mr. Burr had any assistance in the government and the instruc- 
 tion of the College. He may have employed Mr. Maltby on 
 trial before he recommended his appointment by the Trustees ; 
 but this is uncertain. For the next eighteen months he was 
 aided by this gentleman, and from the beginning of the third 
 College year until the end of his administration there were, 
 without any intermission, two Tutors associated with him, who 
 with him constituted the College Faculty. 
 
 The names of the several Tutors during Mr. Burr's time are 
 John Maltby, Samuel Sherwood, Jonathan Badger, Alexan- 
 der Gordon, George Duffield, William Thompson, Benjamin 
 Youngs Prime, John Ewing, Isaac Smith, and Jeremiah Halsey. 
 Some of these gentlemen became eminent in their professions, 
 and of them further mention will be made at the end of this 
 memoir of President Burr and his administration. 
 
 What was the full course of instruction at this period in the 
 history of the College we have no means of ascertaining defi- 
 nitely, as the Faculty minutes of that time are lost. But from 
 what is known of the opinions prevalent among the early 
 friends of the College, and from the varied attainments of 
 Mr. Burr and of the Tutors associated with him, and also the
 
 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 usual scholastic exercises at the Commencements of those 
 days, we may safely conclude that the College curriculum em- 
 braced the study of the Latin and Greek languages, the Ele- 
 ments of Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, Moral Philosophy, 
 Rhetoric and Logic, together with declamations and discus- 
 sions. The students were also well instructed in the doctrines 
 and precepts of the Christian faith, their religious teacher being 
 the President of the College. 
 
 In the school under the care of the Synod of Philadelphia, 
 established three years before the first charter of the College of 
 New Jersey was obtained, the course of instruction included 
 "languages, philosophy, and divinity;" and from a minute of 
 the Synod of Philadelphia, May 23, 1754, it appears that Mr. 
 Alexander McDowell, the Principal of the school at that time, 
 was to continue to give instruction in " logic, mathematics, 
 natural and moral philosophy," etc., and that Mr. James P. Wil- 
 son, just appointed to assist him, was " to teach the languages." 
 
 It is not to be presumed that in the College of New Jersey, 
 under the government and instruction of President Burr, a grad- 
 uate of Yale, and one of the first scholars of his day, the pre- 
 scribed course would fall short of that existing in the school of 
 the Synod of Philadelphia, as it was the aim and desire of the 
 early friends of the College to provide for the young men of 
 the middle Provinces an education equal to that furnished by 
 Harvard and Yale to the youth of New England. 
 
 The view here presented of the course of instruction given by President Burr 
 and his assistants is confirmed by sundry occasional remarks of Mr. Joseph Ship- 
 pen, of -Philadelphia, a student of the College, in his correspondence with his 
 father, Judge Edward Shippen, and with other friends. It is only very recently 
 (May, 1876) that the writer has had access to this correspondence, and for this privi- 
 lege he is indebted to the courtesy of the Hon. J. C. G. Kennedy, of Washington 
 City. . 
 
 In his letters, written in 1750, 1751, 1752, and 1753, Mr. Shippen does not profess 
 to give a particular account of the College curriculum, but, as the occasion calls for 
 at, he mentions the subjects of study pursued by his class, and the works of which he 
 had need, or which would be useful to him, in the prosecution of his studies. For 
 example, he says to his father, in a letter written in French, and dated February 
 13, 1750, at which time he was a member of the Freshman class, " But I must give 
 you an account of my studies at the present time. At seven in the morning we 
 recite to the President lessons in the works of Xenophon, in Greek, and in Watts'
 
 ADMINISTRATION AND LIFE OF PRESIDENT BURR, i^ 
 
 ' Ontology.' The rest of the morning, until dinner-time, we study Cicero de Oratore 
 and the Hebrew Grammar, and recite our lessons to Mr. Sherman (the College 
 Tutor). The remaining part of the day we spend in the study of Xenophon and 
 Ontology, to recite the next morning. And besides these things, we dispute once 
 every week after the syllogistic method; and now and then we learn Geography." 
 Two months later, April 19, he requests his father to send him Tully's " Orations," 
 which, he adds, " I shall have occasion to use immediately." In a subsequent 
 letter, of May 12, 1750, he says, " I believe I shall not want any more books till I 
 come to Philadelphia, when I can bring them with me; which will be Gordon's 
 ' Geographical Grammar' and (it may be) Watts' ' Astronomy' and a book or two of 
 Logick. . . . We have to-day a lesson on the Globes." 
 
 " As I have but little time but what I must employ in my studies I can't enlarge, 
 otherwise I would give some account of our College, as to the constitution, method, 
 and customs, but must leave that till I see you." In a letter of the 8th of June, 
 he says, " I shall learn Horace in a little while ; . . . but my time is filled up 
 in studying Virgil, Greek Testament, and Rhetoric, so that I have no time hardly 
 to look over any French, or Algebra, or any English book for my improvement. 
 However, I shall accomplish it soon. . . . The President tells our class that we must 
 go into Logick this week, and I shall have occasion for Watts' ' Book of Logick.' " 
 
 Such it seems was the course of study pursued by the Freshman class in 1750. 
 As portions of Virgil and the four Gospels were required for admission to this class, 
 it is probable that at or near the end of the year they revised these for another ex- 
 amination upon them, in connection with the regular studies of the year. In the 
 Sophomore year attention was paid to Rhetoric, Ontology, and Mathematics. In 
 his letter 6f the 2 1st of December, 1750, at which time he was a member of the 
 Sophomore class, referring to a course of lectures then being delivered in Phila- 
 delphia, on several branches of Natural Philosophy, Mr. Shippen remarks, " The 
 Astronomical parts, I perceive, are to be illustrated by a fine Orrery,* which . . . 
 will represent to you the most adequate idea of the system of the world and the 
 various motions of the Heavenly Bodies, which- [it] would give me great pleasure 
 to see, because these things are a part of my studies every day." It is probable that 
 these subjects were attended to in connection with the study of the globes previously 
 mentioned. From the same letter it appears that at this time he was reading the 
 second book of Homer, and would shortly enter upon the study of the third 
 book, and that in the spring he would have need of Martin's " Natural Philosophy," 
 in two volumes, of which he seems to have a just appreciation when he says, " that 
 it is by far the best that is extant, and which," he adds, " the President now uses 
 in the instruction of the upper [Senior] class." 
 
 On the 2gth of May, 1751, President Burr wrote to Mr. James David Dove, of 
 Philadelphia, and made an arrangement with him for the use of an apparatus 
 suited to the illustration of a course of twelve lectures on Natural Philosophy, by 
 Mr. Lewis Evans. It does not appear what compensation Mr. Evans was to receive 
 for his lectures, but Mr. Burr engaged to pay to Mr. Dove ten pounds proclamation 
 when the lectures are finished. These lectures were the same as those delivered 
 by Mr. Evans in the cities of Philadelphia and New York, and concerning which 
 Mr. Shippen thus speaks in his letter to his father, of the date of September 14, 
 
 * This was not Rittenhouse's famous orrery.
 
 !42 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 1751: "Mr. Lewis Evans has already exhibited eight of his lectures, ... to 
 the general satisfaction of all attending thereon. And as to his Lecture on Elec- 
 tricity, his great knowledge in it, and his accurateness in performing the experi- 
 ments, have given us abundant Light into the Nature and properties thereof, of 
 which I was entirely ignorant before. And as several Phenomena in Nature can 
 be accounted for from the knowledge of this newly-discovered Element (I mean 
 the Electrical Fluid), and are dependent thereon, I have taken this good opportunity, 
 while Mr. Evans is here, and has a globe to spare, to procure myself a small Elec- 
 trical Machine, particularly for my instruction in this useful branch of Philosophy." 
 
 From a letter of Governor Belcher to Mr. [Dr.] Franklin, of the date of January 
 20, 1752, it appears that President Burr had possessed himself of an Electrical 
 Machine, and that he experimented with it upon the Governor himself, for his relief 
 from the paralysis under which he was suffering at the time. The relief, however, 
 afforded by the use of electricity in the Governor's case was but little, if any. Dr. 
 Franklin had kindly offered to wait upon the Governor for a like purpose, and sent 
 him one of his machines, the " glass globe" of which unfortunately was broken on 
 its way to the Governor's residence ; and this was the occasion of Mr. Burr proffer- 
 ing his services. As Mr. Burr instructed the students in Natural Philosophy, this 
 doubtless was 'the chief reason for his purchase of this Electrical Machine. Dr. 
 Franklin's great discovery of the identity of lightning and ordinary electricity was 
 made in 1752. 
 
 In a letter of December 2, 1751, Mr. Shippen says, "Mr. Burr has collected 
 this Fall subscriptions to the value of 200, Penn's currency, for the apparatus, 
 about ;ioo whereof Col. Alford very generously subscribed, he being one of the 
 greatest friends our College is blessed with." Further on Mr. Shippen adds, 
 " I am beginning to read Ethics (or Moral Philosophy), and shall have occasion 
 for Grove's 2 vols. on that branch." Again, in a letter of May 23, 1752, " Since 
 you were here, the President has been instructing two or three of us in the calcu- 
 lation of Eclipses, for which we made use of Whiston & Brent's Astronomical 
 Tables." And in a letter of the' 25th of July, 1752, to his father, Mr. Shippen, 
 " I received your letter of the 23d of May, with Hodgson's ' Theory of Navigation' 
 and Street's ' Tables,' for which I am very thankful, though I am sorry that I 
 cannot now employ my thoughts in studying anything of them, as I am fully en- 
 gaged in the necessary exercises of the College." From this remark and the one 
 preceding, it is probable that the calculating of Eclipses and study of Navigation 
 were optional studies, to which the students in general were not required to give 
 attention, but for instruction in which, if desired, they could have all needed help. 
 
 In August, 1752, Mr. Shippen, with the consent of his father, and of Mr. Burr, 
 went for a few weeks to New Rochelle, to be with a French family and learn the 
 French language more perfectly. 
 
 THE LOCATING OF THE COLLEGE. 
 
 The second thing mentioned as an object of special interest 
 at this time was the choice of a permanent seat for the College. 
 At a meeting of the Trustees, at Newark, September 26, 1750, 
 the time of the annual Commencement, it was voted,
 
 ADMINISTRATION AND LIFE OF PRESIDENT BURR. 
 
 143 
 
 " That a proposal be made to the Towns of Brunswick and Princetown to try 
 what sum of money they can raise for Building of the College, by the next meeting, 
 that the Trustees may be better able to judge in which of these places to fix the 
 place of the College." 
 
 At the next meeting, held at Trenton, May 15, 1751, the 
 Trustees decided, 
 
 " That New Brunswick be the place for the building of the College, provided the 
 Inhabitants of said Place agree with the Trustees upon the following terms, viz. 
 that they secure to the College a Thousand Pounds proc. money, ten acres of land 
 contiguous to the College, and two hundred acres of wood-land, the furthest part 
 of it not to be more than three miles from the town." 
 
 At this meeting there was an offer made by the inhabitants 
 of Princeton, and it was next ordered, 
 
 " That Mr. Sergeant, the Treasurer, and some other person, whom he shall see 
 fit, view the above promised land at Princetown, and also that to be given by the 
 Inhabitants of New Brunswick, and make a report of the same to the Trustees at 
 their meeting in September next." 
 
 This meeting was held at Newark, on the 25th of September, 
 at which time the following record was made : 
 
 " When the Board of Trustees had laid before them the proposals of the Inhabit- 
 ants of New Brunswick, relating to the College being fixt there, for want of some 
 particular steps being taken respecting that matter, the Trustees judged that they 
 could not at present come to any conclusion in the affair, and so deferred the further 
 consideration of it to their next meeting." 
 
 The Trustees also ordered, 
 
 " That Mr. Sergeant, with any person he shall choose, view the land at New 
 Brunswick and at Princetown, and make a report what they shall deem an equiva- 
 lent at the next meeting." 
 
 This is substantially the same order with one given at the 
 previous meeting, but differing in this respect, as they were to 
 give their judgment as to what would be an equivalent for the 
 land promised the College. 
 
 The next meeting of the Board was held at Elizabeth, May 
 14, 1752, but it does not appear from the minutes that any ac- 
 tion was had in reference to the erection of a College building. 
 At the meeting held at the time of the next Commencement,
 
 144 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 September 27, 1/52, the following entry was made in the min- 
 utes : 
 
 " The Trustees taking into consideration that the people of New Brunswick 
 have not complied with the terms proposed to them for fixing the College in that 
 place, by the time referred to in the offer of this Board, now Voted, That they are 
 free from any obligation to fix the College at New Brunswick, and are at liberty to 
 place it where they please. The Trustees agree that it shall be put to Vote in 
 what place the College shall be fixed, upon such conditions as the Board shall 
 propose. 
 
 " Voted, That the College be fixed at Princetown, upon condition that the inhab- 
 itants of said Place secure to the Trustees those two hundred acres of wood-land, 
 and that Ten Acres of cleared land which Mr. Sergeant viewed ; and also one 
 thousand Pounds proc. money. The one half of which sum to be paid within two 
 months after the foundation of the College is laid, and the other half within six 
 months afterwards ; and that the people of said Place comply with the terms of this 
 vote within three months from this time by giving in Bonds for said money, and 
 making a sufficient Title for said land to be received by such persons as the Board 
 shall appoint, or else forfeit all privilege from this Vote ; and that the Treasurer be 
 empowered to give them a bond for the fulfilment of this Vote on the p^rt of the 
 Trustees. 
 
 " The Trustees appoint Messrs. President Burr, Samuel Woodruff", Jonathan Ser- 
 geant, Elihu Spencer, Caleb Smith, to be a committee to transact the above affair 
 with the Inhabitants of Princetown, and that Elizabethtown be the place for accom- 
 plishing the same." 
 
 At this meeting Governor Belcher earnestly urged the Trus- 
 tees to go on with the erection of a College building, and of a 
 house for the President and his family. The Governor's speech 
 is given at length in the minutes of the Board. 
 
 The next meeting of the Trustees was held at Princeton, on 
 the 24th of January, 1753, when it was voted by the Board, 
 
 " That said People (when Mr. Randolph has given a Deed for a certain tract of 
 Land four hundred feet Front and thirty Poles depth, in lines at right angles with 
 the broad street where it is proposed that the College shall be built) have complied 
 with the terms proposed to them for fixing the College at said place." 
 
 Mr. Nathaniel Fitz Randolph here referred to did give the 
 required deed, and through his liberality and that of the gentle- 
 men who contributed the thousand pounds proc., and who paid 
 for the rest of the land given to the College, the permanent seat 
 of the College was fixed at Princeton. 
 
 Among certain memoranda made by Mr. Randolph is the 
 following :
 
 ADMINISTRATION AND LIFE OF PRESIDENT BURR. l ^ 
 
 "January 25, 1753. Gave a deed to the Trustees for (4)4) four and one-half 
 acres of Land for the College." 
 
 The consideration mentioned in the deed was (,150) one 
 hundred and fifty pounds ; but it is added by Mr. Randolph, 
 
 " I never did receive one penny for it : it was only to confirm the title." 
 
 He also gave twenty pounds in addition to the land and his 
 services in obtaining subscriptions. 
 
 From a comparison of dates, it appears that the deed was 
 given the third day after the meeting of the Board in Prince- 
 ton to conclude their agreement with the inhabitants of that 
 place, viz., on the 25th of January, 1753. 
 
 THE ERECTION OF COLLEGE BUILDINGS. 
 
 At the meeting in Princeton just mentioned, Thomas Leo- 
 nard, Esq., Samuel Woodruff, Esq., and the Rev. Messrs. 
 Cowell, William Tennent, Burr, Treat, Brainerd, and Smith, 
 were appointed a committee " to act in behalf of the Trustees in 
 building the College, according to the plan agreed upon by the 
 Board." This committee was also authorized to build a house 
 for the President, and to draw upon the Treasurer of the Col- 
 lege for the requisite funds. The plan adopted was, " in gen- 
 eral," one drawn by Dr. Shippen and Mr. Robert Smith, of 
 Philadelphia. Mr. Samuel Hazard and Mr. Robert Smith were 
 a committee to select the spot and to mark out the ground. 
 Dr. Shippen and Mr. Hazard were Trustees. Mr. Smith was 
 the Architect for the building. 
 
 It was first ordered, " That the College be built of brick, if 
 good brick can be made at Princeton, and sand be got reason- 
 ably cheap, and that it be three stories high, and without any 
 cellar." At a subsequent meeting it was " Voted, That the Col- 
 lege be built of stone, and the President's house of wood." 
 The outer walls of the College were accordingly built of stone 
 obtained from a quarry near the village, but the President's 
 house was built of brick. (See Minutes of the Board for July 
 22, 1754, and for September 25 of the same year.) 
 
 The land upon which these buildings were erected was
 
 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 given by N. F. Randolph, from whose memoranda* we gather 
 the following particulars respecting the College building, viz., 
 that the ground for this building was first broken on the 2pth 
 of July, 1754, under the direction of Joseph Morrow, and that 
 the first corner-stone was laid at the northwest corner of the 
 cellar, by Thomas Leonard, John Stockton, John Hornor, Wil- 
 liam Worth (the mason who did the stone and brick work), 
 N. F. Randolph, and many others. From which we may infer 
 that the corner-stone was laid by Mr. Leonard, the Chair- 
 man of the Building Committee, in the presence and with the 
 assistance of some of the other persons named. Mr. Randolph 
 adds that in November, 1755, "the roof of said College was 
 raised by Robert Smith, the carpenter who did the wood-work 
 of the College." 
 
 This building was originally one hundred and seventy-six 
 feet in length, fifty-four in width at the two ends, with projec- 
 tions in the front and in the rear, the front one extending three 
 or four feet, the one in the rear about twelve feet. The middle 
 of the roof was surmounted by a cupola. There were three 
 stories, with a basement, and, exclusive of the Chapel, there were 
 in all sixty rooms, sixteen of them in the basement, or what is 
 now the cellar. From the account of the College prepared by 
 Mr. Samuel Blair, under the direction of President Finley, and 
 published in 1764, it appears that forty-nine of these rooms 
 were assigned to the lodging of students, and that they were 
 deemed sufficient for one hundred and forty-seven, reckoning 
 three to a chamber. The other rooms were used for recita- 
 tion, library, refectory, dining-room, etc. Since the burning of 
 Nassau Hall, in 1855, none of the sixteen rooms above men- 
 tioned have been fitted up for the accommodation of students, 
 as was the case before that time. 
 
 At the time of its erection this College building was the 
 largest edifice of its kind in the British Provinces of North 
 
 * Copies of these memoranda and of other papers of the Randolph family were 
 very kindly furnished the writer by Colonel J. Ross Snowden, of Philadelphia, 
 Miss Frances W. Morford, formerly of Princeton, but now of Lynchburg, Vir 
 ginia, and Mrs. John S. Hart, all of whom are descendants of the Randolphs of 
 Princeton.
 
 ADMINISTRATION AND LIFE OF PRESIDENT BURR. 
 
 147 
 
 America, and in view of the very important services rendered 
 to the College by Governor Belcher, the Trustees, in a very 
 flattering letter addressed to the Governor, requested his per- 
 mission to call this building "Belcher Hall." 
 
 With a rare modesty he declined the honor, and at the same 
 time expressed an earnest desire that the building should be 
 called " Nassau Hall," in honor of King William the third, 
 "who was a branch of the illustrious House of Nassau." It 
 was therefore ordered by a vote of the Trustees, " that the said 
 edifice be, in all time to come, called and known by the name 
 of Nassau Hall." 
 
 From the name given to this first College edifice the College 
 itself is extensively known under this appellation. 
 
 THE RAISING OF FUNDS. 
 
 Of necessity this important matter demanded the attention 
 of the Trustees from the very beginning of their efforts to erect 
 a College. But it was altogether beyond their ability to make 
 provision for the current expenses of the institution, and at the 
 same time to erect such buildings as were deemed essential to 
 the complete success of their enterprise. The erection of a 
 large and commodious College building was regarded by them 
 as scarcely of less importance than the charter itself. It would 
 seem from some of Governor Belcher's letters, written soon 
 after his arrival in the Colony, that he too regarded the erec- 
 tion of a suitable building and the full establishment of the Col- 
 lege as almost one and the same thing, or at least he was of 
 the opinion that without such a building the attempt to estab- 
 lish a College must prove a failure. In a letter to the Rev. 
 Gilbert Tennent, of the date of July 30, 1748, the Governor 
 says, ..." and if, finally, money cannot be raised for the House 
 and to support the necessary officers, the thing must be given 
 up." In a letter, written as early as September 18, 1747, to a 
 committee of the West Jersey Society, the Governor says, " I 
 find the people of this Province are in a poor situation for edu- 
 cating their children. I am therefore for promoting the build- 
 ing of a College for the Instruction of Youth. This affair was 
 agitated before my arrival, and much contested between the
 
 I4 8 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 gentlemen of the Eastern and those of the Western Division, 
 where it should be placed, and I have got them to agree to have it 
 built at Princetown, in the Western Division, being (I apprehend) 
 nearest to the centre of the Province." And in a letter to his 
 friend Mr. Walley, of Boston, of the date of October 2, 1747, 
 he writes : " The People ... in many parts of the Province 
 show a great desire to enjoy the Gospel in Its purity. There 
 has been striving at what place, the College should be built, and 
 I have persuaded those concerned to fix it at Princetown, and I 
 think it as near the centre of the Province as any, and a fine 
 situation. . . . By the Scarborough I have wrote to several of 
 my rich Friends in England of this noble design, and I doubt 
 not of obtaining some Donations from them, and, God sparing 
 my life, they will find me a faithful friend. These southern 
 Provinces greatly want such a nursery of Religion and Learn- 
 ing." 
 
 Neither the Governor nor the Trustees ever lost sight of the 
 importance of erecting a College building, and to the obtaining 
 of the requisite funds for this purpose they gave much thought. 
 Before Governor Belcher entered upon his administration of 
 the Province the Trustees had gotten subscriptions to the 
 amount of eight hundred pounds (see letter of Governor 
 Belcher to Rev. G. Tennent), and before the selection of the 
 permanent seat of the institution they had received some valu- 
 able gifts, which, in the low state of the College treasury, were 
 of great service to their undertaking. Still, they found that 
 they needed larger funds than could be had in this country; 
 and they therefore turned their thoughts to the securing of 
 aid from abroad. The Rev. Dr. Pemberton, of New York, was 
 the person first chosen to visit Great Britain ; but he having 
 declined, Mr. Burr was requested to take upon himself the 
 burden of soliciting funds in England and Scotland. With no 
 little hesitation Mr. Burr consented to do so, provided his friend 
 the Rev. Caleb Smith, then pastor of the church in Newark 
 Mountains, now Orange, would agree to take the oversight of 
 the College during his absence. Mr. Smith, although disposed 
 to render the College every assistance in his power, shrank 
 from this responsibility, on the ground that he did not think
 
 ADMINISTRATION AND LIFE OF PRESIDENT BURR. 
 
 149 
 
 himself equal to the task. It is no slight evidence of this gen- 
 tleman's great worth, as well as of his modesty, that the estimate 
 of his talents and learning by those best acquainted with them 
 was far higher than his own. 
 
 The Trustees next requested Rev. Messrs. Gilbert Tennent 
 and Samuel Davies to visit Great Britain and to solicit aid in 
 behalf of the College; and having obtained the consent of these 
 distinguished ministers, they next applied to the Synod of New 
 York for their sanction, which was unanimously given by that 
 body. An address to the General Assembly of the Church of 
 Scotland was prepared, and, after a revision by a committee, 
 was unanimously approved by the Synod. Certificates of their 
 appointment by the Synod were also given to Messrs. Tennent 
 and Davies, and provision was made for supplying their pulpits 
 during their absence. The address of the Synod is well worthy 
 of a place in any and every history of the College, and it may 
 perhaps be as well inserted in this connection as in any other. 
 
 A COPY OF THE ADDRESS TO THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE 
 CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. 
 
 " To the very venerable and the very honourable the moderator and other 
 members of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, to meet at Edin- 
 burgh, May, 1754. The petition of the Synod of New York, convened at Phila- 
 delphia, October 3, 1753, humbly showeth : 
 
 " That a college has lately been erected in the province of New Jersey, by his 
 Majesty's royal charter, in which a number of youth have been already educated, 
 who are now the instruments of service to the church of God ; and which would 
 be far more extensively beneficial were it brought to maturity. That after all the 
 contributions that have been made to said college, or can be raised in these parts, 
 the fund is far from being sufficient for the erection of suitable buildings, supporting 
 the president and tutors, furnishing a library, and defraying other necessary ex- 
 penses ; that the trustees of said college, who are zealous and active to promote it 
 for the public good, have already sent their petition to this venerable house for some 
 assistance in carrying on so important a design ; and also petitioned the Synod to 
 appoint two of their members, the Rev. Messrs. Gilbert Tennent and Samuel 
 Davies, to undertake a voyage to Europe in behalf of said college. 
 
 " Your petitioners therefore most heartily concur in said petition of the trustees 
 to the Reverend Assembly, and appoint the said Messrs. Tennent and Davies to be 
 their commissioners for that purpose. 
 
 " And as your petitioners apprehend the design of said petition to be of the utmost 
 importance to the interests of learning and religion in this infant country, and are 
 confident of the zeal of so pious and learned a body as the General Assembly of
 
 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 the Church of Scotland to promote such a design, they beg leave to lay before this 
 venerable house a general representation of the deplorable circumstances of the 
 churches under their Synodical care, leaving it to the commissioners to descend to 
 particulars. 
 
 " In the colonies of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, 
 and Carolina a great number of congregations have been formed upon the Presby- 
 terian plan, which have put themselves under the Synodical care of your petitioners, 
 who conform to the Constitution of the Church of Scotland, and have adopted her 
 standards of doctrine, worship, and discipline. There are also large settlements 
 lately planted in various parts, particularly in North and South Carolina, where 
 multitudes are extremely desirous of the ministrations of the gospel ; but they are 
 not yet formed into congregations, and regularly organized, for want of ministers. 
 These numerous bodies of people, dispersed so widely through so many colonies, 
 have repeatedly made the most importunate applications to your petitioners for 
 ministers to be sent among them ; and your petitioners have exerted themselves to 
 the utmost for their relief, both by sending their members and candidates to officiate 
 some time among them and using all practicable measures for the education of 
 pious youth for the ministry. 
 
 " But, alas, notwithstanding these painful endeavours, your petitioners have been 
 utterly incapable to make sufficient provision for so many shepherdless flocks ; and 
 those that come hundreds of miles crying to them for some to break the bread of 
 life among them, are often obliged to return in tears, with little or no relief, by 
 reason of the scarcity of ministers. 
 
 " Though every practicable expedient which the most urgent necessity could sug- 
 gest has been used to prepare labourers for this extensive and growing harvest, yet 
 the number of ministers in the Synod is far from being equal to that of the congre- 
 gations under their care. Though sundry of them have taken the pastoral charge 
 of two or three congregations for a time, in order to lessen the number of vacan- 
 cies ; and though sundry youth have lately been licensed, ordained, and settled in 
 congregations that were before destitute, yet there are no less than forty vacant 
 congregations at present under the care of this Synod, besides many more which 
 are incapable at present to support ministers ; and the whole colony of North 
 Carolina, where numerous congregations of Presbyterians are forming, and where 
 there is not one Presbyterian minister settled. 
 
 " The great number of vacancies in the bounds of this Synod is owing, partly, 
 to new settlements lately made in various parts of this continent, partly to the death 
 of sundry ministers belonging to this Synod, but principally to the small number of 
 youth educated for the ministry, so vastly disproportionate to the numerous vacancies ; 
 and unless some effectual means can be taken for the education of proper persons 
 for the sacred character, the churches of Christ in these parts must continue in the 
 most destitute circumstances, wandering shepherdless and forlorn through this wil- 
 derness, thousands perishing for lack of knowledge, the children of God hungry 
 and unfed, and the rising age growing up in a state little better than that of hea- 
 thenism with regard to the public ministrations of the gospel. 
 
 " The numerous inconveniences of a private, and the many important advantages 
 of a public education are so evident, that we need not inform this venerable Assembly 
 of them, who cannot but be sensible, from happy experience, of the many extensive 
 benefits of convenient colleges.
 
 ADMINISTRATION AND LIFE OF PRESIDENT BURR, j 5 j 
 
 " The difficulty (and in some cases the impossibility) of sending youth two, 
 three, four, or five hundred miles or more, to the colleges of New England, is evi- 
 dent at first sight. Now it is from the College of New Jersey only that we can 
 expect a remedy of these inconveniences ; it is to that your petitioners look for the 
 increase of their numbers ; it is on that the Presbyterian churches through the six 
 colonies above mentioned principally depend for a supply of accomplished minis- 
 ters ; from that has been obtained considerable relief already, notwithstanding the 
 many disadvantages that unavoidably attend it in its present infant state ; and from 
 that may be expected a sufficient supply when brought to maturity. 
 
 " Your petitioners, therefore, most earnestly pray that this very reverend Assem- 
 bly would afford the said college all the countenance and assistance in their power. 
 The young daughter of the Church of Scotland, helpless and exposed in this for- 
 eign land, cries to her tender and powerful mother for relief. The cries of minis- 
 ters oppressed with labours, and of congregations famishing for want of the sincere 
 milk of the word, implore assistance. And were the poor Indian savages sensible 
 of their own case they would join in the cry, and beg for more missionaries to be 
 sent to propagate the religion of Jesus among them. 
 
 " Now, as the College of New Jersey appears the most promising expedient to 
 redress these grievances, and to promote religion and learning in these provinces, 
 your petitioners most heartily concur with the trustees, and humbly pray that an act 
 may be passed by their venerable and honourable Assembly for a national collection 
 in favour of _said college. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, shall ever 
 pray," etc. 
 
 A COPY OF THE CERTIFICATE FOR MESSRS. GILBERT TENNENT 
 AND SAMUEL DAVIES. 
 
 " The Rev. Messrs. Gilbert Tennent and Samuel Davies, the bearers hereof, 
 undertaking a voyage to Europe by the appointment of the Synod, in concurrence 
 with the trustees of the College of New Jersey, for services of said college ; the 
 Synod do hereby certify, that the above reverend gentlemen are worthy and well- 
 approved members of their body, and do recommend them to the acceptance of the 
 church of God and the work of their mission, wheresoever Divine Providence may 
 call them, imploring the Divine Presence with them and success to their important 
 undertaking. 
 
 " Signed by order of the Synod." 
 
 The appointment of these two gentlemen, Messrs. Tennent 
 and Davies, was a most happy one for the College. Going with 
 an earnest recommendation from the Synod, and with letters 
 from Governor Belcher, they were cordially received by the 
 Presbyterians of Scotland and Ireland, and the Baptists and 
 Independents of England, and kindly treated by some of the 
 prominent statesmen of that day. Their mission was success- 
 ful beyond all expectation, and they obtained an amount of funds 
 which enabled the Trustees to proceed without further delay
 
 !j2 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 in the erection of their proposed College Hall, and also of a 
 house for the President and family. What was the precise sum 
 collected in Great Britain and Ireland cannot now be stated, as 
 the books of the Treasurer of the College have been lost ; but 
 the minutes of the Board for the 24th of September, 1755, set 
 forth the fact that the funds were amply sufficient to defray the 
 expenses incurred in the erection of the buildings above men- 
 tioned; and that three hundred and fifty pounds sterling, or 
 more, were also obtained from divers friends in Great Britain 
 for the education of pious and indigent youth for the gospel 
 ministry.* 
 
 Messrs. Tennent and Davies received in the city of London 
 alone about twelve hundred pounds sterling. On their return 
 from Edinburgh to London, Mr. Tennent went to Ireland, and 
 to some of the towns in the west of England, and obtained on 
 this tour five hundred pounds sterling. And Mr. Davies col- 
 lected in the several towns visited by him about four hundred 
 pounds. And these sums are exclusive, in a great measure at 
 least, of the collections made in the churches in Scotland and 
 Ireland, by order of the General Assembly of the Church of 
 Scotland, and by the Synod of Ulster. 
 
 The youth to be aided from this fund were to be selected by 
 the Synod, and to receive their education at the College of New 
 Jersey. This doubtless may be regarded as the foundation of 
 the charitable funds of the College, which have been of no 
 little service to the institution, as well as to the Presbyterian 
 Church, by assisting in the support of a valuable class of 
 students, whose desire and aim were to become ministers of 
 the gospel. Of the several contributions to this fund mention 
 wilt be made hereafter, f 
 
 For the liberality and kindness, of the General Assembly of 
 the Church of Scotland, the Trustees, by a formal vote, ex- 
 pressed their grateful acknowledgments. 
 
 In Guild's " History of Brown University" there is a copy 
 of a letter written from London, April 26, 1768, by the Rev. 
 
 * For a list of the contributors to this particular fund, see printed " Minutes of 
 the Synod of New York," pages 264, 265. 
 f In Minutes, page 43.
 
 ADMINISTRATION AND LIFE OF PRESIDENT BURR. 
 
 153 
 
 Morgan Edwards to President Manning, in which letter the fol- 
 lowing passage occurs respecting Messrs. Tennent and Davies, 
 and two other well-known gentlemen, who had visited Great 
 Britain and Ireland to solicit funds in aid of the important and 
 benevolent objects of their several missions : 
 
 " You must observe also that in England, as in Ireland, I solicit money towards 
 endowing the College, and therefore take care that you attend to the design of the 
 donors. 
 
 " Indeed, you have a list of all the sums I received in Ireland, which list-was 
 distributed in the several places where I have been. The design was to let every 
 one of them see that I gave true credit for what I have received. Had Tenn nt, 
 D vis, and Be ty and Whit r, done so, they would have prevented suspicions 
 very injurious to themselves, and to those that come after them on the like errand. 
 Air. Raffey told me that he had been called a rogue for aiding the said persons to 
 raise money in London." 
 
 Mr. Guild, not content to let the letter speak for itself, must 
 needs add the following note, lest the reader of his book 
 might not otherwise know who were the gentlemen referred to 
 by Mr. Edwards : 
 
 "In 1753, by request of the Trustees of the College of New Jersey, the Presby- 
 terian Synod of New York appointed the Rev. Gilbert Tennent, in conjunction, 
 with the Rev. (afterwards President) Samuel Davis, to cross the Atlantic and solicit 
 funds for that Institution. The mission was eminently successful ; but the only 
 account of it that remains is found in the diary of Mr. Davis. About the same 
 time, or a little later, the Rev. Nathaniel Whitaker, accompanied by Samson 
 Occum, an Indian preacher, solicited funds for Moor's Indian Charity School, 
 afterwards Dartmouth College. Who the other person was to whom Edwards 
 refers we are not informed." 
 
 This information it is in the writer's power to supply. He was the Rev. 
 Charles Beatty, a man without reproach and of eminent piety, who was sent 
 by the Synod of New York and Philadelphia to solicit contributions for the es- 
 tablishment of a fund to assist aged and disabled ministers and the families of 
 deceased ministers. All the gentlemert named discharged their respective trusts,, 
 in collecting funds and in making report thereof, to the entire satisfaction of those 
 whose agents they were. And although there be not now any account of the 
 moneys collected by Messrs. Tennent and Davies but what is given in the diary 
 of Mr. Davies, yet it would be perfectly absurd to imagine that they did not give a 
 detailed report of all the moneys received by them for the College ; and for the. 
 collecting of which the Trustees of the College gave them their thanks, and to 
 each a present of ,50, in addition to the expenses of their agency and of supply- 
 ing the pulpits during their absence. The Treasurer's books and papers of that 
 VOL. i. ii
 
 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 day have long been lost, but whether during the ravages of the Revolutionary War 
 or by the fire of 1802, which consumed the College edifice, known as Nassau Hail, 
 together with the Library, Philosophical Apparatus, and other valuables, is unknown. 
 The election of Mr. Davies, a few years later, as President of the College, in the 
 absence of all other evidence, would be conclusive as to the fact that his agency 
 had given the Trustees entire satisfaction ; and it shows that the currency given to 
 what was doubtless the grossly exaggerated statement of Mr. Raffey, as reported 
 by Mr. Edwards, was a discourteous treatment of gentlemen in every respect his 
 equals, not to say his superiors. 
 
 The Rev. Dr. Manning, the first President of Brown Uni- 
 versity, to whom Mr. Edwards's letter was addressed, was a 
 graduate of the College of New Jersey in 1762. He was an 
 eminently active and useful man, and was held in high repute 
 as a teacher, a minister, and a patriot. In 1786 he represented 
 Rhode Island in the Continental Congress. 
 
 THE REMOVAL TO PRINCETON. 
 
 The College edifice and the house for the President were 
 both so far completed by the autumn of 1756 that the Trus- 
 tees, at their meeting in September of that year, the time of 
 the annual Commencement, passed an order for the removal 
 of the students from Newark to Princeton, and it took place 
 accordingly. The words of this order were : " Voted, That the 
 President move the College to Princeton this Fall, and that the 
 expense thereof be paid by the Treasurer." 
 
 In Dr. Finley's account of the College it is said to have 
 taken place in 1757. Dr. Green suggests that President Finley 
 " probably spoke of what might be called a collegiate year, 
 reckoning from one Commencement to another." 
 
 That the removal actually occurred in the autumn of 1756 
 we have the testimony of Mr. N. F. Randolph, who, in his 
 "Memoranda," says that, "in 1756, Aaron Burr, President, 
 preached the first sermon, and began the first school in Prince- 
 ton College." And it also appears from a minute in the Rec- 
 ords of the Synod of New York for 1757, that a committee of 
 the Synod met at Princeton on the 23d of November, 1756, to 
 examine such students as were candidates to receive assistance 
 from the fund designed for the support of pious youths. 
 
 At this time, it is estimated that there were seventy pupils
 
 ADMINISTRATION AND LIFE OF PRESIDENT BURR. -5 
 
 in the College. Everything appeared bright and promising 
 Governor Belcher and Mr. Burr had seen their fondest hopes in 
 regard to the College realized. Their efforts to obtain funds in 
 Great Britain and Ireland had surpassed their expectations. A 
 college edifice sufficient for the accommodation of more than 
 one hundred students had been erected. A house for the Presi- 
 dent of the College had also been built. The College was in 
 good repute at home and abroad, with a prospect of increase 
 in the number of the pupils and in the resources of the in- 
 stitution. At the meetings of the Synods of New York and 
 of Philadelphia in May, 1757, effectual measures were taken 
 for the union of these two Synods, thus bringing together 
 into one harmonious body all the Presbyterian ministers and 
 churches in the several Provinces, and giving hope to the 
 friends of the College of increased patronage from a united 
 Church.* 
 
 But scarcely were these things realized, or rather looked 
 forward to with confident expectation, when the two principal 
 supports of the College were removed from their earthly labors; 
 and neither of them lived to se'e a class graduated at Princeton, 
 Governor Belcher having died on Wednesday, the 3ist of 
 August, and President Burr on Saturday, the 24th of September, 
 1757, four days before the annual Commencement, which took 
 place on Wednesday, the 28th of September. 
 
 From the day on which Mr. Burr was inaugurated President 
 of the College, under the second charter, to the Commence- 
 ment, which occurred on the fourth day after his decease, that 
 is, from the gih of November, 1748, to the 28th of September, 
 1757, there were admitted to the first degree in the Arts one 
 hundred and fourteen young gentlemen who had pursued their 
 studies under his guidance, and of these, sixty-tivo entered the 
 ministry. Thus far, it appears, the College had answered the 
 design of its founders. 
 
 The first general revival of religion in the College took place 
 in the last year of President Burr's administration and of his 
 life, the Lord permitting him to see that the blessing of the 
 
 * The union was consummated in May, 1758.
 
 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 Almighty had attended his labors for the promotion of piety 
 and learning in happy union. 
 
 The names of the several Tutors during Mr. Burr's adminis- 
 tration are as follows, viz. : 
 
 i. John Maltby, from 1749 to 1752. Mr. Maltby was a 
 graduate of Yale, and was a descendant of the Rev. Abraham 
 Pierson, the first President of that College. For several years 
 he was " the much-loved pastor" of a church in the island of 
 Bermuda. He died in 1771. 
 
 2. Samuel Sherwood, from 1750 to 1752. 
 
 3. Jonathan Badger, from 1752 to 1755. 
 
 4. Alexander Gordon, from 1752 to 1754. 
 
 5. George Duffield, from 1754 to 1756. 
 
 6. William Thompson, from 1755 to 1756. 
 
 7. Benjamin Y. Prime, from 1756 to 1757. 
 
 8. John Ewing, from 1756 to 1758. 
 
 9. Isaac Smith, from 1757 to 1758. 
 
 10. Jeremiah Halsey, from 1757 to 1767. 
 
 11. Joseph Treat, from 1758 to 1760. 
 
 The following gentlemen were chosen Trustees during Mr. 
 Burr's presidency: 
 
 1. James Neilson, Esq., in 1749; resigned in 1754. 
 
 2. Samuel Woodruff, Esq., in 1749; died in 1768. 
 
 3. Rev. John Frelinghuysen, in 1750; died in 1755. 
 
 4. Rev. Caleb Smith, in 1750; died in 1763. He was pastor 
 of the church at Newark Mountains, now Orange, New Jersey. 
 
 5. Rev. Thomas Thompson, in 1751 ; died in 1752. 
 
 6. Rev. Samuel Finley, in 1751 ; resigned in 1761. In this 
 year he was chosen President of the College. 
 
 7. Rev. Elihu Spencer, in 1752; died in 1784. 
 
 8. Rev. John Brainerd, in 1754; died in 1780. 
 
 9. Rev. Alexander Cumming, in 1756; resigned in 1761. 
 
 10. Rev. Charles McKnight, in 1757; died in 1778. 
 
 11. Richard Stockton, Esq., in 1757; died in 1781. 
 
 Of the one hundred and fourteen graduates who, from 1747 
 to 1757, pursued their studies under the direction of President 
 Burr, more than half became preachers of the gospel, and about 
 forty were men of more or less note in their respective callings,
 
 ADMINISTRATION' AND LIFE OF PRESIDENT BURR. 
 
 '57 
 
 and of these not a few were quite eminent. To begin with 
 instructers in this and in other institutions: of the class of 
 
 1752. The Rev. Jeremiah Halsey, A.M., for ten years a Tutor, 
 a Professor elect of Mathematics, and then a Trustee. 
 
 1754. The Rev. John Ewing, S.T.D., for two years a Tutor 
 in this College, Professor in the University of Pennsylvania, 
 and also Provost of the same. 
 
 1754. William Shippen, M.D. The first Professor of Anat- 
 omy in the University of Pennsylvania. 
 
 1757. James Smith, M.D. The first Professor of Materia 
 Medica in King's (Columbia) College, New York. 
 
 MEMBERS OF THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 
 
 1748. Hon. Richard Stockton, New Jersey; a signer of the 
 Declaration of Independence ; a Trustee of the College. 
 
 1749. Hon. William Burnet, New Jersey; also Surgeon-Gen- 
 eral of the United States Army. 
 
 1751. Hon. Nathaniel Scudder, New Jersey; a Trustee of 
 the College. 
 
 1752. Hon. Samuel Livermore, of New Hampshire; also 
 United States Senator, etc., etc. 
 
 1754. Hon. William Shippen, M.D., of Pennsylvania; a 
 Trustee of the College. 
 
 1755. Hon. Joseph Montgomery, of Pennsylvania; from 1784 
 to 1788. 
 
 1756. Hon. Jesse Root, LL.D., of Connecticut; also Chief 
 Justice of Connecticut. 
 
 1757. Hon. Joseph Reed, of New Jersey and Pennsylvania; 
 also, in 1784, President of the Pennsylvania State Convention; 
 a Trustee of the College, etc. 
 
 OF THE UNITED STATES SENATE. 
 
 1756. Hon. Alexander Martin, LL.D., of North Carolina. 
 
 OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 
 
 1755. Hon. Isaac Smith, of New Jersey; also a Judge of the 
 Supreme Court of New Jersey.
 
 jcS HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 SECRETARY OF THE PROVINCE OF PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 1753. Joseph Shippen, Esq. 
 
 HIGH SHERIFF OF LONDON. 
 
 1757. Stephen Sayre, Esq. 
 
 As those gentlemen whose names are about to be given are 
 not included in any of the above lists, they will be mentioned 
 in the order of their admission to the first degree in the Arts: 
 
 1748. Rev. Hugh Henry, Rehoboth, Maryland. 
 
 1748. Rev. Israel Reed, A.M., of Bound Brook, New Jersey; 
 a Trustee of the College. 
 
 1749. Rev. John Brown, New Providence, Rockbridge 
 County, Virginia. 
 
 1749. Rev. John Todd, A.M. ; successor to the Rev. Samuel 
 Davies as minister of the Providence church, Virginia. 
 
 1750. Rev. Daniel Farrand, A.M.; minister of a Congrega- 
 tional church in South Canaan, Connecticut. 
 
 1750. Rev. Samuel McClintock, D.D. ; minister of a Con- 
 gregational church in Greenland, New Hampshire. 
 
 1750. Benjamin Youngs Prime, M.D. ; Tutor; an elegant 
 classical scholar; a practitioner of medicine and surgery in 
 the city of New York. 
 
 1750. Rev. Robert Henry, A.M.; pastor of Cub Creek 
 church, Charlotte County, Virginia. 
 
 1752. Rev. George Duffield, D.D. ; Tutor and Trustee; 
 pastor of the Third Church, Philadelphia. 
 
 1752. Rev. Nathaniel Whitaker, D.D., of Connecticut; re- 
 ceived his degree from St. Andrew's, Scotland. 
 
 1753. Rev. John Harris, of Delaware and South Carolina. 
 1753. Dr. Robert Harris, of Philadelphia; for fifty-four years 
 
 a Trustee of the College. 
 
 1753. Rev. Hugh McAden, A.M., a native of Pennsylvania; 
 pastor of the churches in Duplin and New Hanover, North 
 Carolina. 
 
 1754. Rev. Hugh Knox, D.D. ; minister at St. Croix, West 
 Indies.
 
 ADMINISTRATION AND LIFE OF PRESIDENT BURR. 
 
 '59 
 
 1754. David Matthews, A.M.; Mayor of New York in 1775; 
 a Loyalist. 
 
 1754. Rev. William Ramsay, A.M. ; pastor of Fairfield church, 
 Connecticut. 
 
 1755. Thaddeus Burr, A.M.; a lawyer in Fairfield, Con- 
 necticut. 
 
 1755. Rev. Wheeler Case, A.M. ; pastor of Pleasant Valley 
 church, Dutchess County, New York ; author of a volume of 
 poems. 
 
 1756. Rev. Azel Roe, D.D., of Woodbridge, New Jersey; a 
 Trustee of the College. 
 
 1757. Rev. William Kirkpatrick, A.M., of Amwell, New 
 Jersey ; a Trustee of the College. 
 
 1757. Rev. Alexander McWhorter, D.D., of Newark, New 
 Jersey ; a Trustee of the College. 
 
 1757. Henry Wells, A.M., M.D., of Brattleborough, Vermont. 
 
 MEMOIR OF PRESIDENT BURR. 
 
 The Rev. Aaron Burr was born in Fairfield County, Connec- 
 ticut, on the 4th of January, 1716. He was the youngest son 
 of Daniel Burr, whose father and paternal grandfather were 
 both named John. The elder John came to Fairfield from 
 Springfield, Massachusetts. (See Dr. Stearns's " Historical Dis- 
 courses," page 151.) 
 
 In their respective sketches of the life of President Burr, Drs. 
 Allen, Green, and Sprague agree in representing him as de- 
 scended from the learned and pious Jonathan Burr, a non-con- 
 formist preacher who came from England in 1639, and settled 
 in Dorchester, Massachusetts, where he died in 1641. John 
 Burr, the second son of the Rev. Jonathan Burr, of Dor- 
 chester, settled in Fairfield County probably about the time 
 that the first John came from Springfield to Fairfield, and this 
 fact, mentioned by Dr. Allen in his " Biographical Dictionary," 
 may have given rise to the conjecture that President Burr was 
 descended from the Rev. Jonathan Burr. Dr. Allen expressly 
 says that Daniel Burr, the father of President Burr, was de- 
 scended from John Burr. But this cannot be unless Daniel's
 
 j6o HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 mother was a daughter of John Burr, of which we have no evi- 
 dence or even any intimation. 
 
 The true account, therefore, of this matter is the one given 
 by the Rev. Dr. Stearns, and for it he acknowledges himself in- 
 debted to the Rev. Dr. L. H. Atwater, then of Fairfield, but now 
 of Princeton, who at Dr. Stearns's request ascertained the facts 
 of the case. And here it may not be amiss to say that the fullest 
 and the best sketch of the life of President Burr of which we 
 have any knowledge is the one given by Dr. Stearns, in his 
 " Historical Discourses" relative to the First Presbyterian 
 Church of Newark. 
 
 President Burr was graduated at Yale College in the autumn 
 of 1735, being at that time in the twentieth year of his age. At 
 the completion of the usual College course he was a success- 
 ful competitor for one of the classical scholarships founded at 
 Yale by Berkeley, the eminent and learned Bishop of Cloyne ; 
 and having obtained this prize, he continued his studies at New 
 Haven for another year. It was during this year that he be- 
 came deeply and permanently interested in the subject of re- 
 ligion, and, hoping that he was called of God to engage in the 
 work of the ministry, he resolved to devote himself to it with 
 all his heart. And this he did. Upon being licensed as a can- 
 didate for the sacred office, he left New England and came to 
 New Jersey. Here he labored for a short time at Hanover, in 
 Morris County, and while there he attracted the attention of 
 the church in Newark, which was then without a pastor. At 
 first he was invited to preach at Newark for one year, begin- 
 ning the loth of January, 1737. At the expiration of this 
 time he was invited to assume the pastoral office, and, accept- 
 ing the invitation, he was ordained on the 25th of January, 
 1738, by the Presbytery of East Jersey, with which Presbytery 
 the church of Newark was then connected. 
 
 " The settlement of Mr. Burr," says Dr. Stearns, " was a most 
 auspicious event." This remark has special reference to the 
 church which had just given him a unanimous call to become 
 their pastor ; but it is equally true with respect to the interests 
 of religion and learning within the limits of the entire Presby- 
 terian Church in this country, of which he was an eminent
 
 ADMINISTRATION AND LIFE OF PRESIDENT BURR. jgj 
 
 minister, surpassed by none in devotion to his work, or, as far 
 as we can judge, in the greatness and successful prosecution of 
 his various and arduous labors. 
 
 Within eighteen months after Mr. Burr's settlement at New- 
 ark, the divine blessing manifestly rested upon his ministrations 
 there : the people of his charge were favored with a most re- 
 markable outpouring of the Spirit, and among all classes, young 
 and old, there was such an awakening to their spiritual inter- 
 ests as produced a wonderful change in the whole community. 
 This unusual attention to religion continued for nearly two 
 years, and during this period they had one or more visits from 
 the pious and eloquent Whitefield, for whom Mr. Burr seems 
 to have entertained the highest respect, which was fully recip- 
 rocated by this famous itinerant for the gospel's sake. 
 
 Soon after his settlement at Newark, Mr. Burr became deeply 
 interested in the matter of Christian missions among the Indian 
 tribes of this country, and united with his friends, the Rev. 
 Messrs. Dickinson and Pemberton, in directing the attention of 
 the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge 
 to this field of labor. The result of their correspondence was 
 that they were chosen correspondents of the Society, and were 
 authorized to employ two missionaries at the expense of the 
 Society. This led to the appointment of David Brainerd and 
 of Azariah Horton as missionaries to the American Indians. 
 
 Mr. Burr took an active part in the proceedings of the Church 
 courts of which he was a member, and even in regard to matters 
 in which the feelings of the members were strongly enlisted, he 
 did not hesitate to act in accordance with his convictions ; yet 
 always exhibiting good sense and a Christian temper, he never 
 failed in securing the respect and esteem of those from whom 
 he differed in opinion. 
 
 His zeal in behalf of learning was conspicuous from the be- 
 ginning of his ministry. Before a charter was obtained for the 
 College of New Jersey, Mr. Burr established a classical school 
 in Newark, doubtless for the special, though not for the exclu- 
 sive, benefit of the youth of his pastoral charge. In the efforts 
 to obtain a charter for a college he took a prominent part ; 
 and when, upon the decease of President Dickinson, he became
 
 j6 2 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 the head of the institution, his untiring labors in its behalf 
 ceased only with his life. 
 
 Of the success which attended these labors mention was 
 made in speaking of his administration of the affairs of the 
 College ; but of his liberality to it, when it was without funds 
 sufficient to meet its necessary expenses, we have not spoken. 
 It has been said that for the first three years he received no 
 salary from the College.* And it is true that in the minutes 
 of the Trustees no mention is made of any order or vote for 
 the payment to him of any moneys until the meeting of the 
 Board; at Newark, on the 26th of September, 1750. In the 
 record of this meeting there is the following minute: "Ordered, 
 That the Clerk be allowed ,5 per annum for his trouble, and 
 that s be reserved for Defraying the Incidental charges of the 
 Corporation ; and that the Residue of the Interest in the Treas- 
 urer's hands be paid the President for his services till further 
 orders." This was at the end of the second year of Mr. Burr's 
 presidency under the second charter. The three years men- 
 tioned in the Obituary probably included the year that he had 
 the charge of the College under the first charter. 
 
 The moneys in the hands of the Treasurer were those re- 
 ceived from the lottery drawn in Philadelphia, and from dona- 
 tions, the first of which was a gift of fifty pounds proc. from the 
 Hon. James Alexander, Esq., father of Major-General Lord 
 Stirling. About this time, also, Colonel John Alford, of Boston, 
 gave one hundred pounds to the College. The above-men- 
 tioned order seems to indicate that the Clerk's compensation 
 and the incidental expenses were paid from the interest of 
 moneys in the hands of the Treasurer, and doubtless the Treas- 
 urer's salary of ten pounds a year, mentioned in a previous 
 order, was paid from the same fund. This arrangement would 
 leave the tuition-fees to be distributed to the President and 
 Tutors; each of the Tutors probably receiving a fixed stipend ? 
 and the President the remainder. 
 
 The first mention of a fixed compensation to the President 
 
 * See Dr. Stearns's " Historical Discourses," page 185, and obituary notice, from 
 the " New York Mercury," on page 206.
 
 ADMINISTRATION AND LIFE OF PRESIDENT BURR.- jg^ 
 
 is in the minutes of the Trustees for May 2, 1754, and in these 
 words : "Voted, That the President's salary be .150 proc. for 
 the year following the next Commencement."* 
 
 How much he received of the interest from the vested funds 
 of the College, as ordered by the Board at their meeting in 
 September, 1750, from this date to September, 1754, when his 
 salary, independent of the graduation-fees, was fixed at one hun- 
 dred and fifty pounds a year, we have no means of ascertaining. 
 But it is morally certain that his entire income from the sources 
 named was a very meagre one compared with the services ren- 
 dered ; and this fact shows the sacrifices made by him for the 
 cause of religion and learning while laboring so earnestly for 
 the upbuilding of the College ; and it also shows the generous 
 spirit of the man, who lost sight of his own interests in efforts 
 to serve his fellow-men. Well, therefore, might the Trustees, 
 upon his decease and immediately before electing one to suc- 
 ceed him in the office of President, adopt the following resolu- 
 tion on the subject of the President's salary, which for the last 
 year of Mr. Burr's life was two hundred and fifty pounds: 
 
 * At the same meeting it was also "Voted, That each of the two Tutors have 
 ,40 proc. yearly ; and provided they tarry four years that they have ^40 gratuity, 
 if recommended by the President as having faithfully discharged their Trusts. 
 The said salaries are to take place after the next Commencement." By a vote of 
 the Board, at a meeting held September 27, 1752, two years before, each Tutor 
 was allowed for his services twenty pounds sterling a year, reckoned to be at that 
 time equal to thirty pounds proc. 
 
 The tuition-fees were fifteen shillings proc. a quarter, or three pounds a year. On 
 the supposition that there were thirty students in the four classes during each of the 
 first three years, and, judging from the number of graduates in those years, the 
 average could hardly have been less, the entire income from the tuition-fees would 
 have been two hundred and seventy pounds proc. For the first year there was but 
 one Tutor, and the entire sum paid to the Tutors for these years did not exceed 
 one hundred and fifty pounds proc., which would leave one hundred and twenty 
 pounds for the President for the three years, or an average of forty pounds proc. a 
 year. 
 
 By an ordinance of the Board, passed on the day of the first College Com- 
 mencement, each student " admitted to the honor of a Degree was required to pay 
 to the President thirty shillings proc." From this source he should have received, 
 and probably did, about ten pounds more a year, making the yearly income from 
 these two sources about fifty pounds proclamation money, which is only one-third 
 of the salary voted to him by the Board for one year from September, 1754.
 
 164 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 " The Trustees having considered that the salary which the last year was voted 
 to the Rev. President Burr was considerably increased on account of his constant 
 Attention, great Zeal, and indefatigable Labors for the College; and more espe- 
 cially for that the said President Burr, for some years in the fore Part of the Exe- 
 cuting his said Office, had done many and great services for said College, for 
 which he has never received any pecuniary consideration; and that any President, 
 who now or hereafter may be chosen, cannot, for the service of this office for some 
 Time, deserve so well of this Board : It is therefore Ordered, that the salary of the 
 President for the time being shall be the sum of two hundred Pounds proclamation 
 money of this Province, during the ensuing year, together with the use of the Presi- 
 dent's house,* and the improved Lands, with Liberty of getting his Firewood on 
 the Lands belonging to the Corporation." 
 
 That Mr. Burr devoted himself to the upbuilding of the Col- 
 lege without regard to the emolument to be derived therefrom 
 is abundantly evident from the record just cited, and this fact 
 shows that he was as generous as he was wise and laborious. 
 It is no wonder that such a man should command the unlimited 
 respect and confidence of all persons associated with him in his 
 efforts to promote the cause of religion and learning. 
 
 For several years Mr. Burr discharged the duties both of 
 pastor of the Newark church and of President of the College, 
 but, in consequence of the increased number of students, and in 
 view of the intended removal of the College, it was deemed best 
 that Mr. Burr should devote himself exclusively to the instruc- 
 tion of the students and to the general interests of the College; 
 and therefore at their meeting, September 25, 1754, the Trustees 
 appointed a committee to wait upon the Presbytery of New 
 York, and to ask from that body a dissolution of Mr. Burr's 
 pastoral relation to the church of Newark. This application 
 was accordingly made to the said Presbytery, and the petition 
 of the Trustees was granted. 
 
 The church was very reluctant to give up their beloved and 
 faithful pastor, whose labors among them had been signally 
 blessed of God; but, in view of the great importance of the 
 College, and of Mr. Burr's relations to it, they finally acquiesced 
 in the decision of the Presbytery as right and proper. 
 
 * The mention of the President's house in this connection, and the manner of 
 mentioning it, indicate that it had been occupied by Mr. Burr and his family. This 
 resolution was adopted on the 2jth of September, 1757, three days after the decease 
 of President Burr.
 
 ADMINISTRATION AND LIFE OF PRESIDENT BURR. 
 
 I6 5 
 
 As a scholar, a teacher, and a preacher, Mr. Burr was held 
 in the highest esteem by his cotemporaries. His success in the 
 discharge of his varied and responsible duties is evidence of his 
 great intellectual vigor and of his indomitable energy; and the 
 results seem to justify what to some may appear to be only the 
 extravagant eulogies of warm personal friendships on the part 
 of those who have left us memorials of Mr. Burr's life and 
 labors as seen by themselves. 
 
 His publications were a Latin Grammar, commonly known as 
 the Newark Grammar; a treatise entitled "The Supreme Deity 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ, maintained in a Letter to the Editor 
 of Mr. Emlyn's Inquiry," reprinted in Boston in 1791 ; "A Fast 
 Sermon, on account of the Encroachment of the French, and 
 their Designs against the British Colonies in America, delivered 
 at Newark, January i, 1755;" " The Watchman's Answer to the 
 Question, 'What of the night?' (Isaiah* xxi. 1 1, 1 2.) A Sermon 
 before the Synod of New York, convened at Newark, Septem- 
 ber, 1750;" and a funeral sermon, at Elizabethtown, on the 
 occasion of Governor Belcher's death, September 4, 1757. The 
 sermon before the Synod was delivered by him at the opening 
 of Synod's sessions, he having been the Moderator of the Synod 
 at their meeting the year previous. The preparation and the 
 preaching of the funeral sermon for Governor Belcher, under 
 the exposure and the fatigue to which he had been recently 
 subjected, brought on the extreme prostration and the accom- 
 panying fever which ended in his own death.* 
 
 It is not probable that, with the immense burden resting upon 
 him almost perpetually after he took charge of the College, he 
 was able to prepare for the press any other works than those 
 enumerated above; but the writer of this article learned from 
 Colonel Burr, the only son of President Burr, that his father's 
 
 * Mrs. Burr,' in. acknowledging the receipt of 9. letter addressed to President 
 Burr by one of his friends in Scotland, thus refers to this last discourse : " I here 
 enclose you, sir, the last attempt my dear husband made to serve God in public, 
 a sermon which he preached at the funeral of our late excellent Governor. You 
 will not think it strange, if it has imperfections, when I tell you that all he wrote 
 on the subject was done in a part of one afternoon and evening, when he had a 
 violent fever on him, and the whole night after he was irrational." ( Edwards's 
 " Life," page 566.)
 
 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 papers, and some of his own, which had been left for safe-keep- 
 ing in the hands of his daughter, Mrs. Theodosia Allston, were 
 lost with her upon her last voyage from Charleston, South 
 Carolina, to New York, the ship having no doubt foundered at 
 sea, as it was never heard from after leaving port. 
 
 On the 27th of June, 1/52, Mr. Burr was united in marriage 
 with Esther, the third daughter of the Rev. Jonathan Edwards, 
 his successor in office. Mrs. Burr is spoken of as a lady re- 
 markable for her beauty of person, her intelligence and piety, 
 and as admirably suited to the station she was called to occupy 
 as the wife of President Burr, whom she survived less than 
 a year, dying on the 7th of April, 1758, a few weeks after the 
 decease of her father, President Edwards. She left two chil- 
 dren, a son and a daughter. The son was Colonel Aaron Burr, 
 at one time Vice-President of the United States ; the daughter, 
 Sarah Burr, the elder of the two children, was married to the 
 Hon. Tappan Reeve, an eminent lawyer, who was for some 
 years Chief Justice of Connecticut, and founder of the famous 
 Law School of Litchfield in that State. 
 
 On his death-bed, Mr. Burr gave directions that no unneces- 
 sary parade should be made at his funeral, and no expenses 
 incurred beyond what Christian decency required; and that the 
 sum which must be expended at a fashionable funeral above 
 the necessary cost of a decent one should be given to the poor 
 out of his estate.* 
 
 Upon the death of President Burr, a eulogy and a funeral ser- 
 mon were prepared and published by two of his intimate friends, 
 the eulogy by William Livingston, Esq., of New York, but 
 subsequently the first Governor of New Jersey after the Revo- 
 lution, the sermon by the Rev. Caleb Smith, of Newark 
 Mountains. The sermon was prepared and preached at the 
 request of the Trustees of the College, and published at their 
 expense. A monumental stone was placed over President 
 Burr's grave by order of the Trustees, and at their request the 
 inscription for it was prepared by the Hon. William Smith, 
 
 * President Edwards, six months after, requested his own funeral might be con- 
 ducted in the manner Mr. Burr's was.
 
 ADMINISTRATION AND LIFE OF PRESIDENT BURR. 
 
 I6 7 
 
 Esq., a member of the Board. Obituary notices of President 
 Burr appeared both in the " New York Mercury" and in the 
 " Pennsylvania Gazette." It is believed, and it is by no means 
 improbable, that the one in the " Gazette" was written by its 
 eminent editor, Benjamin Franklin. It was as follows: "Sept. 
 2 9> 1 7S7' Last Saturday died the Rev. Aaron Burr, President 
 of the New Jersey College, a gentleman and a Christian, as 
 universally beloved as known ; an agreeable companion, a faith- 
 ful friend, a tender and affectionate husband, and a good father ; 
 remarkable for his industry, integrity, strict honesty, and pure, 
 undissembled piety ; his benevolence as disinterested as uncon- 
 fined, an excellent preacher, a great scholar, and a very great 
 man." After citing this notice, Dr. Stearns makes the follow- 
 ing comment : " The glowing eulogy of William Livingston, 
 supported by the plain, unvarnished statements of Caleb Smith, 
 and endorsed by the weighty testimony of Benjamin Franklin, 
 seems to leave little more to be desired in attestation of the gen- 
 uine merit of the subject of its commendation ;" and yet the 
 writer will venture to add the testimony of President Edwards in 
 his letter of October 19, 1757, to the Trustees of the College : 
 " This makes me shrink at the thought of taking upon me in 
 the decline of life such a new and great business, attended with 
 such a multiplicity of cares, and requiring such a degree of 
 activity, alertness, and spirit of government, especially as suc- 
 ceeding one so remarkably well qualified in these respects, 
 giving occasion to every one to remark the wide difference." 
 
 The following is the inscription on President Burr's tomb- 
 stone : 
 
 M. S. 
 
 Reverend! admodum Viri, 
 
 ' Aaronis Burr, A.M., Collegii Neo-Caesariensis Praesidis, 
 Natus apud Fairfield Connecticutensium IV. jfanuarii 
 
 A.D. MDCCXVI. S. V. 
 Honesta in eadem Colonia Familia oriundus, 
 
 Collegio Yalensi innutritus. 
 
 Novarcae Sacris initiatus, MDCCXXXVIII. 
 
 Annos circiter viginti pastorali munere 
 
 Fideliter functus. 
 
 Collegii N. C. Pnesidium'MDCCXLVIII accepit, 
 In Nassoviae Aulam sub finem MDCCLVI translatus.
 
 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 Defunctus in hoc Vico 24 Septembris 
 
 A.D. MDCCLVII. S. N. 
 
 Aetatis XLII. Eheu quam brevis ! 
 
 Huic Marmori subjicitur, quod mori potuit 
 
 Quod immortale, vendicarunt coeli : 
 Quaeris Viator qualis quantusque fuit ? 
 
 Perpaucis accipe. 
 
 Vir corpore parvo ac tenui, 
 
 Studiis, vigiliis, assicluisque Laboribus, 
 
 Macro. 
 
 Sagacitate, Perspicacitate, Agilitate, 
 Ac Solertia, (si fas dicere) 
 Plusquam humana, pene 
 
 Angelica. 
 
 Anima ferine totus, 
 Omnigena Literatura instructus, 
 
 Theologia praestantior : 
 Concionator volubilis, suavis et suadus; 
 
 Orator facundus ; 
 
 Moribus facilis, candidus et jucundus ; 
 
 Vita egregie liberalis ac beneficus ; 
 
 Supra vero omnia emicuerunt 
 
 Pietas ac Benevolentia. 
 Sed ah ! quanta et quota Ingenii, 
 Industrise, Prudentias, Patientiaa, 
 Caeterarumque omnium Virtutum 
 
 Exemplaria, 
 Marmoris sepulchralis Angustia 
 
 Reticebit. 
 Multum desideratus, multum 
 
 Dilectus, 
 
 Human! generis Delicise, 
 
 O ! infandum sui Desiderium, 
 
 Gemit Ecclesia, plorat 
 
 Academia : 
 At Coelum plaudit, dum ille 
 
 Ingreditur 
 In Gaudium Domini 
 
 Dulce loquentis, 
 Euge bone et fidelis 
 
 Serve ! 
 Abi Viator tuam respice finem !
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE ANNUAL COMMENCEMENT OF 1757, AND THE ELECTION AND 
 ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT EDWARDS. 
 
 THE Commencement of 1757 took place at Princeton, on 
 Wednesday, the 28th of September, just four days after the de- 
 cease of President Burr. On this occasion the Trustees, with 
 one exception, were all present. At their request the Hon. 
 William Smith, a member of the Board, presided at the Com- 
 mencement exercises, and conferred the usual degrees. The 
 two oldest ministers of their number, viz., the Rev. John Pier- 
 son and the Rev. Gilbert Tennent, were chosen to open and to 
 conclude the exercises with prayer. Twenty-two candidates 
 were admitted to the first degree in the Arts, and four to the 
 second degree. 
 
 At this meeting of the Board, the Trustees ordered that the 
 diploma fees for this Commencement be paid to Mrs. Burr 
 " for her proper use." They also ordered, "That any sum not 
 exceeding Twenty Pounds be laid out in erecting a monument 
 to the memory of the late President Burr." Mr. Robert Smith 
 was " desired to provide a proper marble stone for the pur- 
 pose," and the Hon. William Smith was "requested to prepare 
 a Latin inscription for said monument." 
 
 The Rev. Caleb Smith was requested to prepare a funeral 
 sermon on the occasion of Mr. Burr's death, and to print the 
 same at the expense of the College. With this request he 
 complied, and his excellent discourse is the source from which 
 our knowledge of Mr. Burr's labors and life is mainly de- 
 rived. The Hon. William Smith prepared the Latin inscription, 
 which being referred to the Rev. Messrs. Caleb Smith and 
 Jacob Green, and revised by them, was engraved on the marble 
 monument. 
 
 VOL. i. 12 169
 
 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 Governor Belcher having died on the 3ist of August, 1/57, 
 Samuel Woodruff and Robert Ogden, Esquires, were requested 
 by the Trustees " to see that all the Books, with the other 
 Things given by his Excellency for the use of the College, be 
 conveyed to this Place." 
 
 THE ELECTION OF THE REV. JONATHAN EDWARDS. 
 
 On the day following, viz., Thursday, the 2Qth of September, 
 1757, the Trustees took into consideration the propriety of ap- 
 pointing at once a successor to President Burr. The minute in 
 regard to it is in these words : 
 
 " A choice of a President being proposed to the Board, it was ordered to be put 
 to Vote whether the said President be now chosen or not; which being Voted 
 accordingly, was carried in the affirmative. 
 
 " Whereupon after Prayers particularly on this occasion, and the number of 
 Trustees present being twenty, the Rev. Mr. Jonathan Edwards, of Stockbridge, 
 was chosen by a majority of seventeen ; and this Board requests that Messrs. Liv- 
 ingston and Spencer, of their Number, would draw the draught of a Letter re- 
 questing that the said Mr. Edwards would accept of the said choice ; and also of an 
 Address to the Honorable the Commissioners for propagating the Gospel among 
 the Heathen in America, in the province of Massachusetts, requesting the said 
 'Commissioners to liberate the said Mr. Edwards from his pastoral charge of the 
 Indian Congregation at Stockbridge and the Mission given him by the said Com- 
 missioners ; and that the said Letter and Address be signed in behalf of this Board 
 by the Clerk of the same." 
 
 Previously to engaging in this election, the Trustees voted, 
 " That the salary of the President should be two hundred 
 pounds proclamation money of the Province, together with the 
 use of the President's house and the Improved lands, with 
 Liberty of getting his Fire-wood on the land belonging to the 
 Corporation." 
 
 It was also voted that twenty pounds should be paid to the 
 Rev. Mr. Edwards for the expenses of moving his family to 
 Princeton. The committee appointed to prepare a draft of 
 a letter to Mr. Edwards, and of an address to the Commis- 
 sioners above mentioned, brought in the said drafts ; which, 
 being read, were approved, and the Clerk was ordered to tran- 
 scribe the same and to send them as soon as may be to the 
 persons for whom they were designed.
 
 ELECTION OF THE REV. JONATHAN EDWARDS. l j l 
 
 In reference to the grammar-school connected with the Col- 
 lege, the following minute was made by order of the Board : 
 
 " Mr. President Burr in his life-time having set up and carried on a Grammar 
 School in this College, which by his death will now fail unless proper care be 
 taken for its support, the Trustees therefore, in Consideration of its importance in 
 general and in particular to this Society, do agree to take the said School under their 
 immediate Direction and Government, and do appoint Mr. Montgomerie to be the 
 Master of the said School, and that Mr. McWhorter* serve as an Usher under him 
 for the ensuing year ; and if the School continues to consist of Twenty Scholars or 
 upwards, said Master shall be allowed forty-five Pounds, and the Usher fifteen 
 Pounds, provided he gives his attendance in the School three hours in the Day ; 
 but in case the School decrease to sixteen or under, then the Master shall have the 
 Charge of said School, and be entitled to three Quarters of the Tuition Money. 
 The Tuition Money for each student to be four Pounds per annum." 
 
 At this meeting provision was also made for the temporary 
 oversight and inspection of the College, by the appointment of 
 the Rev. William Tennent President pro tern., and authority 
 was given to the Clerk to call an extra meeting of the Board at 
 any time within three months. And in case Mr. Edwards 
 should not attend and accept the office of President of the Col- 
 lege at the end of the vacation, the Clerk was instructed to re- 
 quest Mr. Isaac Smith, a graduate of the College in 1755, " to 
 act in the Place of a Tutor until the President can attend." 
 
 During the last year of his Presidency Mr. Burr was assisted 
 by two excellent Tutors, viz., Benjamin Youngs Prime, a grad' 
 uate of the College in 1751, and John Ewing, a graduate in 
 1754. Mr. Prime having tendered his resignation, the Board 
 adopted the following resolution, viz. : 
 
 " Mr. Prime, one of the Tutors, applying to this Board for a Dismission from 
 his office, It is ordered, that at the request of the said Mr. Prime he be dismissed 
 accordingly. Nevertheless, the Trustees being fully sensible of the abilities of the 
 said Mr. Prime, and of his having faithfully executed his said Office during the 
 Time of his continuance therein, do with great Reluctance part with the said Mr. 
 Prime ; and as a Testimony of their sense of his good Conduct and Merit, do pre- 
 sent him with the sum of Ten Pounds over and above his salary, and are Sorry 
 that the smallness of their Fund will not admit of their giving him a larger sum." 
 
 At this time the usual salary of a Tutor in this College was 
 
 * The Mr. McWhorter mentioned in this minute is the Rev. Dr. Alexander 
 McWhorter, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Newark, who had just been 
 admitted to his first degree in the Arts.
 
 lj 2 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 forty pounds a year, but at this meeting of the Board it was in- 
 creased to fifty pounds a year; and in the case of Mr. Ewing 
 it was also voted, "That this Board, in consideration of the ex- 
 traordinary services which are justly expected of Mr. Ewing, 
 a Tutor for the ensuing year, will allow the said Mr. Ewing 
 the sum of fifty pounds over and above the aforesaid salary." 
 The Mr. Ewing here mentioned is the well-known scholar and 
 divine, the Rev. Dr. John Ewing, for many years the distin- 
 guished Provost of the University of Pennsylvania. 
 
 At their present session the Trustees also enacted several 
 additional rules with respect to the conduct of the students in 
 the College edifice, which rules had been prepared by a com- 
 mittee appointed at the last meeting of the Board, and of which 
 committee Mr. Burr was the first named. 
 
 " The eleventh of these rules was as follows : ' Every student shall pay four shil- 
 lings per Quarter for Study-rent, sweeping their Rooms, and making their Beds; 
 and such as smoke or chew Tobacco, five shillings, and one shilling for incidental 
 charges.' " 
 
 The Rev. Caleb Smith having tendered his resignation as 
 Clerk of the Board, in consequence of his residence being now 
 at a distance from the College, by its removal to Princeton, 
 Richard Stockton, Esq., a member of the Board, was unani- 
 mously chosen Clerk in the room of Mr. Smith, and generously 
 undertook to discharge the duties of his office as Clerk without 
 compensation. 
 
 The next meeting of the Trustees took place on the I4th of 
 December, 1757, thirteen members being present, and the Hon. 
 Thomas Leonard, Esq., in the chair. 
 
 The Trustees, taking into consideration a letter from Mr. 
 Edwards in relation to his dismission from his pastoral charge 
 at Stockbridge, voted, 
 
 " That it is highly proper that one of their members do endeavor, if possible, to 
 attend the Ecclesiastical Council who are to convene for that purpose, and there 
 represent in behalf of this Board the Reasons for the propriety of such Dismission." 
 
 Continuing their session through the following day, the 
 Trustees, on the morning of the I5th, voted, 
 
 " That if the Rev. Mr. Edwards come and take upon him the Charge of the 
 College this Winter, that he be entitled to the President's salary for the whole of
 
 ELECTION OF THE REV. JONATHAN EDWARDS. l ^ 
 
 this year; and that he have the liberty of receiving one-half of his salary at the 
 end of six months from the last Commencement." 
 
 At their meeting, April 19, the Trustees ordered the Treasurer 
 to pay to the executors of Mr. Edwards one hundred pounds, a 
 half-year's salary. 
 
 The next record is as follows : 
 
 " The Rev. Messrs. Caleb Smith and John Brainerd are requested immediately 
 to proceed to Stockbridge, if possible, to attend the Ecclesiastical Council to con- 
 vene relative to Mr. Edwards's Dismission; and that the sum of _^2O be paid 
 them for their services." 
 
 It appears from the minutes of this meeting that the Rev. 
 William Tennent, "for his services in inspecting the government 
 of the College," was paid eleven pounds, and that the Rev. 
 David Cowell, of Trenton, was chosen President until the next 
 meeting of the Trustees, and that, accepting the appointment, 
 he was qualified as the charter directs. 
 
 " It was voted, That the President of the College and the Clerk for the time being 
 (viz., Rev. David Cowell and Richard Stockton, Esq.) be a Committee to transact 
 the affairs about Mr. Edwards's Removal," with power to add to their number. 
 
 Messrs. Caleb Smith and John Brainerd attended the Eccle- 
 siastical Council at Stockbridge, and secured the release of Mr. 
 Edwards from his pastoral charge, and in the latter part of Jan- 
 uary he repaired to Princeton. The Council, as appears from 
 a letter of Mr. Edwards, of the date of December I, 1757, to 
 his friend and former pupil, Mr. Bellamy, of Bethlehem, was 
 called for the 2ist of the same month, but for some reason not 
 now known it did not assemble until the 4th of January follow- 
 ing. The decision of the Council having been announced to 
 Mr. Edwards and to the church of which he was pastor, he 
 submitted to their judgment, and made his arrangements to go 
 without delay to Princeton, leaving his family in Stockbridge, 
 to remain there until the ensuing spring. 
 
 Upon his arrival at Princeton, measures were promptly taken 
 to call a meeting of the Trustees of the College. They met 
 accordingly on Thursday, the i6th day of February, 1758, and 
 among the minutes of that meeting is the following : 
 
 " The Rev. Mr. Jonathan Edwards, at the repeated Requests and Invitations of 
 this Board, and agreeably to a vote passed at a meeting of the Trustees in Septem-
 
 ^4 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 her last, attending, and having been pleased to accept the office of President of the 
 College, so unanimously voted him, was qualified as the charter directs ; and the 
 said President Edwards was at the same time qualified as a Trustee of the College, 
 and took his seat accordingly." 
 
 Several matters relating to the order and government of the 
 College and of the grammar-school were considered by the 
 Board at this meeting, and it was voted, 
 
 " That President Edwards have the direction, care, and government of the 
 Grammar School, with its Masters and Ushers, and have authority to introduce the 
 elements of Geography, History, and Chronology, if he judge proper; and that he 
 have the profits of said school." 
 
 Mr. Robert Smith, the architect employed by the Trustees in 
 the erection of the College buildings, was desired to make some 
 improvements in the President's house. At this meeting it was 
 
 " Voted, That the Law obliging the students to wear peculiar Habits be repealed." 
 
 The law here referred to was enacted at a meeting of the 
 Trustees held September 24, 1755. 
 
 Provision was made for an address to the new Governor in 
 the name of the Trustees, should one be appointed and come 
 into the Province before the next meeting of the Board. The 
 performance of this duty was devolved upon the President of 
 the College and the Clerk of the Board. A committee was 
 appointed to settle with the Treasurer, and to report to the 
 Board the amount of funds in his hands. The Treasurer was 
 directed to pay the Rev. Mr. David Cowell, for his inspection of 
 the College from the I4th of December to the time of Presi- 
 dent Edwards's arrival in Princeton, the sum of eleven pounds. 
 
 At the request of the senior Tutor, Mr. Ewing, that a pro- 
 visional arrangement should be made for supplying his place in 
 case he should decide to leave, it was voted that President 
 Edwards have power, in that case, to employ any gentleman 
 he thought proper upon Trial for the office of Tutor, until the 
 next meeting. 
 
 . The Treasurer was directed to pay the bill for printing Mr. 
 Burr's sermon at the funeral of Governor Belcher, and the Rev. 
 Caleb Smith was requested to take charge of the sale of the
 
 ELECTION OF THE REV. JONATHAN EDWARDS. ^5 
 
 copies, and to account to the Treasurer for the money arising 
 from said sale. 
 
 Provision was made for the " drawing of a Lottery for the 
 College, to raise a sum not exceeding .600, the price of a 
 ticket to be two dollars." 
 
 It was also voted that there should be a meeting of the 
 Trustees at every Commencement. 
 
 The above is a summary of the business done at the only 
 meeting of the Trustees ever attended by Mr. Edwards, and 
 that was a special meeting called more particularly for the 
 purpose of inducting him into the office of President. 
 
 One week after this meeting, viz., on the 23d of February, 
 he was inoculated for the smallpox, and on the 22d of March 
 he died. His active service, therefore, in behalf of the College 
 must all have taken place within four or five weeks, and yet the 
 power of his name for good is felt by the College to this day. 
 Probably no man ever connected with this institution has con- 
 tributed so much to the reputation of the College, both at home 
 and abroad. In the narrative of his life, published in connec- 
 tion with his works, it is said, " While at Princeton, before his 
 sickness, he preached in the College hall, but did nothing as 
 President, unless it was to give out some questions in divinity 
 to the Senior class, to be answered before him, each one having 
 opportunity to study and write what he thought proper upon 
 them. When they came together to answer them, they found 
 so much entertainment and profit by it, especially by the light 
 and instruction Mr. Edwards communicated, in what he said 
 upon the questions when they delivered what they had to say, 
 that they spoke of it with the greatest satisfaction and wonder." 
 (See Dr. S. E. Dwight's " Life of Edwards," page 577, copied 
 from Dr. Hopkins's.) 
 
 The first sermon he preached in Princeton was on the un- 
 changeableness of Christ, and it is to be found in the eighth 
 volume of his works. From this we may infer what would 
 have been the character of his religious teachings in the Col- 
 lege had he been spared to preside for a length of time over 
 its discipline and instruction. 
 
 During the time of his being at Princeton he was assisted
 
 j-,6 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 by two excellent Tutors, one already mentioned as a Tutor 
 under President Burr, Mr. John Ewing, and the other Mr. Jere- 
 miah Halsey, who, -to the great benefit of the institution and to 
 the equally great satisfaction of the Trustees, held his office for 
 ten years. The respective duties of these two gentlemen will 
 appear from the following minute adopted at the meeting of 
 February 16: 
 
 " The Board further judge most advisable, in the present circumstances, and do 
 accordingly vote, that Mr. Ewen [Ewing] take the Junior and the Sophomore classes 
 under his particular tuition, and that Mr. Halsey apply himself to the instruction 
 of the Senior and Freshman classes." 
 
 Of the College curriculum at this date we have no particular 
 information, there being no Faculty records in existence, and 
 the minutes of the Trustees containing no details of the duties 
 discharged by the several officers of the College. 
 
 From Mr. Edwards's letter of the date of October 19, 1/57, 
 in reply to the one informing him of his election to the office 
 of President, we may gather some idea of the course of study 
 and of instruction: 
 
 Among the reasons which made him doubt the propriety of his accepting the 
 appointment he mentions his deficiency " in some parts of learning, particularly in 
 Algebra and the higher parts of Mathematics, and in the Greek classics ; my Greek 
 learning having been chiefly in the New Testament." Again he remarks, " If I 
 should see light to determine me to accept the place offered me, I should be willing 
 to take upon me the work of a president, so far as it consists in the general inspec- 
 tion of the whole society; and to be subservient to the school, as to their order and 
 methods of study and instruction, assisting myself in the immediate instruction in 
 the Arts and Sciences (as discretion should direct, and occasion serve, and the state 
 of things require), especially of the Senior class; and, added to all, should be will- 
 ing to do the whole work of a professor of divinity, in public and private lectures, 
 proposing questions to be answered, and some to be discussed in writing and free 
 conversation, in meetings of graduates and others, appointed in proper seasons, for 
 these ends. It would now be out of my way to spend time in constant teaching 
 of the languages, unless it be the Hebrew tongue, which I should be willing to 
 improve myself in by instructing others." 
 
 In these extracts we doubtless have sketched an outline of 
 what would have been the course of instruction during his 
 administration had his life been spared. The plan embraces 
 instruction in the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages, in the 
 arts and sciences, and in the teachings of Holy Scripture. Most
 
 ELECTION OF THE REV. JONATHAN EDWARDS. ijj 
 
 of these studies, if not all, together with composition and 
 declamation, had been matters of attention under the adminis- 
 tration of Mr. Burr. It is highly probable that Mr. Ewing, the 
 senior Tutor, instructed the classes assigned to him in Mathe- 
 matics and Natural Philosophy, and Mr. Halsey his classes in 
 the Greek and Latin classics. After Mr. Ewing's decease, a 
 course of lectures on Natural Philosophy, delivered by him in 
 the University of Pennsylvania, were published at Philadelphia; 
 and it is by no means improbable that the substance of these 
 lectures was prepared for the instruction of his pupils at 
 Nassau Hall. 
 
 Mr. Isaac Smith, a graduate of the College in 1755, was 
 associated with Messrs. Ewing and Halsey, as a Tutor, for a 
 few months before Mr. Edwards's induction into office as Presi- 
 dent. Mr. Smith was subsequently a Judge of the Supreme 
 Court of New Jersey, and also a member of the National Con- 
 gress. 
 
 From the foregoing narrative it appears that the following- 
 named gentlemen had charge of the instruction and government 
 of the students from the time of Mr. Edwards's election, Sep- 
 tember 29, 1757, until his decease, on the 22d of March, 1758: 
 
 Rev. William Tennent, from the opening of the session until 
 December 14, 1757. 
 
 Rev. David Cowell, from December 14, 1757, until Mr. Ed- 
 wards's arrival in Princeton, in the latter part of January, 1758. 
 
 President Edwards himself, from the time of his reaching 
 Princeton until his decease, March 22, 1758. 
 
 The Tutors were Messrs. John Ewing, Jeremiah Halsey, and 
 Isaac Smith.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE REV. JONATHAN EDWARDS, THIRD PRESIDENT 
 OF THE COLLEGE. 
 
 THIS eminent man, the only son of the Rev. Timothy Ed- 
 wards, of Windsor, Connecticut, was born at Windsor on the 
 5th of October, 1703. The mother of President Edwards was 
 Esther Stoddard, a daughter of the Rev. Solomon Stoddard, of 
 Northampton, Massachusetts. The father and maternal grand- 
 father were both held in repute for talent, piety, and learning. 
 Their families, which were unusually large, are connected by 
 intermarriage with many of the prominent families in New 
 England, and in other parts of our country. 
 
 The studies requisite for admission to college the subject of 
 this memoir pursued under the direction of his father, and he 
 was admitted to Yale College when but a youth of thirteen 
 years of age. His proficiency even in childhood was such as 
 to give hope of his becoming what he did become, a careful 
 observer and a profound thinker. While yet a youth he evinced 
 a great fondness for philosophical speculations. At the age of 
 fourteen he read with delight and profit Locke's " Essay on the 
 Human Understanding," and his college course was marked 
 with sobriety of deportment and with improvement in the dif- 
 ferent branches of learning. He is said to have maintained the 
 highest standing in his class, and to have been graduated with 
 the highest honors. 
 
 The mention made by one of his biographers of " his 
 thorough knowledge of the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew" does 
 not accord fully with his own account of his proficiency in 
 these languages, given in his letter of October 19, 1757, to the 
 Trustees of the College, in which he says, " I am also deficient 
 in some parts of learning, particularly . . . , and in the Greek 
 classics ; my Greek learning having been chiefly in the New 
 178
 
 MEMOIR OF THE REV. JONATHAN EDWARDS. 
 
 Testament." And again he says, " It would now be out of 
 my way to spend time in constant teaching of the languages, 
 unless it be the Hebrew tongue, which I should be willing to 
 improve myself in by instructing others." 
 
 Although having a keen relish for all matters pertaining to 
 natural philosophy, which he is said to have cultivated to the 
 end of his life, yet moral philosophy and divinity were his 
 favorite subjects of study. 
 
 He was admitted to the first degree in the Arts in the autumn 
 of 1720, just before attaining the age of seventeen ; and entering 
 at once upon the study of theology, he remained at College for 
 nearly two years after he had finished the usual under-graduate 
 course. He was licensed to preach before he had completed 
 his nineteenth year, and at the request of a small society of 
 Presbyterians in the city of New York, he began his ministerial 
 labors among them. He supplied their pulpit for about eight 
 months ; but finding that the congregation, which was a frag- 
 ment of one still older, were unable to support a minister, he 
 gave up his charge and returned to New England. 
 
 He was solicited to resume his labors in New York, but de- 
 clined, influenced in all probability by the conviction that there 
 was no sufficient reason for the attempt to erect another Pres- 
 byterian church in that city at that time, and that if he refused 
 to return, the persons to whom he preached would resume their 
 former relations with the church already established, and under 
 the charge of an able and worthy minister of the gospel, the 
 Rev. James Anderson, a native of Scotland. 
 
 In September, 1723, he received his degree of Master of 
 Arts, and at the same time he was chosen a Tutor in Yale Col- 
 lege. Upon the duties of this office, however, he did not enter 
 until the next June. About this period several congregations 
 were desirous to have him for their pastor ; but all these invita- 
 tions he declined. In the summer of 1726, the people of North- 
 ampton, Massachusetts, invited him to become the colleague 
 of his venerable grandfather, the Rev. Solomon Stoddard, and 
 among the reasons urged for his acceptance of this call was the 
 one that his grandfather, by reason of his great age, stood in 
 need of assistance. Accepting their proposal, he resigned his
 
 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 office of Tutor at the close of the college year, and on Feb- 
 ruary 15, 1728, he was set apart to the pastoral office in the 
 church of Northampton, being at that time in the twenty-fourth 
 year of his age. His grandfather dying in February, 1729, Mr. 
 Edwards became the sole pastor. He continued at Northamp- 
 ton about twenty-four years. From the time of his settlement 
 until the year 1744, Mr. Edwards's ministrations were highly 
 acceptable to his people and greatly blessed to their spiritual 
 good. In the years 1734 and 1735 there was a powerful awaken- 
 ing among the people of his charge. " His preaching," says 
 the Rev. Dr. Sprague, " during this period was eminently doc- 
 trinal, and was of the most pungent, heart-searching, and often 
 terrific character. Among the subjects of the revival were per- 
 sons of every class and character, and for a while the whole 
 community seemed to have undergone a moral renovation. 
 Towards the close of 1735 the work began to decline, after 
 which there seems to have been no unusual attention until the 
 early part of 1740, when there occurred another powerful re- 
 vival." His pungent preaching, though doubtless distasteful 
 to some of his hearers, was nevertheless acceptable to the 
 people generally, and they felt honored in having for their 
 minister a man of Mr. Edwards's rare ability in the pulpit, and 
 one who was held in such high repute both at home and abroad. 
 But in 1744 an event occurred which entirely ruptured the 
 happy relations previously existing between the minister and 
 the people, and which six years after resulted in their separation. 
 Being informed that certain young persons, members of the 
 church, had in their possession books of an immoral and cor- 
 rupting tendency, which they made use of to promote improper 
 conversation and conduct, Mr. Edwards preached a sermon to 
 indicate the duty of the church in reference to matters of this 
 kind; and 
 
 " After the sermon he desired the brethren of the church to stop, told them what 
 information he had received, and put the question to them in form, Whether the 
 Church, on the evidence before them, thought proper to take any measures to ex- 
 amine into the matter ? The members of the Church with one consent and with 
 much zeal manifested it to be their opinion that it ought to be inquired into; and 
 proceeded to choose a Committee of Inquiry to assist their pastor in examining into 
 the affair. After this Mr. Edwards appointed the time for the Committee of the
 
 MEMOIR OF THE REV. JONATHAN EDWARDS. 1 % l 
 
 Church to meet at his house ; and then read to the Church a catalogue of the names 
 of the young persons whom he desired to come to his house at the the same time. 
 Some of those whose names were thus read were the persons accused, and some 
 were witnesses ; but, through mere forgetfulness or inadvertence on his part, he did 
 not state to the church in which of these two classes any particular individual 
 was included, or in what character he was requested to meet the Committee, 
 whether as one of the accused or as a witness." 
 
 The above extract is taken from the 299th page of Dr. S. E. 
 Dvvight's " Life of President Edwards," and was probably taken 
 by him from Dr. Hopkins's " Life of Edwards," which was the 
 basis of his own account of President Edwards's life and labors. 
 Only in this way can we reconcile what is said in this extract 
 with what his biographer says on pages 432 and 433 : 
 
 " The manner in which Mr. Edwards invited the young people to meet the Com- 
 mittee, without distinguishing the witnesses from the accused, whether a matter of 
 inadvertence on his part or not, was the very manner in which most other persons 
 would have given the invitation ; and, so far as I can see, was the only manner 
 which propriety could have justified." 
 
 We incline, however, to the opinion that the biographer's 
 ideas of justice must have been somewhat confused when he 
 observes, as the ground of his own judgment in the matter, 
 
 " As therefore both the accused and the witnesses must be present before the 
 Committee, justice as well as kindness demanded that they should be named with- 
 out discrimination." 
 
 This may have been kindness to the accused, but surely it 
 was neither kindness nor justice to those who were merely to 
 give testimony in the case, and who were in no way implicated 
 in the charges to be investigated. The best excuse that can be 
 made for the course pursued is the one suggested in the first 
 of the above extracts, that it was the result of forgetfulness or 
 inadvertence. And no one at this day need be surprised at 
 the excitement produced throughout the entire community at 
 Northampton by the manner in which this whole business was 
 conducted. For while, on the one hand, it furnishes a noted 
 instance of Mr. Edwards's faithfulness and fearlessness in the 
 discharge of duty, with the full conviction that it would be to 
 him the occasion of many and bitter trials, and of his ability 
 to rise above all personal considerations in all matters wherein
 
 !8 2 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 the purity and welfare of the Church of Christ were concerned, 
 yet, on the other hand, it as clearly shows a lack of practical 
 wisdom in dealing with the errors and prejudices of those over 
 whose spiritual interests he was called to watch. The alleged 
 facts were not a matter of notoriety ; they were evidently un- 
 known to the community at large ; and the first thing that 
 brought them to the knowledge of the people generally was his 
 discourse on this subject. Had he instituted a private investi- 
 gation, and, having satisfied himself as to the guilty parties, 
 dealt with them individually and tenderly, showing them their 
 sin and their danger, there is reason to believe that his labors 
 would not have been without a happy result. In cases in which 
 the parties were insensible to his urgent and affectionate appeals, 
 had he called to his aid the counsels and entreaties, and even 
 the authority, of the parents of the erring youth, he might have 
 reclaimed some of them; and not until all other methods had 
 failed should he have resorted to this announcement of their 
 offence, and to the exercise of discipline by the entire church. 
 Again, notices might have been sent privately to each indi- 
 vidual whose presence was desired by the pastor or the com- 
 mittee, without any public mention of names. If this view of 
 the case be a correct one, it is easy to see why the whole 
 community became so much excited, and that the people are 
 not entitled to all the blame in regard to this unhappy affair, 
 which had so much to do in the alienating of their affections 
 from their minister. 
 
 The unwillingness of the people to proceed with the pro- 
 posed investigation, upon the discovery made by them that 
 large numbers of their children were more or less implicated in 
 the alleged offence, not only aroused their feelings against their 
 minister, but as naturally led the minister to ascribe their con- 
 duct to a want of a proper zeal for the honor of Christ and the 
 purity of the Church. Hence doubts, which had already ex- 
 isted in his mind as to the propriety of receiving to the com- 
 munion of the church any persons who did not give satisfactory 
 evidence of being truly converted, ripened into a full conviction 
 that none but regenerate persons ought to partake of the Lord's 
 Supper. For many years, under the advice and teachings of
 
 MEMOIR OF THE REV. JONATHAN EDWARDS. ^ 
 
 his grandfather, a different course had been pursued, and all 
 baptized persons, who were fully and correctly instructed as to 
 the plan of salvation revealed in the Holy Scriptures, and who 
 professed to receive it as such, and who were free from all scan- 
 dal, were taught that it was their duty and privilege to come to 
 the Lord's table, notwithstanding any doubts they might have 
 in regard to themselves as regenerate persons, and even if they 
 had reason to believe they were not regenerated. This view of 
 the case had been discussed and defended by Mr. Stoddard, 
 and was zealously maintained by the churches in Hampshire 
 County. Mr. Edwards, having satisfied his own mind that this 
 method was contrary to the teachings of Scripture, resolutely 
 set himself to work to bring about a change in the practice of 
 the church of which he was pastor. His effort in this direc- 
 tion was not successful, and he was finally dismissed from 
 his charge by a council of ministers and delegates from the 
 neighboring churches called by himself and the church at 
 Northampton. 
 
 The opinion embraced by Mr. Edwards on this subject did 
 not originate with him, but was held quite generally by the 
 churches of New England at its first settlement; but no advo- 
 cate of this opinion has exerted so much influence as President 
 Edwards in the maintenance and propagation of it, both in 
 Congregational and Presbyterian churches. This is not the 
 time, nor is it the place, to discuss the correctness or the error 
 of an opinion which had so important a bearing upon some 
 of the leading events in the life of President Edwards, but it 
 cannot be improper, in this connection, to say that his views on 
 this subject were not the views held by his predecessors, Presi- 
 dents Dickinson and Burr, nor are they in accord with the 
 teachings of the " Directory for Worship" set forth by the 
 Presbyterian Church in this country.* The Rev. John Blair, 
 Vice-President of the College, and its first Professor of Moral 
 Philosophy and Divinity, from 1767 to 1769, published, in 1771, 
 " An Essay on the Nature, Uses, and Subjects of the Sacra- 
 
 * See " Directory for Worship," and " Christian Advocate," vol. x., edited by 
 President Green, or Dr. Sprague's " Annals," vol. iii., article Rev. Jacob Green.
 
 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 ments of the New Testament," in which he maintains and de- 
 fends views opposite to those of President Edwards. Mr. Blair's 
 discussion of the matters handled by him is very calm and very 
 able, and well worthy of a perusal by those who are seeking 
 light in regard to these matters. A careful comparison of the 
 views of President Edwards and of Vice-President Blair may 
 serve to elicit the exact truth more fully and clearly. 
 
 After the dissolution of his pastoral charge Mr. Edwards 
 remained for about a year at Northampton, but upon an invita- 
 tion to take charge of the church at Stockbridge, Massachusetts, 
 and also of the Indian mission there established, he removed to 
 that village, and devoted himself assiduously to his studies and 
 his ministerial and missionary labors. Here he rendered most 
 valuable services to the Indian mission, and also to the cause 
 of learning. He was not free altogether from trials in this 
 chosen retreat; but the same firmness and fidelity which had 
 always characterized him were manifested by him in his efforts 
 in behalf of the Indians, and a greater degree than usual of 
 prudence marked his course towards those with whom he was 
 brought into collision; and, the Lord favoring his faithful efforts, 
 he was successful in defending the interests of the Indians 
 against the machinations of sundry individuals, whose aim 
 seemed to be their own aggrandizement at the expense of the 
 youths sent to the mission-schools to be educated. 
 
 At Stockbridge Mr. Edwards wrote his famous work on the 
 " Will," which added so much to his already great reputation, 
 and gave him rank among the first philosophers of his age. 
 He resided at Stockbridge for six years, at the end of which 
 time, upon the death of his son-in-law, the Rev. Aaron Burr, 
 President of the College of New Jersey, he was chosen his suc- 
 cessor; and, as narrated in the account given of his short ad- 
 ministration, he with much hesitation and misgiving accepted 
 this appointment, so honorable to himself and to the institution 
 over which he was called to preside. 
 
 His letter of October 19, 1757, in reply to the one from the 
 Trustees of the College apprising him of his election, shows 
 that his modesty was equal to his great intellectual endow- 
 ments; and this letter, from which some extracts have been
 
 MEMOIR OF THE REV. JONATHAN EDWARDS. ^5 
 
 given, is in every respect worthy of its author. His aim seems 
 to be to prepare the minds of the Trustees for a refusal of their 
 offer, although he highly appreciated the honor they had done 
 him in choosing him to be the head of their important institu- 
 tion. In this letter he sets forth his reasons for thinking that 
 he is not the person for such a station. Still, he deemed it his 
 duty to submit the question of his acceptance to a council of 
 his clerical brethren ; and this he did, with a pretty clear intima- 
 tion, however, of his doubts, if not of his preferences. Having 
 received their judgment, which was in favor of his going to 
 Princeton, he yielded, and reluctantly gave up his church and 
 missionary work at Stockbridge to devote himself to the train- 
 ing of youth for the service of the Church in the gospel min- 
 istry, and for the welfare of the State in the different professions 
 and employments. 
 
 As before mentioned, he reached Princeton in the latter part 
 of January, and took the oath of office on the 1 6th of February, 
 1758. On the 23d of the same month, by the advice of phy- 
 sician and friends, he was inoculated for the smallpox, in con- 
 sequence of the general prevalence of this disease. A young 
 but skilful physician from Philadelphia, Dr. William Shippen, 
 came to Princeton to inoculate him and his daughter, Mrs. 
 Burr, and her two children; and after a most serious and de- 
 liberate consultation with certain friends they were all inocu- 
 lated,* and for a time they all apparently were doing well; but, 
 according to the statement of Dr. Shippen in his letter to Mrs. 
 Edwards informing her of the death of President Edwards, it 
 appears that 
 
 " Although he had the smallpox favorably, yet having a number of them in the 
 roof of his mouth and throat, he could not possibly swallow a sufficient quantity 
 of drink to keep off a secondary fever, which has proved too strong for his feeble 
 frame; and this afternoon [March 22], between two and three o'clock, it pleased 
 God to let him sleep in that dear Lord Jesus whose kingdom and interest he has 
 been faithfully and painfully serving all his life." Dr. Shippen adds, " And 
 never did any mortal man more fully and clearly evidence the sincerity of all his 
 professions, by one continued, universal, calm, cheerful resignation, and patient 
 submission to the divine will, through every stage of his disease, than he : not 
 
 * It is said that he was inoculated with the consent of the Trustees, but upon 
 what authority I know not. The minutes of the Board make no reference to it. 
 vol.. I. 13
 
 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 so much as one discontented expression, nor the least appearance of murmuring 
 through the whole. And never did any person expire with more perfect freedom 
 from pain, not so much as distorted hair, but, in the most proper sense of the 
 words, he fell asleep. Death had certainly lost his sting as to him."* 
 
 After he was sensible that he could not survive that sickness, 
 a little before his death he called his daughterf to him, who 
 attended in his sickness, and addressed her in a few words, 
 which were immediately taken down in writing as nearly as 
 could be recollected, and are as follows : 
 
 " Dear Lucy, it seems to me to be the will of God that I must shortly leave you ; 
 therefore give, my kindest love to my dear wife, and tell her that the uncommon 
 union, which has so long subsisted between us, has been of such a nature as I trust 
 is spiritual, and will therefore continue forever; and I hope she will be supported 
 under so great a trial, and submit cheerfully to the will of God. And as to my 
 children, you are now like to be left fatherless; which I hope will be an induce- 
 ment for you all to seek a Father who will never fail you. And as to my funeral, 
 I would have it to be like Mr. Burr's ; J and any additional sum of money that 
 might be expected to be laid out that way, I would have it disposed of to charitable 
 uses." 
 
 " He said very little in his sickness, but was an admirable in- 
 stance of patience and resignation to the last. Just at the close 
 of life, as some persons, who stood by expecting he would 
 breathe his last in a few minutes, were lamenting his death, 
 not only as a great frown upon the College, but as having a 
 dark aspect upon the interest of religion in general, to their 
 surprise, not imagining he heard or that he would ever speak 
 another word, he said, 'Trust in God, and ye need not fear.' 
 These were his last words." (Dwight's " Life.") 
 
 The Trustees caused a marble monument to be erected in 
 honor of President Edwards. On this monument was the fol- 
 lowing inscription : 
 
 M. S. 
 
 Reverend! admodum Viri, 
 
 Jonathan Edwards, A.M., 
 
 Collegii Novae Caesarise Prsesidis, 
 
 Natus apud Windsor Connecticutensium V Octobris, 
 
 A.D. MDCCIIL S. V. 
 
 * See Dwight's " Life," page 870. 
 
 f His eldest unmarried daughter. 
 
 \ See notice of Mr. Burr's funeral, page 166.
 
 MEMOIR OF THE REV. JONATHAN EDWARDS. i%j 
 
 Patre Reverenclo Timotheo Edwards oriundus, 
 
 Collegio Yalensi educatus ; 
 Apud Northampton Sacris initiatus, XV Februarii 
 
 MDCCXXVI-VII. 
 
 Illinc dimissus XXII Junii MDCCL, 
 
 Et Munus Barbaros instituendi accepit. 
 
 Praeses Aulae Nassovicse creatus XVI Februarii 
 
 MDCCLVIII. 
 
 Defunctus in hoc Vico XXII Martii sequentis, S. N. 
 Aetatis LV, heu nimis brevis ! 
 
 Hie jacel mortalis Pars. 
 
 Qualis Persona quoeris, Viator ? 
 
 Vir corpora proeero, sed gracili, 
 
 Studiis intentissimis, Abstinentia, et Sedulitate, 
 
 Attenuate, 
 Ingenii Acumine, Judicio acri, et Prudentia, 
 
 Secundus Nemini Mortalium. 
 Artium liberalium et Scientiarum Peritia insignis, 
 Criticorum sacrorum optimus, Theologus eximius, 
 
 Ut vix alter sequalis : Disputator candidus ; 
 
 Fidei Christianae Propugnator validus et invictus ; 
 
 Concionator gravis, serius, discriminans ; 
 
 Et, Deo favente, Successu 
 
 Felicissimus. 
 
 Pietate pneclarus, Moribus suis severus, 
 
 Ast aliis aequus et benignus, 
 
 Vixit dilectus, veneratus 
 
 Sed ah ! lugendus 
 
 Moriebatur, 
 
 Quantos Gemitus discedens ciebat ! 
 
 Heu Sapientia tanta ! heu Doctrina et Religio ! 
 
 Amissum plorat Collegium, plorat Ecclesia; 
 
 At, eo recepto, gaudet 
 
 Ccelum. 
 Abi Viator, et pia sequere Vestigia. 
 
 Mrs. Edwards did not long survive her husband. In Septem- 
 ber she set out, in her usual health, for Philadelphia, to bring 
 to Stockbridge the two orphan children of her daughter, Mrs. 
 Burr. Upon the death of Mrs. Burr, which occurred a few 
 weeks after her father's death, these children, a daughter and a 
 son, had been taken care of by some friends, and they were in 
 Philadelphia at the time of Mrs. Edwards's visit to that city. 
 She arrived there on the 2 1st of September, and within a few 
 days she was seized with a dysentery, from which she died on
 
 !88 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 the 2<d of October, 1758, in the forty-ninth year of her age, 
 after an illness of five days. She suffered intensely, but died in 
 perfect peace. Her remains were taken to Princeton, and were 
 buried by those of her husband. 
 
 Mrs. Edwards was a remarkable woman, distinguished for 
 her personal charms, her great intelligence, and her early and 
 fervent piety, and also for her wise and economical manage- 
 ment of her family affairs, setting her children an example 
 worthy of their admiration and imitation, in her diligent atten- 
 tion to the affairs of her household, and in her unceasing 
 efforts to train her children in the nurture and admonition of 
 the Lord. 
 
 Mrs. Edwards was a daughter of the Rev. John Pierpont, of 
 New Haven, and she was married to Mr. Edwards on the 28th 
 of July, 1727. She was the mother of eleven children, three 
 sons and eight daughters. Two of her daughters died young 
 and unmarried; the other children all grew up and were mar- 
 ried, and their descendants are very numerous, and some of 
 them are among the most eminent in their respective callings. 
 
 The following is a list of the published works of President 
 Edwards, taken from Dr. Sprague's sketch of his life. 
 
 1731. A sermon, " God glorified in Man's Dependence." 
 
 1734. A sermon, "A Divine and Supernatural Light imparted to the Soul by 
 the Spirit of God." 
 
 1735. A sermon, " Curse ye Meroz." 
 
 1736. "A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God, in the Conversion 
 of many Hundred Souls in Northampton," etc. (London.) 
 
 1738. Five Discourses, prefixed to the American edition of the preceding. 
 1741. A sermon, " Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." 
 1741. A sermon, "Sorrows of the Bereaved spread before Jesus," at the 
 funeral of the Rev. William Williams. 
 
 1741. A sermon, "Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the True Spirit," 
 preached at New Haven. 
 
 1742. "Thoughts on the Revival in New England in 1740." 
 
 1743. A sermon, "The Watchman's Duty and Account," at the ordination of 
 the Rev. Jonathan Judd, of Southampton, Massachusetts. 
 
 1744. A sermon, "The True Excellency of a Gospel Minister," preached at 
 the ordination of the Rev. Robert Abercrombie, of Pelham, Massachusetts. 
 
 1746. A treatise concerning Religious Affections. (Printed at Boston.) 
 1746. "An Humble Attempt to promote Explicit, Agreeable, and Visible Union 
 among God's People in Extraordinary Prayer."
 
 MEMOIR OF THE REV. JONATHAN EDWARDS. 
 
 1747. A sermon, "True Saints, when Absent from the Body, Present with the 
 Lord," preached at the funeral of the Rev. David Brainerd. 
 
 1748. A sermon, "God's Awful Judgments in breaking the Strong Rods of 
 the Community," occasioned by the death of Colonel John Stoddard. 
 
 1749. " Life and Diary of the Rev. David Brainerd." 
 
 1749. A sermon, "Christ the Example of Gospel Ministers," preached at the 
 ordination of the Rev. Job Strong. 
 
 1749. " Qualifications for Full Communion in the Visible Church." 
 
 1750. " Farewell Sermon to the People of Northampton." 
 
 1752. " Misrepresentation Corrected and Truth Vindicated, in a Reply to Mr. 
 Solomon Williams' Book on ' Qualifications for Communion ;' to which is added 
 a Letter from Mr. Edwards to His Late Flock at Northampton." 
 
 1752. A sermon, "True Grace distinguished from the Experience of Devils," 
 preached before the Synod of New York, at Newark, New Jersey. 
 
 1754. " Inquiry into Freedom of the Will." 
 
 1758. " The Doctrine of Original Sin defended." 
 
 1765. Eighteen Sermons annexed to the " Life of Edwards" by Dr. Hopkins. 
 
 1777. " The History of Redemption." (Edinburgh.) 
 
 1788. " Nature of True Virtue." 
 
 1788. " God's Last End in Creation." 
 
 1788. Practical Sermons. (Edinburgh.) 
 
 1789. Twenty Sermons. (Edinburgh.) 
 
 1793. "Miscellaneous Observations on Important Theological Subjects.'' 
 (Edinburgh.) 
 
 1796. "Remarks on Important Theological Controversies." (Edinburgh.) 
 1829. " Types of the Messiah." 
 1829. " Notes on the Bible." 
 1852. " Charity and its Fruits." 
 
 The most complete collection of his published works and 
 correspondence is the one edited by his great-grandson, Rev. 
 Dr. Sereno E. Dwight, in ten volumes, inclusive of the one 
 containing his life. These volumes furnish evidence of his 
 untiring industry and of his rarely equalled power of thought. 
 The correctness of his opinions on various subjects may be 
 questioned, but there can be no question as to the ability with 
 which they are maintained and defended. And no theological 
 writer of the last century exerted a more powerful influence in 
 moulding the opinions of those who hold sentiments commonly 
 designated evangelical. Such a master-spirit as Dr. Chalmers 
 expresses in the following words his own appreciation of Ed- 
 wards as a theologian : 
 
 " I have long esteemed him as the greatest of theologians, combining in a degree 
 that is quite unexampled the profoundly intellectual with the devotedly spiritual
 
 I OX) HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 and sacred, and realizing in his own person a most rare yet most beautiful harmony 
 between the simplicity of the Christian pastor on the one hand, and on the other 
 all the strength and prowess of a giant in philosophy ; so as at once to minister, 
 from Sabbath to Sabbath, and with the most blessed effect, to the hearers of his 
 plain congregation, and yet in the high field of authorship to have traversed, in a 
 way that none had ever done before him, the most inaccessible places, and such a 
 mastery as never till his time had been realized over the most arduous difficulties 
 of our science. 
 
 " There is no European divine to whom I make such frequent appeals in my 
 class-rooms as I do to Edwards. No book of human composition which I more 
 strenuously recommend than his ' Treatise on the Will,' read by me forty-seven 
 years ago, with a conviction which has never since faltered, and which has helped 
 me, more than any other uninspired book, to find my way through all that might 
 otherwise have proved baffling and transcendental and mysterious in the peculiari- 
 ties of Calvinism." (Extract from a letter to the Rev. Dr. Stebbins, of Northamp- 
 ton, given in Dr. Sprague's Sketch of President Edwards, and the sentiments 
 of which Dr. Sprague says Dr. Chalmers expressed to him in a private conversa- 
 tion.) 
 
 It does not, however, follow from all this that no false posi- 
 tions are assumed in the writings of President Edwards, or that 
 he never gives utterance to forms of thought which if carried to 
 their logical conclusion would lead to serious error. Nor does 
 it follow that his exhibition of the religious affections and men- 
 tal exercises connected with true conversion is in all cases to be 
 taken, without any doubt or question, as being the actual and 
 invariable experience of all persons truly regenerate.* 
 
 * President Edwards was a man of eminent piety, as well as a man well versed 
 in the teachings of Scripture and the experiences of godly minds; still, there seems 
 to be in some of his writings too much insisting upon a settled order and a certain 
 degree of inward experiences as essential to true conversion, more likely in some 
 cases to hinder than to aid the inquirer in coming to a right decision in regard to 
 himself. 
 
 Doddridge's famous work on the " Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul" 
 is a work of this description, and while in many cases it has done great good, there 
 are others in which to a tender conscience it has proved a real hindrance to its 
 spiritual advancement and growth in grace. The type of piety produced under 
 this procrustean treatment, while sometimes both genuine and beautiful, and by 
 consequence lovely, and ever bowing with unfeigned submission to the sovereign 
 will of God, often lacks that cheerfulness of spirit, and that exuberant joyfulness, 
 which it should be the aim of every redeemed soul to have and to keep as pertain- 
 ing to the privileges purchased and made over to it by its beloved Saviour, the 
 incarnate Son of God. Such a work as Edwards's on the " Religious Affections" 
 was perhaps better adapted to the state of things in his day than it is in ours; and
 
 MEMOIR OF THE REV. JONATHAN EDWARDS, l ^ l 
 
 yet this great work may be read and studied with the greatest profit by all who are 
 desirous to distinguish true religious affections from those which are false, if they 
 will bear in mind that while persons truly converted may be conscious of possess- 
 ing all the views and feelings therein described, yet that such consciousness is not 
 essential to vital piety. While they find in themselves those great distinguishing 
 marks of true conversion, love to God, and love to man, with a humble trust in 
 the righteousness and intercession of their Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ as the 
 ground of their hope, and of their acceptance with God, they need not be con- 
 cerned at the discovery that they possess not some of those experiences which are 
 insisted upon by writers on Experimental Religion.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE INTERVAL BETWEEN THE DECEASE OF PRESIDENT EDWARDS 
 AND THE INAUGURATION OF THE REV. SAMUEL DAVIES AS PRESI- 
 DENT OF THE COLLEGE. 
 
 MR. EDWARDS died on the 22d of March, and the next meet- 
 ing of the Board took place on Wednesday, the I9th of April, 
 1758, the instruction of the classes in this interval being con- 
 ducted by the Tutors, Messrs. Ewing and Halsey. 
 
 Exclusive of the Governor of the State and the President 
 of the College, the Board of Trustees consisted of twenty-one 
 members; and of these, eleven were clergymen and ten laymen. 
 On this occasion all the clerical members were present, and 
 only three of the lay members. 
 
 The following is a copy of the minutes at this meeting: 
 
 " The Trustees met according to appointment at Nassau Hall, on Wednesday, the 
 igth day of April, A.D. 1758. 
 
 " Present, William P. Smith and Samuel Woodruff, Esqrs. ; the Rev. Messrs. 
 Gilbert Tennent, William Tennent, David Cowell, Richard Treat, Timothy Johnes, 
 Jacob Green, John Pierson, Samuel Finley, Caleb Smith, John Brainerd, Charles 
 McKnight, and Richard Stockton. [Mr. Stockton was Clerk of the Board.] The 
 Clerk certified that he had duly notified each member of this present meeting. 
 
 " The minutes of the last meeting were ordered to be read. It is ordered, that 
 Messrs. Treat, Cowell, and Stockton, or any two of them, be a committee to ascer- 
 tain the sum of money in the hands of the Treasurer which was given in Trust for 
 the Benefit of poor Scholars, and make Report thereof to the next meeting. 
 
 " Messrs. Green, Brainerd, and Smith, appointed the last meeting to inspect the 
 College Fund and settle the accounts with the Treasurer, having not finished the 
 said affair, it is ordered, that they make report of the Business, and also the state of 
 the Expenses for the current year, to the meeting of the Trustees at the next Com- 
 mencement. 
 
 " It is ordered, that the Tuition money and Study Rent until the next Commence- 
 ment be put into the hands of the Steward of the College, and that he pay the 
 same unto the Treasurer. 
 
 " It having pleased God to remove by Death the late Rev. Mr. Edwards, President 
 of the College, a few weeks after he had taken upon him the Charge of the Col- 
 192
 
 REV. JAMES LOCKWOOD ELECTED PRESIDENT. jgj 
 
 lege ; It is ordered, that the Treasurer pay unto the Executors of the said Mr. 
 Edwards the sum of One Hundred Pounds, being the one-half of his salary for one 
 year, which he had a right to receive at the end of six months after the last Com- 
 mencement ; the said six months being unexpired notwithstanding. 
 
 " The Presidentship of the College having become vacant by the Death of the 
 late Rev. President Edwards, the Trustees, after Prayer particularly on this account 
 being made, and having taken deliberate consideration of the matter, do elect the 
 Rev. Mr. James Lockwood, of Wethersfield, in the Colony of Connecticut, to be 
 the President of the College ; and the Clerk is ordered to write a Letter unto the 
 said Mr. Lockwood informing him of the said Election and requesting his accept- 
 ance; and Mr. Spencer, one of the members of the Corporation, is desired to wait 
 on the said Mr. Lockwood and deliver him the said Letter. 
 
 " It is ordered, that the Expenses attending the moving of Mr. Lockwood's Family 
 to this Place be paid by the Treasurer. 
 
 " It is ordered, that Messrs. William P. Smith, Woodruff, Pierson, Johnes, Green, 
 Caleb Smith, and Brainerd, or any four of them, be a Committee to transact the 
 affair of Mr. Lockwood's Removal. 
 
 " The Rev. Caleb Smith is appointed President of this College until the next 
 Trustee meeting; and the said appointment being made known to the said Mr. 
 Smith, he was pleased to accept the same, and was qualified as the Charter directs. 
 
 " Mr. McWhorter, who was heretofore appointed an Usher in the Grammar 
 School, not having accepted the same, and Mr. Strain having at the request of the 
 Board for some time performed the said Business, and being willing to continue 
 therein ; It is ordered, that the said Mr. Strain be paid at the rate of ,40 per 
 annum for the Time he has acted, and shall act as Usher in the said school. 
 
 " The Board adjourned until 7 o'clock to-morrow morning. 
 
 " 2d Day, 7 o'clock. The Trustees met according to adjournment. 
 
 " Present as before. 
 
 " The Rev. Samuel Finley is appointed to take upon himself the Charge of the 
 College and act as President thereof until the 22d day of May next, and the said 
 Mr. Finley was qualified as the Charter directs." No reason is given for this action of 
 the Board just at the close of their session. Only the simple fact is a matter of record. 
 
 Here we have a regularly elected President, viz., the Rev. 
 Mr. Lockwood, and two acting Presidents, chosen at the same 
 meeting of the Board. It is obvious why a. pro tern. President 
 was chosen upon the election of Mr. Lockwood, who, whatever 
 might be his decision, would not be able at once to take upon 
 himself the charge of the College ; and the suggestion of Dr. 
 Green in his " Notes" doubtless assigns the true reason why 
 Mr. Finley was chosen to serve in the office of President for a 
 short but definite period, and that, too, just after Mr. Smith had 
 been qualified to act as President until the next meeting of the 
 Trustees. Dr. Green's suggestion is this : that Mr. Smith find- 
 ing he could not attend to the duties of the office before the
 
 IO/ 4 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 22d of May, Mr. Finley was chosen to take his place until that 
 time. From the subsequent minutes of the Board it appears 
 that both Mr. Finley and Mr. Smith took upon themselves 
 the oversight of the College for the time allotted to each 
 respectively. 
 
 " The next meeting of the Trustees took place at Nassau Hall, on Wednesday, the 
 1 6th of August, A.D. 1758. There were present His Excellency Francis Bernard, 
 Esq., the Hon. James Hude, Esq., the Hon. Samuel Woodruff, Esq., William 
 P. Smith, Esq., Peter V. B. Livingston, Esq., the Rev. Messrs. Caleb Smith, 
 John Pierson, Gilbert Tennent, William Tennent, David Cowell, Richard Treat, 
 Samuel Finley, Jacob Green, Alexander Gumming, Charles McKnight, and Richard 
 Stockton, Esq. 
 
 " The Clerk certified that he had duly notified each member of this present 
 meeting. 
 
 " His Excellency Francis Bernard, Esq., Governor of this Province, having been 
 pleased to attend the present meeting of the Trustees, was qualified as the Charter 
 directs, and took his seat as President accordingly. 
 
 " The definitive answer of the Rev. Mr. Lockwood, of Wethersfield, the Presi- 
 dent elect of this College, was read ; by which it fully appears that the Rev. Mr. 
 Lockwood had refused accepting the Presidentship agreeably to the choice of this 
 Board ; whereupon, after mature deliberation, the Board proceeded to the election 
 of a President of the College, when the Rev. Mr. Samuel Davies, of Virginia, was 
 duly elected. On which the Clerk is ordered as soon as possible to communicate 
 the Notice of the said Election to the said Mr. Davies, and desire his acceptance 
 thereof, and request his answer as soon as may be, and if it suits Conveniency, his 
 attendance at the next Commencement. And the Treasurer is hereby ordered to 
 pay the expenses of removing Mr. Davies's Family to this Place. 
 
 " The Rev. Mr. Smith is desired and hereby empowered to preside until the 
 next Commencement, and then to give the Degrees to the Candidates ; and in case 
 of his absence, the Rev. Mr. Cowell or Cummings are hereby empowered to trans- 
 act the said affair. 
 
 " The Board adjourned till 8 o'clock to-morrow morning. 
 
 " A Committee was appointed to manage the affair of Mr. Davies's removal to 
 Princeton ; and the same Committee was authorized to send to England for what 
 Books they may think necessary for the use of the College and Grammar School, 
 not exceeding ^40 sterling ; also to settle with Mr. Robert Smith (who built the 
 President's house), and the Executor of President Burr, the matter relative to the 
 surplus over and above ^600 for which the said house was to have been built ; 
 and also to conclude about finishing the President's house and College." 
 
 From this and other minutes it appears that neither the Col- 
 lege nor the President's house was completely finished at the 
 time they were first occupied. 
 
 The Rev. Mr. George Duffield, who had served as Tutor 
 from 1754 to 1/56, was chosen senior Tutor, with the desire
 
 RELIGIOUS SERVICES ON THE SABBATH. 
 
 195 
 
 expressed by the Board that he might be permanently con- 
 nected with the College. They offered him one hundred pounds 
 a year, with a promise to increase this salary as they reasonably 
 could should his circumstances require it. The offer was not 
 accepted. 
 
 There being no regularly organized Presbyterian church in 
 Princeton, and no building for regular religious services on 
 the Sabbath, the President of the College for the time being 
 preached regularly in the College Chapel ; and such residents 
 of the village and vicinity as desired so to do were permitted 
 to attend the services in the College, and separate pews were 
 assigned to such as were willing to pay for the use of them. 
 Some of the occupants of these pews having neglected their 
 pew-rents, it was 
 
 " Ordered, That the pew-rents in the Hall for the last year be immediately paid 
 unto the Steward of the College, and on failure of compliance of any Person, that 
 such Person forfeit his Pew." 
 
 The tuition-fees for a year were increased from three pounds 
 to four pounds proclamation money : this additional charge, 
 however, was not to be exacted of any already in college, but 
 of those who should after this time enter the Freshman class. 
 
 The Rev. Mr. Finley was " authorized and desired to amend 
 and prepare for the press the Newark Grammar with all pos- 
 sible expedition, and to transmit the same to the President 
 of the College for the time being." This Newark Grammar 
 was a Latin grammar said to have been prepared by President 
 Burr. 
 
 An order was passed, that Mr. Finley be paid ten pounds for 
 the time that he inspected the government of the College, and 
 that Mr. Smith should be paid for his services forty pounds. 
 
 From a report made by a committee appointed at the last 
 meeting, it appeared " that the fund for poor scholars in the 
 Treasurer's hands" amounted to the sum of five hundred 
 pounds proc., the interest to be computed from October next; 
 and for this sum the Trustees agreed to be accountable to 
 the Synod of New York and Philadelphia, the common ex- 
 pense and casualties to which their own funds are liable being 
 excepted.
 
 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 " The fund here mentioned," says President Green,* " was formed by donations 
 obtained in England and Scotland by Messrs. Tennent and Davies for the educa- 
 tion of poor and pious youth for the gospel ministry. It was loaned to the College, 
 and was originally under the guardianship of the Synod of New York, but was now 
 transferred to the Synod of New York and Philadelphia. . . . The fund here re- 
 ferred to was almost annihilated by the depreciation of paper money during the 
 Revolutionary war. The interest arising on the remainder of it is now disposed of 
 annually, for the benefit of some student in the College, by a committee of the Gen- 
 eral Assembly and a committee of the Trustees." 
 
 At a subsequent date, the selection of the beneficiary was 
 given up to the College authorities. 
 
 This seems to be a suitable place to say a few words of the 
 Rev. James Lockwood, who was chosen to succeed Mr. Ed- 
 wards in the office of President of the College, but declined the 
 appointment. "The reasons which induced Mr. Lockwood to 
 refuse the Presidency," says President Green, " cannot now be 
 known. He was a man of great worth and high reputation." 
 The Trustees, however, were not unanimous in his election. 
 This is not apparent from the minutes of the Board ; but Mr. 
 Davies, in writing on the subject to his friend Dr. Gibbons, of 
 London, says, "The trustees were divided between him, another 
 gentleman, and myself, but I happily escaped." The other gen- 
 tleman referred to was most probably the Rev. Samuel Finley, 
 who was also named as a candidate for the office at the time 
 Mr. Davies was chosen. 
 
 Mr. Lockwood must have been a man of much more than 
 ordinary merit. In 1766, upon the resignation of President 
 Clap, of Yale College, Mr. Lockwood was chosen his suc- 
 cessor. But this appointment he also declined. " The reason 
 given," says Dr. Sprague, "for his non-acceptance in both cases 
 was his strong attachment to the people of his charge, and his 
 consequent unwillingness to separate himself from them. He 
 continued their pastor, greatly respected and beloved, till the 
 close of life. He died July 20, 1772, in the fifty '-eighth year of his 
 age, and the thirty-fourth of his ministry." He was very friendly 
 to Mr. Whitefield, and countenanced his labors in the great re- 
 vival of 1740. This circumstance probably contributed to his 
 
 * See his " Notes."
 
 THE COMMENCEMENT OF ///?. l ^ 
 
 election as President of the College of New Jersey. His wife 
 was a daughter of the Rev. Moses Dickinson, a brother of Presi- 
 dent Dickinson. Mr. Lockwood was a graduate of Yale College, 
 as were the first three Presidents of this College, Messrs. Dickin- 
 son, Burr, and Edwards. 
 
 The Commencement of 1758 took place on Wednesday the 
 2/th of September; but the record of this meeting is so defect- 
 ive that we have the name of only one of the Trustees present 
 on this occasion. Eighteen candidates were admitted to the 
 first degree in the Arts, and seven received their second degree. 
 The record is not in the handwriting of the Clerk, nor is the 
 entry made at the proper page. 
 
 As the Rev. Caleb Smith was the President pro tern., and as 
 he had been requested to preside at the Commencement exer- 
 cises, it is most probable that the degrees were conferred by 
 him. 
 
 At an adjourned meeting of the Board, held November 22, 
 1758, there were present fourteen members, nine ministers 
 and five laymen. 
 
 The Rev. George Duffield having declined the appointment 
 tendered to him by the Trustees at their meeting in August, they 
 now elect Mr. Joseph Treat a Tutor, and order that his salary 
 shall begin from the preceding Commencement. From which 
 order it is evident that without a formal appointment he acted 
 as Tutor, and probably at the request of some one or more of 
 the Trustees. 
 
 " The Committee empowered to transact the affair of Mr. Davies's removal having 
 produced his answer, and the Trustees having considered the same, adjudge that 
 the said answer is final in the Negative." 
 
 The Board then adjourned until eight o'clock the next morning. There were 
 present the same persons as on the preceding day. They elected the Rey. 
 Jacob Green, a member of the Board, Vice-President of the College, to serve 
 until a President should be chosen ; and it was ordered that his salary be at the 
 rate of two hundred Pounds per annum, for the time he shall serve in the above 
 character. It was also ordered that he should have care and general government 
 of the grammar-school. Mr. Green, accepting this appointment, was qualified as 
 the Charter directed. 
 
 It was then " ordered, that there be a meeting of the Trustees on the second 
 Wednesday in May next, principally designed for the Election of a President of 
 the College.
 
 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 " Agreeably to this order, there was a meeting of the Board on Wednesday, the 
 gth day of May, 1759, thirteen members present. 
 
 " After acting upon a report from the Referees appointed to settle the dispute be- 
 tween the Executor of Mr. Burr and the Board about the President's House, and 
 agreeing to pay the surplus of the 600, for which said house was to have been 
 built, the Board adjourned till 2 o'clock P.M. 
 
 " At 2 P.M. the Trustees again met. His Excellency Governor Bernard and three 
 other members of the Board having arrived, there were present in all seventeen, 
 nine ministers and eight laymen." 
 
 The following is a copy of the minutes at this important 
 meeting : 
 
 " The Rev. Mr. Samuel Davies was proposed as a Candidate for the Presidency 
 of the College, and admitted, Nem. Con. ; arid also the Rev. Mr. Samuel Finley 
 was admitted a Candidate in the same manner. 
 
 " Whereupon, after mature Deliberation of the Premises, the Rev. Mr. Samuel 
 Davies was duly elected President of this College, and as this Society has been so long 
 a time destitute of a fixed President, and by means thereof the former flourishing 
 State so greatly affected, the Trustees desire and do hereby appoint the Rev. Messrs. 
 Caleb Smith, John Brainerd, and Elihu Spencer, of their number (who design to 
 meet the Synod of New York and Philadelphia on next week), and any other gentle- 
 men of this Board who shall be there, to request the said Synod to dismiss the said 
 Mr. Davies from his pastoral charge, that he may be thereby enabled to accept of 
 the said Office. 
 
 " The Reverend Mr. Green having fulfilled the term of his former Election of 
 Vice-President of the College, he is hereby appointed to continue in his said office 
 until a fixed President can attend for the service of that Office. 
 
 " It is ordered, that hereafter whenever a Vacancy shall happen in the President- 
 ship of the College by Death or otherwise, that the Clerk with all convenient speed 
 convene Six of the Trustees, and by their appointment shall give Notice (declaring 
 such vacancy) of a meeting of the Trustees at any Time, not less than four months 
 accounted from the date of said Notice, in Order for electing a President, and that 
 all Notices thus given shall be regular to all Intents and Purposes. 
 
 " Mr. Caleb Smith produced a Plan of Union among the several Colleges in these 
 Provinces, drawn up by Mr. President Clap, of Yale College, in Connecticut ; 
 which, being read, was referred for further consideration. 
 
 " It is ordered, that there be a meeting of the Trustees of the College at the next 
 Commencement, and that the members take notice thereof accordingly." 
 
 Before the next meeting President Davies arrived at Prince- 
 ton, and entered upon the duties of his office on the 26th of 
 July, although he was not formally inducted, by the taking of 
 the oaths required by the charter, until Wednesday, the 26th day 
 of September, 1759. 
 
 From March 22, 1758, the day on which President Edwards 
 died, until the 26th of July, 1759, the day on which President
 
 ELECTION OF PRESIDENT POSTPONED. 
 
 199 
 
 Davies entered upon his duties, the space of an entire year and 
 four months, the College was without a regular or permanent 
 President; and although the reverend gentlemen who during 
 this interval presided over the institution were all well qualified 
 for their positions, yet the mere fact that the College was all this 
 time without a permanent head was a great drawback to its 
 prosperity, and made the Trustees the more anxious to secure 
 without further delay the services of Mr. Davies, when it be- 
 came known to them that if again elected he would accept the 
 appointment. 
 
 As mentioned above, the minutes of the Trustees for the 
 meeting of Wednesday, 2/th of September, 1758, are very de- 
 ficient, and a full and accurate account of the negotiations can- 
 not be obtained from the minutes alone. Mr. Davies was first 
 chosen President on the i6th of August, 1758. He referred the 
 question, whether he ought to accept this appointment, to the 
 Presbytery, of which he was a member, and they decided that 
 he ought not to relinquish his pastoral charge. He therefore 
 wrote to the Trustees declining their offer. But upon further 
 reflection, fearing he might have erred in deciding not to accept 
 the Presidency, he writes to the Rev. David Cowell, most prob- 
 ably in reply to a letter from Mr. C, and authorizes him, in case 
 the Trustees cannot agree upon Mr. Finley, to place him again 
 in nomination for the office of President. Mr. Cowell was a 
 Trustee of the College, and a member of the committee ap- 
 pointed by the Board to make provision for Mr. Davies's re- 
 moval to Princeton. 
 
 On the 27th of September, the day of the annual Commence- 
 ment, the Trustees must have received notice of Mr. Davies's 
 refusal to accept the office of President ; but instead of proceed- 
 ing at once to the election of another person to said office, they 
 desire Mr. Davies to consent to act as Vice-President of the 
 College until the meeting of the Synod in May next, and to 
 refer the decision of the Presbytery to the Synod for its judg- 
 ment. But this proposal Mr. Davies declines, and in a letter to 
 Mr. Cowell, of the date of October 18, he revokes the permis- 
 sion which he had conditionally given Mr. Cowell to nominate 
 him a second time for the office of President, and urges the
 
 200 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 choosing of Mr. Finley. The Trustees met again on the 22d 
 of November, and, learning Mr. Davies's answer, after a full 
 consideration of the subject they postponed the election of a 
 President, and elected the Rev. Jacob Green Vice-President, to 
 preside until a President be chosen, and then adjourned, to 
 meet on the 9th of May next, chiefly for the purpose, as stated 
 in their minutes, of choosing a President for the College. 
 
 In a letter of the date of December 25, 1758, Mr. Cowell 
 informs Mr. Davies that it is impossible to unite upon Mr. 
 Finley, that there was a bare quorum of the Trustees to receive 
 his second denial, that the Governor (Governor Bernard) de- 
 sired them not to proceed to the election of a President at this 
 time, and that they had chosen Mr. Green Vice-President pro tern. 
 
 It is evident that a majority of the Trustees present on this 
 occasion were not prepared to choose any other person than 
 Mr. Davies, and it is probable that they still hoped that he 
 might be induced to accept the office should it again be tendered 
 to him. 
 
 In Mr. Cowell's correspondence with Mr. Davies, Mr. C. re- 
 marks, " The College is to be esteemed of as high importance 
 as any institution in the land. Our beginning was small ; God 
 has carried it on until it is a marvel in our eyes." 
 
 From information received from the Rev. John Ewing, of 
 Nottingham, Maryland, and formerly a Tutor in the College, 
 Mr. Cowell, in his letter of December 25, was led to censure 
 Mr. Jeremiah Halsey, then the senior Tutor, for endeavoring 
 to prevent Mr. Davies's acceptance of the office of President. 
 But Mr. Davies, in his reply of March 12, 1757, fully exculpates 
 Mr. Halsey; and yet it is very probable that the information 
 which was given him by Mr. Halsey, at Mr. Davies's own re- 
 quest, had considerable influence in determining him to decline 
 the second proposal made to him. 
 
 In his correspondence with Mr. Cowell, which took place be- 
 tween the two meetings of the Board, November 22, 1758, and 
 May 9, 1759, Mr. Davies, while consenting on certain condi- 
 tions that he should again be nominated for the Presidency, ex- 
 pressly insists that the first election, viz., the one on the i6th of 
 August preceding, should be regarded as null ; and that, if the
 
 MR. DA VIES DECLINES THE PRESIDENCY. 2 OI 
 
 Trustees still desired him to accept the office, they must elect 
 him again, and the election be subject to the consent and ap- 
 proval of the Synod. To this condition the Trustees could 
 have no objection, as they were morally certain that the Synod 
 would give their consent, and as they knew that Mr. Davies 
 could not give up his pastoral charge in Virginia unless the 
 Synod permitted him to do so. 
 
 There can be no doubt that the two things which more than 
 anything else made Mr. Davies hesitate in regard to accepting 
 the offer of the Trustees, were his unwillingness to quit his field 
 of labor in Virginia and his knowledge of the fact that there 
 was a division in the Board of Trustees. A minority of the 
 Board held with Mr. Davies himself, that Mr. Finley was the 
 better qualified man for the position ; but the majority believed 
 that Mr. Davies was the man for the place, and they determined 
 to get him if they could. 
 
 In a letter of the date of January I, 1759, to Dr. Bellamy, the 
 Rev. David Bostwick, of New York, and subsequently a Trustee 
 of the College, remarks, " Mr. Davies sent an absolute refusal, 
 grounded upon information that there was a party against him. 
 The Trustees divided between him and Mr. Finley. And party 
 spirit, I fear, runs pretty high. The majority carried it that Mr. 
 Davies should be tried again. Mr. Green is Vice-President till 
 May." It does not appear from the minutes of the Board that 
 the majority formally decided that Mr. Davies should be tried 
 again; but their action was in accord with such a purpose. Mr. 
 Davies's own account of the matter is to be found in his 
 farewell sermon, preached at Hanover, Virginia, on the ist of 
 July, 1759, and confirms the view here given, although it 
 abounds less in details. (See Davies's " Sermons," in three 
 volumes, published in New York in 1842.) 
 
 The officers and teachers of the College during this interval 
 were, the Rev. Caleb Smith, President pro tern. ; Rev. Samuel 
 Finley, President pro tent. ; Rev. Jacob Green, Vice-President 
 pro tern. ; Mr. John Ewing, Tutor ; Mr. Jeremiah Halsey, 
 Tutor ; Mr. Joseph Treat, Tutor. 
 
 The Tutors were admirably qualified for their work, and 
 became men of note. 
 
 vol.. i. 14
 
 2Q2 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JEKSEY. 
 
 At the Commencement of 1758, eighteen were admitted to 
 the first degree in the Arts, and the same number at the Com- 
 mencement of 1759, at the latter of which Mr. Davies presided, 
 although he had little or nothing to do in the instruction of the 
 candidates. 
 
 Of the class of 1758 were Peter R. Livingston, chosen, in 
 1776, President of the Provincial Congress, New York ; John 
 Van Brugh Tennent, one of the founders of the first medical 
 school of New York, and its first Professor of Obstetrics ; Rev. 
 Wm. Tennent, son of the Rev. Wm. Tennent, of Freehold, New 
 Jersey, an eloquent preacher and an ardent patriot ; Jeremiah 
 Van Rensselaer, a Member of Congress, and a Lieutenant- 
 Governor of New York ; Rev. Wm. Whitwell, of Marblehead, 
 Massachusetts. 
 
 Of the class of 1759 were Rev. James Caldwell, A.M., of 
 Elizabethtown, New Jersey, a Trustee of the College ; Jabez 
 Campfield, A.M., a Surgeon in the American army ; Rev. 
 John Carmichael, A.M., of Delaware ; Rev. James Hunt, for 
 many years at the head of a flourishing classical school in 
 Maryland ; James Leslie, founder of the " Leslie Trust Fund," 
 for the education at the College of New Jersey of pious and in- 
 digent candidates for the ministry ; Samuel Spencer, of North 
 Carolina, a Justice of the Supreme Court of that State. 
 
 Fourteen of the graduates in these two years became minis- 
 ters of the gospel, the best known of whom are the five clergy- 
 men mentioned above.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE REV. SAMUEL DAVIES, THE 
 FOURTH PRESIDENT OF THE COLLEGE. 
 
 MR. DAVIES entered upon the duties of his office on the 
 26th of July, 1759, as appears from the following minute of the 
 Trustees at their meeting on Wednesday, the 26th of Septem- 
 ber, being the day of the annual Commencement for that year: 
 " The Rev. Mr. Samuel Davies having, pursuant to the meas- 
 ures taken by this Board, arrived at Nassau Hall in July last, 
 and entered on the office of President of the College on the 
 26th day of that month, was now qualified by taking the sev- 
 eral oaths as the Charter directs. And the Board unanimously 
 voted that Mr. Davies's stated salary shall begin from the Thir- 
 teenth Day of May last, which was the Day of the Dissolution 
 of his Pastoral Relation from the People of his former Charge." 
 It was on the i/th, and not on the I3th, that this dissolution 
 occurred, as appears from the minutes of the Synod of New 
 York and Philadelphia. It is probable that Mr. Davies an- 
 nounced to his church on the 1 3th, which was the Sabbath, his 
 purpose to accept the offer of the Trustees of the College and 
 to apply for a dissolution of the pastoral relation. 
 
 There was no meeting of the Board between that which oc- 
 curred on the 9th of May, 1759, at which Mr. Davies was a 
 second time chosen President, and this meeting of the 26th of 
 September ; but in pursuance of the wishes of the Trustees, ex- 
 pressed at the time of Mr. Davies's second election, he did not 
 wait for a formal induction into office to begin his work as 
 President. What special matters occupied his attention from 
 the time of his arrival until the ensuing Commencement we 
 have no means of ascertaining; but, from the character of the 
 man, there can be no doubt that he abounded in labors for 
 
 203
 
 204 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 the upbuilding of the institution as a seminary of religion and 
 learning. 
 
 Mr. Davies presided at this Commencement. Eighteen can- 
 didates, who had pursued their studies at Nassau Hall, were 
 admitted to the first degree in the Arts ; and two others, gradu- 
 ates of Yale College, were admitted to the same honor in this 
 College. The second degree in the Arts was conferred upon 
 eight candidates, seven of whom were graduates of the College. 
 
 The Treasurer was directed to " pay to Mr. Davies the sum 
 of .60.17.3, to defray the expenses of removing his family from 
 Hanover (Virginia) to Princetown." 
 
 By a resolution of the Board, the Steward was "allowed the 
 sum of Twenty Shillings per annum for every Boarder in the 
 College for the ensuing year, which is to be continued during 
 the time of his continuance in the service." This seems to 
 have been in lieu of a fixed salary, and constituted a part of the 
 expenses incurred by the College in supplying the students with 
 board, the profit or loss from which accrued to the College, and 
 not to the Steward. It was " Ordered, That Mr. Davies's salary 
 for the first half-year be paid at the end of six months, and half- 
 yearly for the future, when practicable." This expression, 
 " when practicable," shows that in these early times in the his- 
 tory of the College, notwithstanding all the aid they had received 
 from abroad, as well as at home, 'the Trustees did not always 
 find it easy to meet the necessary expenses of the institution. 
 
 The Treasurer was directed to " pay Mr. Green the sum of 
 ;ioo for his six months' services in the College." This vote 
 shows that Mr. Green did not perform the duties of the Vice- 
 President for the whole term intervening between his appoint- 
 ment on the 22d of November, 1758, and the 26th of July, 
 when Mr. Davies entered upon his duties as President.* 
 
 It is most probable that, upon learning the decision of the 
 Synod in favor of Mr. Davies's release from his pastoral charge, 
 
 * The entire minute of the Synod in reference to the dissolution of Mr. Davies's 
 pastoral charge may with propriety be here inserted, as showing the carefully con- 
 sidered judgment of the Synod in reference to his duty in this matter. The minute 
 is as follows : 
 
 " An application to the Synod from the Board of Trustees of the College of New
 
 ADMINISTRATION OF THE REV. SAMUEL DA VIES. 
 
 205 
 
 Mr. Green deemed it best to retire at once from the govern- 
 ment of the College. The six months during which he dis- 
 charged the duties assigned him expired upon the 22d of May, 
 and it was doubtless for the services rendered during these 
 six months that he received the .100 voted to him on this 
 occasion in accordance with the resolution adopted at the time 
 of his appointment, that his salary should be at the rate of 200 
 per annum. 
 
 The next act of the Board was to " relinquish the grammar- 
 school into the hands of President Davies, to be wholly his prop- 
 erty, as it was formerly the property of the late President Burr." 
 
 Mr. Davies was granted the liberty of educating any of his 
 sons in the College free from the charge of tuition-money. It 
 is due to the Rev. Jeremiah Halsey, the senior Tutor, that the 
 following minute should be copied into every history of the 
 College : 
 
 " Voted, That Mr. Halsey, the Senior Tutor, be desired to accept the sum of 20, 
 as an acknowledgment from this Board for his extraordinary Services in Favor of 
 the College." 
 
 The following important order was made by the Board in 
 reference to absences from College exercises : 
 
 " Ordered, That all licenses for students to absent themselves from the College, 
 or from their stated Duties or Exercises, be granted solely by the President, or in 
 his absence by the Tutor of such student applying for the same. 
 
 " The Board then adjourned until 8 o'clock next morning, at which hour the 
 members again assembled, present as before." 
 
 From a resolution passed by the Board at this meeting, with 
 respect to the College building and the President's house, it 
 would appear that neither building had been completely finished 
 at this time. 
 
 Jersey for the liberation of Mr. Davies from his pastoral charge, that he may accept 
 the Presidency of said college, to which they elected him, was brought in and read. 
 
 " A supplication was also brought in from Mr. Davies's congregation, earnestly 
 requesting his continuance with them. 
 
 " The Synod, having seriously considered the congregation's supplication, and 
 fully heard all the reasonings for and against Mr. Davies's liberation, after solemn 
 prayer to God for direction, do, upon the whole, judge that the arguments in favor 
 of said liberation do preponderate, and agree that Mr. Davies's pastoral relation to 
 his congregation be dissolved, in order to his removal to the college, and do accord- 
 ingly hereby dissolve it."
 
 2o6 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 In reference to the purchase of books the following resolution 
 was adopted : 
 
 " That the order for a Committee to send to London for Books for the use of the 
 College and the Grammar School be revoked, and that President Davies be desired to 
 send for such Books as shall be requisite for the use of the students for the future, 
 and that he fix the Prices of said Books, and commit them to the care of the Steward 
 of the College for sale ; and Mr. Livingston is desired to assist Mr. Davies in said 
 Affair." 
 
 The Mr. Livingston here mentioned is Mr. P. Van Brugh 
 Livingston, of New York, a merchant of that city, and a Trustee 
 of the College. The importation of books by the College au- 
 thorities, for the use of the students, continued, to a greater 
 or less extent, as late as the earlier part of President S. S. 
 Smith's administration, which extended from the spring of 1795 
 to the autumn of 1812. 
 
 President Davies was desired, as soon as convenient, " to take 
 a Methodical Catalogue of the Books of the College Library, 
 and order the same to be printed at the expense of the Col- 
 lege." Such a catalogue was prepared, and it was published 
 January 29, 1760. It was printed at Woodbridge, New Jersey, 
 at the well-known press of James Parker. 
 
 A copy of this catalogue has recently fallen into the hands 
 of the writer of this work. It is contained in a small pamphlet 
 of thirty-six pages, the last two of which are wanting. The 
 number of works in the library must have been about eight 
 hundred, the number of volumes nearly twelve hundred. The 
 volumes were numbered as they were placed upon the shelves, 
 and the highest number in the above-mentioned copy of the 
 catalogue is eleven hundred and seventy-five. 
 
 This printed catalogue includes the names of ten books be- 
 longing to Governor Belcher's private family and given by him 
 to the College. The Governor's collection contained four hun- 
 dred and seventy-four volumes, sixty of which were folios, and 
 many of them valuable works. The other books were chiefly 
 presents from other friends of the institution. These volumes, 
 with all the other books then belonging to the College library, 
 were consumed by the fire of March, 1802, which made Nassau 
 Hall a ruin.
 
 ADMINISTRATION OF THE REV. SAMUEL DA VIES. 
 
 2O7 
 
 The following preface to the catalogue sets forth " The De- 
 sign of the Publication" : 
 
 " A large and well-sorted Collection of Books on the various Branches of Litera- 
 ture is the most ornamental and useful Furniture of a College ; and the most proper 
 and valuable Fund with which it can be endowed. It is one of the best Helps to 
 enrich the Minds both of the Officers and Students with Knowledge ; to give them 
 an extensive Acquaintance with Authors ; and to lead them beyond the narrow 
 Limits of the Books to which they are confined in their stated Studies and Recita- 
 tions, that they may expatiate at large thro' the boundless and variegated Fields of 
 Science. If they have Books always at hand to consult upon every Subject that 
 may occur to them, as demanding a more thoro' Discussion, in their public Dis- 
 putes, in the Course of their Studies, in Conversation, or their own fortuitous Tho'ts ; 
 it will enable them to investigate Truth through its intricate Recesses; and to 
 guard against the Stratagems and Assaults of Error. It will teach them Modesty 
 and Self-Diffidence, when they perceive the free and different Sentiments of Men 
 equally great and good ; and give at least such Hints, as their Invention may after- 
 wards improve upon, when they appear in public Life, in a Country where Books 
 are so scarce, and private Libraries so poor and few, that their principal Resources 
 must be their own Invention. 
 
 " The College of New Jersey is so evidently adapted and intended for the Ad- 
 vancement of Religion and useful Learning among all Denominations of Protest- 
 ants, that it has been the favourite Object of public Charity, both in Great Britain 
 and America, from its first Institution. And by that Assistance alone it has 
 been raised from Nothing to its present State in a few Years ; a Monument to 
 Posterity of the Generosity of the Age in which it was founded ; and a public 
 Proof of the Agency of Providence in Favour of great and good Designs, how- 
 ever impracticable they may appear in their first Projection. Its Library in par- 
 ticular has been almost entirely formed of the Donations of several public-spirited 
 Gentlemen upon both sides of the Atlantic ; whose names Gratitude would not 
 put herself to Pain in concealing, were they desirous, or even patient, of the uni- 
 versal Praise their disinterested Charity deserves. 
 
 " But after all this liberal Assistance, a survey of its literary Wealth, whcih is ex- 
 posed to view in the following Catalogue, will soon convince the Friends of Learn- 
 ing and Nassau Hall how poor it still is in this important Article; to which no 
 Additions can be made from the Treasury, which is far from being equal to other 
 unavoidable and more indispensable Exigencies. But few modern Authors, who 
 have unquestionably some Advantages above the immortal Ancients, adorn the 
 Shelves. This Defect is most sensibly felt in the study of Mathematics and the 
 Newtonian Philosophy, in which the Students have but very imperfect Helps, 
 either from Books or Instruments. 
 
 " As some valuable Benefactions have been spontaneous Offerings of unsolicited 
 Charity, without any other Excitement than the Knowledge of the Poverty and the 
 public Utility of the Foundation, this Catalogue is published to give Information to 
 such, who are watching for Opportunities of doing good ; and to afford particular 
 Benefactors the Pleasure of seeing how many others have concurred with them in 
 their favourite Charity."
 
 2o8 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 This preface was written by President Davies, and it was 
 probably the first article penned and published by him in the 
 interests of the College after he became its President. The re- 
 marks respecting the urgent need of a large and well-selected 
 library for the College were as apposite in every subsequent 
 part of its history, until very lately, as they were when first 
 written. 
 
 The recent munificence of John C. Green, Esq., of New York, 
 has made provision for the increase of the College library, and 
 for its preservation, such as in all probability would more than 
 have satisfied the enlarged views and earnest desires of Presi- 
 dent Davies. All that is now wanting, so far as the library is 
 concerned, is a fund to pay a well-qualified librarian to devote 
 to it his whole time. 
 
 The next record had reference to a provision for the Trustees 
 dining together; but it was cancelled, for what reason, or by 
 whom, it does not appear. It is possible that the record was 
 an error, and that the motion was not adopted. As far as it can 
 now be deciphered, the minute was in these words: 
 
 " Voted, That in future at all meetings of the Trustees the Steward of the 
 College be ordered to furnish a Dinner for the Corporation, with proper Liquors, 
 that the several members may have the conveniency of being together, and that 
 the said 
 
 " Every Person dining at such Table may deposite what gratuity he thinks 
 proper for defraying the Expense thereof." 
 
 The custom here introduced, or proposed to be introduced, 
 has prevailed ever since. At all their meetings the Trustees 
 dine together ; but of late years the " proper Liquors" have been 
 dispensed with; and no gratuity is expected of any Trustee or 
 invited guest. 
 
 Messrs. Davies, Tennent, and Cowell were appointed a com- 
 mittee to purchase a lot of land contiguous to the College 
 grounds, and belonging to the estate of the late Mr. Samuel 
 Hazard, of Philadelphia. The purchase was made. 
 
 At this meeting of the Board, the first ever attended by Pres- 
 ident Davies, several matters of much interest to the College 
 claimed the attention of the Trustees, but the most weighty of 
 them were embraced in these two resolutions, viz.:
 
 ADMINISTRATION OF THE REV. SAMUEL DA VIES. 
 
 209 
 
 " Resolved, That Governor Bernard, Messrs. Davies, f W.] P. T. Smith, W. Ten- 
 nent, Finley, Green, Cummings, and Stockton, or any three of them, be a committee 
 to draw up a System of Regulations concerning Admission into College, with the 
 requisite Qualifications for Degrees, and that all the Trustees who choose to be 
 present have liberty of voting.* 
 
 " Resolved, That Governor Bernard, Mr. Hude, Mr. W. P. T. Smith, Wm. Smith, 
 Esq., Mr. Woodruff, Messrs. Cowell, Treat, Tennent, Finley, Green, Cummings, 
 and Stockton, be a Committee, any five of whom to be a Quorum, to consider of 
 proper measures to enlarge the Fund and to extend the usefulness of the College. 
 All other Trustees shall have votes in the above Committee." 
 
 The last clause in each of these resolutions virtually made 
 the two committees one. They held their first meeting at Perth 
 Amboy, the residence of Governor Bernard, the chairman of 
 both committees, on the 24th of October, 1759. There were 
 present on this occasion his Excellency the Governor, President 
 Davies, Mr. Hude, Mr. Woodruff, Mr. W. P. T. Smith, Mr. [W.] 
 Tennent, and Mr. Cummings. 
 
 The following are the minutes of the committee: 
 
 " The Committee not being able at present to resolve upon any methods that will 
 have a probable Tendency to increase the Funds of the College, do agree to post- 
 pone the consideration of this Affair. 
 
 " The Committee then proceeded to take into Consideration the Qualifications 
 necessary to entitle the students to the usual Degrees. And are of the Opinion that 
 a Residence at College for some Time, and proper Collegiate Exercises, are neces- 
 sary to be enjoined on those youths who apply for said Degrees. And the Com- 
 mittee request the President of the College to draw up some Regulations upon this 
 Head, to be laid before them at their next meeting, to [be held] the first Day of 
 December next; President Davies to give notice of the meeting." 
 
 Whether the committee held another meeting is uncertain, as 
 there is no record of their having done so. But, whether they 
 did or did not, President Davies drew up the proposed regula- 
 tions, which, with the consent no doubt of the members of the 
 committee, either formally or informally given, were submitted 
 to the Board at their meeting on Wednesday, the 24th of Sep- 
 tember, 1760, the day of the annual Commencement. The 
 minute of the Board in reference to the action of the committee 
 is in these words : 
 
 * These matters received due attention at the time Mr. Burr was chosen President 
 under the second charter, November 9, 1748. But it is probable that in the judg- 
 ment of the Trustees, as well as in that of President Davies, it was deemed expe- 
 dient to revise the existing rules and to add to their stringency.
 
 2io HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 " The Committee appointed at the last meeting to draw up a System of Regula- 
 tions concerning Admission into College, and to Degrees of Bachelor and Master 
 of Arts, having produced a Draught thereof, and the same being considered and 
 amended by the Trustees, was confirmed in the Terms following, to wit : 
 
 " The conferring of Academical Honours was intended as an Incentive to a laud- 
 able Ambition in Study, and as a Reward of literary Merit. And the different 
 Degrees of these honorary Distinctions conferred at different Periods suppose a 
 proportional Increase of literary Merit ; and consequently a sufficient Time of Resi- 
 dence in College, for further prosecution of Study, and a proper previous Exami- 
 nation, to discover the Improvement of the Candidates. And when they are 
 promiscuously distributed as cursory Formalities after the usual Intervals of Time, 
 without any previous evidence of suitable Qualifications, they sink into Contempt 
 as insignificant Ceremonies, and no longer answer their original Design. Therefore 
 the Trustees are determined to admit none to a Degree in this College but upon 
 the following terms, in Addition to those already established : 
 
 " Graduates from other Colleges, upon producing Diplomas or other sufficient 
 Testimonials, shall be admitted to the same Degree in this, without any previous 
 Examination. But it shall be inserted in their Diplomas and publickly declared 
 by the President in conferring it, that it is conferred Honoris causa, according to 
 the Manner of some Universities abroad. But if they stand Candidates for a 
 higher Degree than they have yet been admitted to, they shall submit to all the 
 Regulations contained in the following Articles. 
 
 " All Candidates for a Master's Degree shall reside in or near the College at 
 least one Week immediately preceding that Commencement at which they expect 
 to receive their Degrees. During which Time they shall submit to the Laws and 
 Orders of the College. And on the Tuesday morning immediately preceding 
 the last Wednesday of September (on which the Anniversary Commencement is 
 always held) they shall attend in the College in order to pass such an Examination 
 as the Trustees then present shall think necessary ; especially in such Branches of 
 Literature as have a more direct Connection with that Profession of Life which 
 they have entered upon or have in View, whether Divinity, Law, or Physick, and 
 shall make such preparation for the Commencement as the Officers of the College 
 shall judge proper. 
 
 " As so short a Residence can be an intolerable Inconvenience to but very few, 
 and will render the second Degree a real Honor, the Trustees will not dispense 
 with it in ordinary Cases. Yet as the peculiar Circumstances of some Persons of 
 sufficient Accomplishments may render them incapable of Residence, they are de- 
 sired to inform the President by Letter, some convenient Time before the Com- 
 mencement at which they intend to offer themselves Candidates, of the Reason of 
 their Incapacity; that the Trustees may judge whether, they are sufficient for a Dis- 
 pensation for the whole or any Part of the Time required, and what Exercise shall 
 be substituted instead of Residence. 
 
 " None shall be admitted to the Honours of the College without Testimonials of 
 their good moral conduct, while absent from College, signed by two or more gentle- 
 men of Note and Veracity, in the Place where they have resided, or unless they 
 are recommended from personal knowledge by one of the Trustees or College 
 Officers."
 
 ADMINISTRATION OF THE REV. SAMUEL DAV'lES. 2 ll 
 
 Additional regulations respecting the terms of first admission 
 into College : 
 
 " Every student shall be obliged to reside in College at least two years before his 
 first graduation ; and therefore, after the Expiration of one year from the next Com- 
 mencement (A.D. 1760), none shall be admitted later than the Beginning of the 
 Junior Year. But that anybody may have Liberty to offer himself at the Public 
 Examination as a Candidate for a Bachelor's Degree, and if approved shall be ad- 
 mitted thereto accordingly upon paying the sum of Eight Pounds, being the Tuition 
 Money for Two years, exclusive of Degree Fees. 
 
 " Candidates for the Freshman Class shall be regulated by the Law already made 
 in such case. But Candidates for any of the higher Classes shall not only be pre- 
 viously examined, as usual, but recite for Two Weeks upon Trial in that particular 
 Class to which they stand Candidates, and then shall be fixed in that or a- lower, as 
 the College Officers shall judge them qualified." 
 
 How far the rules respecting the examination of candidates 
 for the second degree in the Arts, and of their residence at the 
 College for one week, were carried into effect, and how long they 
 continued in force, we have no means of ascertaining. It is 
 not probable that they were very rigidly enforced, for after the 
 adoption of these rules the Bachelors of Arts admitted to their 
 second degree continued to be in about the same proportion to 
 those who did not receive it that they had previously been. 
 Had Mr. Davies lived, it is probable that he would have enforced 
 the observance of these rules more resolutely than his succes- 
 sors in office were disposed to do, as they doubtless originated 
 with him. There is very little reason, however, for thinking 
 that the experiment would have been a successful one even in 
 his energetic hands, or a very useful one if carried into effect. 
 This remark has special reference to the rule requiring of can- 
 didates for the second degree a week's residence at or near the 
 College. At the present day the proposed examinations of the 
 candidates, except as a mere form, would be a simple impossi- 
 bility. The demands upon the time and strength of the officers 
 during the week preceding the annual Commencement are as 
 much as they can meet, without engaging in a general examina- 
 tion of the candidates for the second degree, were they but one- 
 half, or even one-fourth, of their present numbers. The present 
 plan is the only feasible one, viz., evidence that the candidate
 
 212 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 has been engaged in professional or other studies, and that he 
 is a person of correct deportment. 
 
 A residence of one year is now required on the part of all 
 candidates for the first degree in the Arts, instead of two years 
 called for in this report, which was designed to be a bar to any 
 one's admission to a higher standing than the Junior class 
 upon his first entrance into College. It seems in strange con- 
 trast with this rule that there should be an exception to it, to 
 the extent that anybody may have liberty to offer himself at 
 the public examinations as a candidate for a Bachelor's degree, 
 and if approved shall be admitted thereto accordingly upon 
 paying the tuition-money for two years, exclusive of the degree- 
 fees. The latter part of this provision is of doubtful propriety, 
 and, so far as is known, there is no instance in the history of 
 the College of a degree having been conferred upon the con- 
 dition here mentioned. 
 
 No change was made at this time in the terms of admission 
 into the Freshman class, with the exception that the candidates 
 must be acquainted with "Vulgar Arithmetic," in addition to 
 the studies previously required. 
 
 To incite to diligence in study, it was " Voted, That for the 
 future the President and Tutors, with any other gentlemen of 
 Education who shall choose to be present, shall examine an- 
 nually," before the Commencement, " the several classes, and 
 that such as are found unqualified shall not be allowed to rise 
 in the usual course." 
 
 This whole action shows that there was a desire and a purpose 
 on the part of President Davies to elevate the standard of scholar- 
 ship, both before and after the conferring of the first degree in 
 the Arts, among those who sought to obtain from the College 
 literary honors. 
 
 Besides the measures mentioned above, most of which were 
 designed to stir up the students to greater diligence, several 
 other matters of moment to the College received the attention 
 of the Board and led to action on the part of the Trustees. 
 Among these were the following, viz.: provision for an annual 
 inspection of the Steward's accounts, and also of the Treas- 
 urer's, and for a full and regular report by the Examining
 
 ADMINISTRATION OF THE KEV. SAMUEL DA VIES. 
 
 213 
 
 Committee ; the purchase of additional lots contiguous to 
 the College ; an order that in future no candidate be admitted 
 to a Degree unless he produce a certificate that he is not in 
 arrears to the College; a discretionary power given to the 
 President and Tutors to substitute other punishments, short 
 of suspension, in lieu of fines for minor offences against 
 College order ; an authority to substitute Psalmody at even- 
 ing prayer, for reading a portion of Scripture, the reading of 
 which had been usual both morning and evening in the Chapel 
 service. 
 
 The President and Tutors were authorized to appoint any of 
 the students to read a portion of the sacred Scriptures out of 
 the original language at morning prayers. This indicates that 
 the study of the Scriptures in the original languages was an ob- 
 ject of careful attention at this time. Measures were also taken 
 for the preparing of a historical account of the rise and progress 
 and present state of the College. This matter was intrusted to 
 a committee consisting of President Davies, the Rev. William 
 Tennent, Rev. David Cowell, and Richard Stockton. Doubt- 
 less the expectation was that President Davies would write the 
 history. But his sudden death, in the course of a few months 
 after, prevented his performing this service for the College. 
 Mr. Cowell, another member of the committee, died a short 
 time before Mr. Davies himself. 
 
 As there is no intimation in the minutes of the Board of any 
 material change in the course of instruction during the admin- 
 istration of Mr. Davies, it is more than probable that it con- 
 tinued to be very much the same as it was previously to his 
 accession to the Presidency ; with the exception, perhaps, that 
 more attention was given to public speaking. President Green, 
 in his " Notes," remarks of President Davies, " A poet and an 
 orator himself, he turned the attention of his pupils to the 
 cultivation of English composition and eloquence with great 
 effect. He introduced the practice, ever since continued, of 
 delivering monthly orations by members of the Senior class." 
 
 President Green further observes, " The number of students 
 under the administration of President Davies cannot be exactly 
 ascertained. It probably did not at anytime exceed a hundred,
 
 214 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 and at his death it must have come very little short of that 
 number." If an estimate can be made from the number of 
 graduates from 1759 to 1761, the entire number of students in 
 the College at any one time during President Davies's adminis- 
 tration must have fallen considerably short of a hundred ; al- 
 though there is reason to believe that there was a much larger 
 number at the time of his decease than at the time of his 
 accession to the Presidency. 
 
 The various matters detailed above indicate that there was 
 at this period of its history an active mind at the head of the 
 College, from whom great things might have been expected 
 had it pleased God to spare him to the institution. But, in 
 the wise and holy ordering of Divine Providence, President 
 Davies was removed by death on the 4th of February, 1761 ; 
 having served the College in his office as President a little 
 more than eighteen months. 
 
 The officers of the College during his administration were 
 Messrs. Samuel Davies, A.M., President ; Jeremiah Halsey, 
 A.M., Senior Tutor; Joseph Treat, Jr., A.B., Tutor; Jacob Ker, 
 A.B., Tutor. 
 
 Mr. Halsey was a Tutor in the College from 1757 to 1767, 
 and he was a Trustee in the College from 1770 to 1781. He 
 was an excellent teacher, and a most valuable College offi- 
 cer; and as such was held in great esteem by the College 
 authorities. At the time of his death he was minister of the 
 Presbyterian church of Lamington, New Jersey. He died in 
 1781. 
 
 Mr. Treat, in October, 1762, was installed as a colleague of 
 the Rev. David Bostwick, pastor of the Presbyterian church 
 in the city of New York. He left the city at the beginning 
 of the Revolutionary War, and never returned, but served 
 the churches of Lower Bethlehem and Greenwich, in Sussex 
 County, New Jersey, until his death in 1797. 
 
 Mr. Ker was ordained by the Presbytery of New Brunswick 
 in 1764, and on the 29th of August in that year he was in- 
 stalled as pastor of the churches of Monokin and Wicomico, 
 Maryland, where he remained until his death, July 29, 1795. 
 In a minute adopted by the Presbytery of Lewes he is spoken
 
 ADMINISTRATION OF THE REV. SAMUEL DA VIES. 
 
 215 
 
 of as a great and good man, whose loss was sensibly felt by 
 the Church in general, and by that Presbytery in particular. 
 
 In the summer of 1759, Governor Bernard was transferred to 
 Massachusetts, as Governor of that Province, and his Excellency 
 Thomas Boone, Esq., succeeded him in the government of New 
 Jersey. 
 
 On his first visit to Princeton, July 8, 1760, Governor Boone 
 was attended by Mr. Chief-Justice Morris and several other 
 gentlemen of distinction, and he was introduced into Nassau 
 Hall by the President and Tutors, who presented the following 
 address : 
 
 " To his Excellency Thomas Boone, Esq., His Majesty's Governor and Com- 
 mander-in-Chief of the Province of New Jersey, Chancellor and Vice-Admiral 
 of the same, etc. 
 
 " The humble Address of the President and Tutors of the College of New Jersey. 
 
 " SIR, The President and Tutors of the College of New Jersey give your Ex- 
 cellency a most cordial welcome to Nassau Hall, and beg leave warmly to con- 
 gratulate your Excellency upon your accession to the Government of this Province, 
 where the minds of so many are happily prepossessed in your favor by the agree- 
 able anticipations they have received of your Excellency's character. 
 
 " Though we form a very high estimate, Sir, of the importance of your Excel- 
 lency's patronage to the prosperity of this Infant College, which has been founded 
 by one and countenanced by another of your predecessors, yet we would use no 
 artifice to pre-engage your Excellency's friendship and protection without the 
 sanction of your own well-informed judgment ; but we lay ourselves open to your 
 Excellency's inspection, and invite you to enquire into its constitution, the modes 
 of instruction and discipline, the care taken of the principles and morals of the 
 Students, and their progress in the various branches of literature ; and then we 
 shall cheerfully leave your Excellency to follow the conduct of your own judgment 
 and the impulse of a patriot heart, ever friendly to true learning and virtue, but 
 ever an enemy to pedantry, bigotry, and idle pretensions, only begging your Excel- 
 lency would make some candid allowances for those unavoidable imperfections that 
 result from the present Infant State of this Institution, which has been raised from 
 nothing in a few years, by the hand of public charity recommended only by its 
 poverty and apparent subserviency to the general good. 
 
 " We beg leave, Sir, particularly to request your Excellency to honor the next 
 public Examination with your presence, when you will have the best opportunity 
 of informing yourself what are the branches of literature taught in this Seminary, 
 and what proficiency has been made by the young Gentlemen under our tuition. 
 
 " We hope, Sir, our future conduct will verify the engagements which we now 
 voluntarily assume to your Excellency, That we shall continue with the utmost 
 assiduity to instil into young minds such principles as thro' the blessing of 
 Heaven form the Scholar, the Patriot, and the Christian. And should we neglect
 
 2 i6 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 so essential an article of our duty we should anticipate our own doom, and expect 
 your Excellency's severest animadversions, in conjunction with the other Trustees, 
 of whom you are now President ; and who, we doubt not, will give your Excel- 
 lency proper expressions of their duty and congratulation at their next convention. 
 " May all the happiness a Patriot can diffuse, or a free People enjoy, attend your 
 administration ! and may all the felicities which Heaven has made the rewards of 
 such a beneficent administration ever attend your Excellency ! 
 
 " SAMUEL DA VIES, President. 
 
 " To which his Excellency was pleased to return the following answer : 
 
 " GENTLEMEN, I am exceedingly obliged to you for this polite Salutation on my 
 arrival among you. The proper education of Youth influences so materially all 
 Government, that this laudable Establishment has a natural claim to the patronage 
 of his Majesty's Substitute ; and with the advantage of such eminent and respect- 
 able tuition, I have not the least doubt but the Youth will be distinguished by the 
 acquisition of every useful and valuable accomplishment. 
 
 " THOMAS BOONE. 
 
 " Prince-Town, July 8, 1760. 
 
 " His Excellency was also complimented by two young gentlemen of the Senior 
 Class, in a Latin and an English Oration ; and an air of sincere congratulation 
 appeared on every countenance." 
 
 The same year the Governor was present at the Commence- 
 ment exercises, and presided at the meetings of the Board. 
 This was the only Commencement attended by Governor Boone, 
 who the next year was made Governor of South Carolina, and 
 it was the second and last Commencement at which Mr. Davies 
 presided. 
 
 The following report of the Commencement is copied from 
 the " Pennsylvania Gazette" of October 9, 1760: 
 
 "Prince Town, Nassau Hall, September 25, 1760. Yesterday the Anniversary 
 Commencement of the College was held here. The Procession of the Trustees and 
 Candidates from the President's House to Nassau Hall began at the Ringing of the 
 Bell precisely at 10 o'clock in the forenoon. The Order was, The Candidates for 
 the Degree of Bachelor of Arts first, two and two, uncovered ; the Candidates for 
 the Degree of Master of Arts followed next, uncovered ; and the Trustees, accord- 
 ing to their Seniority, the youngest first, and the Governor and President last, con- 
 cluded. When the Candidates arrived at the steps of the Middle Entrance into 
 the Hall they stopt, and the whole Procession divided itself equally on each side 
 of the gravel Walk, and entered in an inverted Order. The Collegiate Exercises 
 began with a handsome Salutatory Oration in Latin, pronounced by Mr. Jonathan 
 Smith ; then followed a Latin Syllogistick Dispute, wherein the Respondent held 
 that ' Sermo primitus ab Inspiratione divina Originem duxit,' which was well main- 
 tained and opposed. When this was concluded, Mr. Benjamin Rush arose, and in
 
 ADMINISTRATION OF THE REV. SAMUEL DA VIES. 
 
 217 
 
 a very sprightly and entertaining Manner delivered an ingenious English Harangue 
 in Praise of Oratory. Then succeeded a Forensick Dispute in English, in which it 
 was held that ' The Elegance of an Oration much consists in the Words being con- 
 sonant to the Sense.' The Respondent, Mr. Samuel Blair, acquitted himself with 
 universal Applause in the elegant Composition and Delivery of his Defence ; and 
 his Opponent answered him with Humour and Pertinency. This was succeeded by 
 a Latin Dispute in a Socratick Way, in which the Respondent affirmed that ' Sys- 
 tema Ethica; perfectum in prsesenti Hominum Conditione, sine Ope divinae Revela- 
 tionis, construi nequit ;' and by a well-composed Valedictory Oration in English by 
 Mr. Enoch Green. The Singing of an Ode on Science, composed by the President 
 of the College, concluded the Forenoon Exercises. 
 
 " The Entertainment in the Afternoon began with the Address to His Excellency 
 the Governor [Boone] by Mr. Stockton in the Name of the Trustees. After which 
 the Candidates for the Master's Degree disputed in Latin the following Question : 
 ' An Rector civilis ullam, in Rebus Fidei, Potestatem habeat,' and ' Nonne absurdum 
 est Deum immutabilem precari,' which were learnedly defended and ingeniously 
 opposed. The President then descended from the Rostrum, and with the usua 
 Formalities conferred the Degrees of Bachelor of Arts and of Master of Arts. 
 
 " Mr. Joseph Treat, one of the Masters of Arts and a Tutor in the College, then 
 ascended, and delivered an elegant, pathetic Valedictory Oration in English, in the 
 Close of which he very handsomely touched upon the present flourishing State of 
 our Public Affairs in North America. The Singing of an Ode on Peace composed 
 by the President concluded the whole, to the Universal Pleasure and Satisfaction of 
 a numerous Auditory." 
 
 The Odes, one on Science and the other on Peace, composed 
 by President Davies, and sung at the close of the morning and 
 evening exercises, were many years later confounded with a 
 poetic dialogue recited, with choral songs, at the Commence- 
 ment of 1762. 
 
 The reader will probably observe that in the above account 
 of this Commencement all the substantives are begun with a 
 capital letter, a mode of writing and printing formerly much 
 in vogue, and to which Dr. Franklin gave a decided preference, 
 as being "so useful to those who are not well acquainted with 
 the language." This appears from a letter of his, of the date 
 of December 26, 1789, to Noah Webster, Esq., "On Modern 
 Innovations in the English Language and in Printing." 
 
 Among the graduates of the College during Mr. Davies's 
 administration who rose to greater or less distinction were the 
 following, in 1760: 
 
 Joseph Alexander, D.D. He was very active in the cause 
 of education in both North and South Carolina, and founder of 
 VOL. i. 15
 
 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 a school, which became a college, under the title of Queen's 
 Museum. 
 
 John Archer, M.D. He was a member of the House of 
 Representatives of the United States from 1801 to 1807. 
 
 Samuel Blair, D.D., son of the Rev. Samuel Blair, of Fagg's 
 Manor. When twenty-six years of age he was chosen by the 
 Trustees President of the College, but declined the appoint- 
 ment. 
 
 Enos Kelsey. During the Revolution he held a responsible 
 office in the Clothier-General's office. For many years he was 
 the Treasurer of the College. 
 
 Benjamin Rush, M.D. A signer of the Declaration of In- 
 dependence ; Physician- and Surgeon-General for the Middle 
 Military District; member of the Convention for forming the 
 Constitution of the United States ; and Professor in the Medical 
 Department of the University of Pennsylvania. 
 
 Jonathan Bayard Smith, a member of the Continental Con- 
 gress, from Pennsylvania, in 1777 and 1778. Mr. Smith made 
 a large donation of books to the College library.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE REV. SAMUEL DAVIES, FOURTH PRESIDENT OF 
 THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 PRESIDENT DAVIES was born near Summit Bridge, New Castle 
 County, Delaware, November 3, 0. S., 1 723. At that time Dela- 
 ware was a part of Pennsylvania. The year here mentioned 
 is given upon the authority of a table in President Davies's 
 handwriting. The Bible, upon a blank leaf of which this table 
 was written, was in the possession of some of President Davies's 
 descendants, residing in Petersburg, Virginia, as late as the 
 year 1853, as appears from a sketch of his life in the " Presbyte- 
 rian Magazine" for that year. This sketch, although very brief, 
 is very valuable, as it contains information previously published 
 nowhere else, except in Dr. Foote's " Sketches of Virginia." The 
 year of his birth, as given upon his tombstone, is 1724; and 
 this has been doubtless the occasion of a like error in several 
 of the biographical notices of him. He was of Welsh descent, 
 and his parents were of humble origin, but persons of good 
 character and fervent piety. The mother is said to have been 
 a woman of uncommon powers of mind, and also eminent for 
 her faith and zeal. He was named Samuel, after Samuel the 
 prophet. The mother of the prophet called him Samuel be- 
 cause she had asked him of the LORD; and for the same reason 
 the mother of President Davies called her son Samuel, thereby 
 expressing her belief that God had heard her prayer, as, ages 
 before, he had heard the prayer of Hannah. Like Hannah, we 
 have reason to believe, she had solemnly vowed that if the LORD 
 would give her a man-child she would devote him to the LORD 
 all his days ; and from the birth of her son she seems to have 
 regarded him as a child given to her to be trained for the gospel 
 ministry. 
 
 219
 
 220 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 In a letter to his friend Dr. Gibbons, of London, after speak- 
 ing of these things, President Davies adds, " This early dedi- 
 cation to God has always been a strong inducement to me to 
 devote myself to Him by my own personal act; and the most 
 important blessings of my life I have looked upon as imme- 
 diate answers to the prayers of a pious mother. But, alas ! 
 what a degenerate plant am I ! How unworthy such a parent 
 and such a birth !" 
 
 In his early childhood he was taught by his mother, and 
 when ten years of age he was sent to an English school some 
 distance from his father's residence, and remained there two 
 years. At this school he is said to have made rapid progress 
 in his studies. For want of the religious training which he 
 enjoyed at home, he became somewhat careless in his attention 
 to his religious interests; but he still made a practice of secret 
 prayer, especially in the evening. And it is worthy of note 
 that in his prayers at this very time he prayed more earnestly 
 that he might be a minister of the gospel than for any other 
 thing. In the fifteenth year of his age he made a public pro- 
 fession of his faith in Christ, and entered upon a course of study 
 preparatory to the ministry. Two or three of his biographers 
 speak of his uniting with the Church, forgetting that in virtue 
 of his birth he was a member of the Church and that by his 
 baptism in infancy he had been recognized as a member. 
 
 His classical studies were begun under the tuition of the Rev. 
 Abel Morgan, a Baptist preacher of much note at that time ; 
 but he was afterwards sent to the school of the Rev. Samuel 
 Blair, at Fagg's Manor, Chester County, Pennsylvania. Under 
 the guidance of this learned and eloquent divine he was trained 
 for the gospel ministry, and on the 3<Dth of July, 1746, being 
 in the twenty-third year of his age, he was licensed to preach 
 by the Presbytery of New Castle. By this same Presbytery he 
 was ordained as an evangelist, February 19, 1747, O. S., with a 
 view to his visiting the Presbyterian churches in Virginia. On 
 the 23d of October, 1746, he was married to Miss Sarah Kirk- 
 patrick, who, with her infant son, died on the i6th of September, 
 1747. At the time of his licensure his health was quite feeble, 
 and it continued so for some years : still, he was resolved that
 
 MEMOIR OF THE REV. SAMUEL DA VIES. 2 2I 
 
 while life and sufficient strength remained he would devote 
 himself earnestly to the work of preaching the gospel ; and this 
 he did with eminent success. His going to Virginia was not 
 of his own motion, but in compliance with the advice and desire 
 of the Presbytery. 
 
 Before visiting Hanover, which was more especially to be the 
 field of his labor, he visited Williamsburg, the seat of the Colo- 
 nial Government, and petitioned the General Court to grant 
 him " a license to officiate in and about Hanover at four meet- 
 ing-houses." The court hesitated; but the Governor, the Hon- 
 orable Wm. Gooch, favoring the application, the license was 
 granted. 
 
 At this very time there were pending in this court suits 
 against sundry members of the Presbyterian Church, for attend- 
 ing religious assemblies at unlicensed houses and listening to 
 preachers who had not obtained from the General Court per- 
 mission to preach. From an early date Episcopacy was estab- 
 lished in Virginia, and the Church in this Province had been 
 placed under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Bishop of 
 London, whose Commissary resided at Williamsburg, and was 
 a member of the General Court, and also Rector or President of 
 William and Mary College. The first Commissary, the Rev. 
 John Blair, may be regarded as the founder of the College, as 
 he more than any other person was instrumental in obtaining 
 for it a royal charter, and also important grants both from the 
 King and from the Colonial Legislature. Dr. William Dawson, 
 the Commissary when Davies applied for his license, was a 
 liberal-minded man, far those times, and he is believed to have 
 voted in favor of granting the license sought. Yet it would 
 seem from some of his correspondence with the Bishop of Lon- 
 don that even he was somewhat disturbed at the success of Mr. 
 Davies, and at the numerous additions to the Dissenters from 
 the ranks of the conformists. Mr. Davies's labors were most 
 arduous, and no one but a man of resolute will and of great 
 natural resources could have done what he by the grace of God 
 was stirred up to undertake and enabled to accomplish. 
 
 Having obtained his license, Mr. Davies went to Hanover, 
 and was received with outbursts of joy. " His coming," says
 
 222 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 Dr. Foote, " with his license was like a visit from an angel 
 of mercy. His ardent sermons refreshed the congregation, 
 and his legal protection turned the enmity of his opposers to 
 their own mortification." He continued at Hanover several 
 months. 
 
 Of his mission Mr. Davies thus writes: "I preached fre- 
 quently in Hanover and some of the adjacent counties, and 
 though the fervor of the work was considerably abated, and 
 my labors were not blessed with success equal to that of my 
 brethren, yet I have reason to hope they were of service in sev- 
 eral instances. The importunities they used with me to settle 
 with them were invincible ; and upon my departure they sent a 
 call for me to the Presbytery." 
 
 The death of his first wife, which occurred about this time, 
 greatly depressed him : this, together with feeble health and 
 threatening consumption, disinclined him to settle anywhere 
 permanently as the pastor of a church ; and he continued to 
 travel and preach wherever a favorable opportunity presented 
 itself. Dr. Gibbons, narrating the circumstances as he received 
 them from Mr. Davies, says, " Finding himself upon the borders 
 of the grave, and without any hopes of a recovery, he determined 
 to spend the little remains of an almost exhausted life in endeav- 
 oring to advance his Master's glory in the good of souls. Ac- 
 cordingly, he removed from the place where he was to another 
 about an hundred miles distance, that was then in want of a min- 
 ister. Here he labored in season and out of season. And, as 
 he told me, he preached in the day and had his hectic fever 
 by night, and that to such a degree as to be sometimes de- 
 lirious and to stand in need of persons to sit up with him." 
 (See Dr. Gibbons's "Two Discourses, occasioned by the Death 
 of President Davies." London, 1761.) 
 
 In the spring of 1748 " he began to recover, though he looked 
 upon it only as the intermission of a disorder that would finally 
 prove mortal. Many earnest applications were made for his 
 pastoral services. The one from Hanover, signed by about 
 one hundred and fifty heads of families, came with renewed 
 importunity, and, aided by the voice of the living messenger 
 despatched by the people to urge their call, moved his heart."
 
 MEMOIR OF THE REV. SAMUEL DA VIES. 
 
 223 
 
 He accepted their call, " hoping," as he himself expresses it, "I 
 might live to prepare the way for some more useful successor, 
 and willing to expire under the fatigues of duty rather than in 
 voluntary negligence." 
 
 " It is scarcely possible," says Dr. Foote, " for a missionary 
 to have gone to Virginia in circumstances better calculated to 
 make an impression in favor of the gospel which he preached. 
 In his domestic afflictions and bodily weakness Davies felt the 
 sentence of death gone out and already in execution. His soul 
 burned with the desire of usefulness, and his tongue uttered 
 the earnest persuasions of a spirit that would reconcile man to 
 God, and lay some trophies at the Redeemer's feet, before his 
 lips should be locked up in the grave. He longed to carry with 
 him to the heavens some gems for the eternal crown. The peo- 
 ple of Hanover were ready for an elevated spirit to lead them 
 on through common and uncommon difficulties, through trials 
 incident to all men, and the trials peculiar to their situation from 
 the laws of the province, complaints, ridicule, indictments, fines, 
 and heavy costs of court, to virtue and eternal life." (Foote's 
 "Sketches of Virginia," page 163.) 
 
 In his second visit to Virginia he was accompanied by his 
 fellow-student and earnest friend the Rev. John Rodgers, who 
 later in life was minister of the Presbyterian churches in New 
 York. But, not being able to obtain a license from the General 
 Court, Mr. Rodgers tarried only for a short time, and Mr. Davies 
 was left alone to minister to the Dissenters in Hanover and the 
 adjacent counties. The different congregations or assemblies 
 to which he ministered were scattered over a large district of 
 country, not less than sixty miles in length, and the licensed 
 places for preaching, of which there were seven, were, the near- 
 est, twelve or fifteen miles apart. A license for Mr. Davies 
 to preach, at a house to be erected for the purpose in the 
 county of New Kent, granted by the court of that county, was 
 revoked by the General Court, which claimed exclusive juris- 
 diction in this matter. The vexations to which Dissenters in 
 Virginia were subjected at this time a hundred and twenty- 
 five years ago would seem incredible were it not a thing of 
 unquestionable record. As the religious teacher of his people,
 
 224 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 and also as the advocate and defender of their civil rights and 
 religious liberties, Mr. Davies labored with untiring diligence. 
 He preached with a power that attracted the attention of both 
 friends and opponents ; and before the court he maintained, in 
 opposition to the Attorney-General of the Province, and with 
 an ability which elicited the commendation of the members of 
 the bar, the rights of the Dissenters in Virginia to all the con- 
 cessions in the English Act of Toleration. He wrote to the well- 
 known Dr. Doddridge, of England, and solicited and obtained 
 his aid in bringing to the notice of the Bishop of London the 
 hardships to which the Dissenters were subjected by what he 
 regarded as the false interpretation given to the " Toleration 
 Act" as in force in England and Wales. Dr. Doddridge's ill 
 health prevented his pursuing the subject beyond sending to 
 Mr. Davies the answer of the Bishop, and copies of some ex- 
 tracts from letters sent to the Bishop from the friends of Epis- 
 copacy in England. 
 
 To the Bishop's letter to Dr. Doddridge Mr. Davies prepared 
 an elaborate reply, in which he argues at great length, and with 
 much force, against the position assumed by the Bishop, and 
 the charges insinuated against himself in the letters sent to his 
 Lordship. This reply Mr. Davies sent to Mr. Mauduit, of Lon- 
 don, to be communicated to Drs. Avery and Doddridge, leaving 
 it to their discretion whether to forward it to the Bishop or not. 
 Dr. Doddridge died before the letter reached England, and Dr. 
 Avery and Mr. Mauduit decided against sending it; and Dr. 
 Avery so informed Mr. Davies. The length of the letter he 
 regarded as a serious objection to it, and one which he thought 
 was sure to prevent its consideration, and even the reading of 
 it, by the prelate to whom it was addressed. Another reason 
 assigned by Dr. Avery for coming to the decision he did was 
 the fact, that, in replying to a statement made by the Bishop, 
 in his letter to Dr. Doddridge, that the non-conformists of New 
 England were strongly opposed to the appointing of two or 
 three Bishops for the Plantations, as those Provinces were then 
 called, although the Bishops were to have no jurisdiction except 
 over the clergy of their own Church, Mr. Davies says that in the 
 Synod of which he is a member he never heard of an objection
 
 MEMOIR OF THE REV. SAMUEL DA VIES. 
 
 22$ 
 
 to the appointment of Bishops for the purpose mentioned in 
 his Lordship's letter, and that he was extremely surprised at 
 the information received by his Lordship concerning the recep- 
 tion of this proposal by the non-conformists in New England, 
 and that they used all their influence to obstruct it. And Mr. 
 Davies adds, " I never had the least intimation of it before, 
 although some of the principal ministers maintain a very unre- 
 served correspondence with me, and I have also the other 
 usual methods of receiving intelligence from a country so near. 
 If it be true, I think with your Lordship that it was hardly 
 consistent with a spirit of toleration ;" and more in a like strain. 
 In writing to Mr. Davies the reasons why Mr. Mauduit and 
 himself agreed that it was not advisable to send to his Lordship 
 Mr. Davies's letter, Dr. Avery says: 
 
 " I shall not enter into any debate with you concerning the scheme proposed for 
 erecting a Bishoprick in North America. The less said on that head, either on 
 your side or on our side of the water, I believe the better. But one thing in yours, 
 addressed to his lordship, greatly surprised me. You represent your friends in 
 North America, particularly in New York, Virginia, and Massachusetts, as far as 
 your correspondence reaches, if not as desiring, yet as willing to acquiesce, Ln having 
 such an ecclesiastical superior officer sent over to America, with power to ordain, 
 confirm, &c. Now all my accounts from Connecticut, the Jerseys, and Massa- 
 chusetts directly and strongly contradict this. They uniformly speak of it as a 
 measure quite inconsistent with their peace and tranquillity. From both the minis- 
 try and laity in these colonies I have received thanks for doing the little I did do, 
 or could do, to prevent so sore a calamity as that seemed likely to prove to the col- 
 onies. These I have had from many quarters ; and some of them expressed in 
 strong and irritating terms. Yours to his lordship is the first letter I have seen from 
 those parts expressing a desire, or so much as an indifference and coolness, on that 
 head. This must be my excuse for not forwarding your letter to his lordship; 
 though on several other accounts, on which I cannot enlarge, I should not have 
 thought it proper to be put into his hands." 
 
 The admirable good sense and great modesty of Davies, as 
 well as his truly catholic spirit, are manifest in his reply to Dr. 
 Avery's letter informing him why his letter to the Bishop of 
 London was not forwarded to that prelate, as will appear from 
 the following extract : 
 
 " Since I received yours I have been uneasy lest my letter to his lordship should 
 be put into his hands without your approbation, as my sentiments therein expressed, 
 concerning the mission of bishops to North America, were different from yours in 
 your letter to me. When I expressed my satisfaction in the proposal, I spake in the
 
 226 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 simplicity of my heart and according to my judgment, which I have had no reason 
 to alter since, but only your dissent, in which I put implicit confidence, as you have 
 better opportunities to discover the consequences of such missions than I. That 
 the settlement of bishops in the dissenting colonies would be injurious to them I 
 can easily see; but I find by the Bishop of London's letter to Dr. Doddridge that 
 this was not proposed. And I was not able to discern what injury the settlement 
 of a bishop in Virginia or Maryland, where the Church of England is established, 
 would be to the few dissenters in them, and I was not without hopes it might tend 
 to purge out the corrupt leaven from the established church, and restrain the clergy 
 from their extravagances, who now behave as they please, and promise themselves 
 impunity, as there is none to censure or depose them on this side of the Atlantic. 
 However, dear sir, if you think me mistaken, you may take what measure you think 
 proper to prevent any ill consequences that may be occasioned by the unreserved 
 declaration of my opinion in my letter to his lordship. And as I shall hereafter 
 impose upon you the trouble of rescinding and reviewing the papers I may find 
 occasion to transmit to England on the affairs of the dissenters in Virginia, I not 
 only allow, but request you, sir, to correct or suppress them as your superior judg- 
 ment may direct you. As I judge the matter is of great importance to the interests 
 of religion in this colony, I would not willingly incur guilt by omitting any means 
 in my power to reflect light upon it; but for want of judgment and a more thorough 
 acquaintance with the state of affairs in England, I may sometimes fail in the right 
 choice or prudent use of means for that purpose, and therefore, to prevent any ill 
 consequences, I must call in the assistance of your judgment and that of the Com- 
 mittee." 
 
 The committee here mentioned was one which was charged 
 with the duty of looking after the interest of the Dissenters in 
 all matters brought to the notice of the Government or Court. 
 Of this committee, as appears from Mr. Davies's journal while 
 he was in England, Dr. Avery was for thirty years or more a 
 prominent and active member. 
 
 It was at this period, and not during Mr. Davies's visit to 
 England, as has been said in some sketches of his life, that he 
 obtained the opinion of Sir Dudley Ryder, the Attorney-General 
 of England, sustaining his view of the rights of the Dissenters 
 under the Toleration Act.* This legal opinion was obtained by 
 Dr. Avery, chairman of the above-named committee, who sent 
 a copy of it with the letter from which the above extract was 
 
 * It was Sir Dudley Ryder's opinion, that under the Act of Toleration Dissenters 
 might ask for the licensure of as many houses as they thought necessary, without 
 faar of refusal, and also that this interpretation of the Act extended to Virginia. 
 Whereas the Governor and Council claimed the right to determine the number of 
 houses of worship to be allowed the Dissenters. And the Bishop of London favored 
 this claim of the civil authorities in that Province.
 
 MEMOIR OF THE REV. SAMUEL DA VIES. 
 
 227 
 
 taken, in order that Mr. Davies might lay it before the Governor 
 and Council of Virginia. 
 
 " Here," says Dr. Foote, " the matter rested till Mr. Davies 
 visited England. After his return from England he received 
 
 two letters from the committee They show the interest 
 
 taken in the cause of the Dissenters in Virginia by the Dis- 
 senters in England, and that all hope of redress from civil 
 authority lay in an appeal to the King." 
 
 The labors of Mr. Davies challenge our admiration. They 
 were in season and out of season. Not only did he watch for 
 the spiritual good of his hearers, residents of Hanover and of 
 four contiguous counties, preaching statedly at the seven differ- 
 ent licensed houses, and carry on an extensive correspondence 
 with prominent ministers at home and abroad, but he found 
 time to attend the meetings of Presbytery and Synod, to make 
 missionary tours in the counties of Cumberland, Powhatan, 
 Prince Edward, Charlotte, Campbell, Nottaway, and Amelia, 
 and thus prepare the way for the erection of churches in these 
 counties, and to maintain, as we have seen, the religious liber- 
 ties of his people against the bigotry and tyranny of their op- 
 pressors ; and all this before attaining the age of thirty years. 
 
 The following extract, taken from one of his letters to Dr. 
 Bellamy, and copied from Dr. Green's " Notes," gives no doubt 
 the most reliable account of his pastoral labors during the first 
 three years of his ministry in Virginia: 
 
 "In October, 1748, besides the four meeting-houses already mentioned, the 
 people petitioned for the licensing of three more, which, with great difficulty, was ob- 
 tained. Among these seven I have divided my time. Three of them lie in Hanover 
 County, the other four in the counties of Henrico, Caroline, Louisa, and Gooch- 
 land. The nearest are twelve or fifteen miles distant from each other, and the 
 extremes about forty. My congregation is extremely dispersed ; and notwithstand- 
 ing the number of meeting-houses, some live twenty, some thirty, and a few forty 
 miles from the nearest. Were they all compactly situated in one county, they 
 would be sufficient to form three distinct congregations. Many of the church 
 people also attend when there is a sermon at any of these houses. This I looked 
 upon, at first, as mere curiosity after novelty ; but as it continues, and in some 
 places seems to increase, I cannot but look upon it as a happy token of their being 
 at length thoroughly engaged. And I have the greater reason to hope so now, as 
 experience has confirmed my former hopes ; fifty or sixty families having thus been 
 happily entangled in the net of the gospel by their own curiosity, or some such 
 motive. There are three hundred communicants in my congregation, of whom
 
 228 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 the greatest number are, in the judgment of rational charity, real Christians; be- 
 sides some who, through excessive scrupulousness, do not seek admission to the 
 Lord's table. 
 
 " There is a number of Negroes, sometimes I see a hundred or more, among my 
 hearers. I have baptized about forty of them within these three years, upon such 
 a profession of faith as I then judged credible. Some of them, I fear, have aposta- 
 tized, but others, I trust, will persevere to the end. I have had as satisfying evi- 
 dence of the sincere piety of several of them as I ever had from any person in 
 my life, and their artless simplicity, their passionate aspirations after Christ, their 
 incessant endeavors to know and do the will of God, have charmed me. But, alas ! 
 while my charge is so extensive I cannot take sufficient pains with them for their 
 instruction, which often oppresses my heart. There have been instances of un- 
 happy apostasy among us ; but, blessed be God, not many in proportion to the 
 number brought under concern. At present there are a few under promising 
 impressions, but in general security prevails," etc. 
 
 " The home of Mr. Davies," says President Green, " was in the county of Han- 
 over, about twelve miles from Richmond ; but his occasional labors were extended 
 through a considerable part of the Colony, and he acquired an influence greater, 
 probably, than any other preacher of the gospel in Virginia ever possessed. It was 
 the influence of fervent piety and zeal directed by a mind of uncommon compass 
 and force. He took pains to instruct the negroes, and a considerable number of 
 them were seals of his ministry. Till this day [1822] many of the descendants 
 of his negro converts manifest the happy effects of the pious instructions and ex- 
 ample of their parents." 
 
 In the autumn of 1752 the Synod of New York held their 
 sessions at Newark, New Jersey, the day after the College Com- 
 mencement. Mr. Davies was present at the meetings of the 
 Synod, and on this occasion he met President Edwards, who 
 was on a visit to his son-in-law, the Rev. Aaron Burr. Writing 
 to a gentleman in Scotland under the date of November 24 of 
 that year, Mr. Edwards says, " When I was lately in New 
 Jersey, in the time of the Synod there, ... I then had the 
 comfort of a short interview with Mr. Davies, of Virginia, 
 and was much pleased with him and his conversation. He 
 appears to be a man of very solid understanding, discreet in 
 his behavior, and polished and gentlemanly in his manners, 
 as well as fervent and zealous in religion." High praise from a 
 high source ! No doubt this interview confirmed the exalted 
 opinion Mr. Davies had of the great talents, learning, and piety 
 of Mr. Edwards,* and increased his desire that Mr. Edwards 
 
 * In his farewell sermon to his people in Hanover he speaks of Edwards " as 
 the profoundest reasoner and the greatest divine that America has ever produced."
 
 MEMOIR OF THE REV. SAMUEL DA VIES. 
 
 229 
 
 upon leaving Northampton should remove to Virginia, and 
 to effect which he labored with his wonted promptness and 
 assiduity. But Mr. Edwards removed to Stockbridge, Massa- 
 chusetts, and his connection there with the Indian missions 
 prevented his entertaining the earnest solicitation of Mr. Davies 
 and his friends, that he should come to Virginia and settle 
 there, where adequate provision for the support of himself and 
 family was promised, and, we may add, was virtually secured. 
 
 In the account given of President Burr's administration, 
 chapter vi., mention was made of the fact that, at the request 
 of the Trustees of the College, the Rev. Messrs. Gilbert Ten- 
 nent and Davies visited Great Britain and Ireland to solicit funds 
 in aid of the College, and more especially for the erection of 
 suitable buildings for the accommodation of the officers and the 
 students. Mention was also made of the great success of their 
 mission, whereby ample funds were obtained for the erection of 
 the edifice known as " Nassau Hall," and for the building of 
 the President's house, and the foundation of the charitable fund 
 of the College, which by several bequests in later times was 
 much augmented, and has done a great work in opening the 
 way for the liberal education of poor and pious young men who 
 were willing and even desirous to devote themselves to the gospel 
 ministry. Of these matters we shall not here speak further; 
 but of Mr. Davies's visit to England and Scotland, of his preach- 
 ing, and of the numerous and valuable acquaintances formed 
 by him while abroad, and of the deep impression which he 
 made upon the minds of those with whom he came into con- 
 tact, it is both proper and just that something should be said 
 in a sketch like this. 
 
 Having agreed to accompany Mr. Tennent in this agency in 
 behalf of the College, in case the Synod of New York should 
 approve of his so doing, Mr. Davies left Hanover on Monday, 
 the 3d of September, 1753, to attend the sessions of the Synod 
 of New York, to be held in the city of Philadelphia, in the 
 early part of October, and that he might have an opportunity 
 to confer with the College authorities and to make the requi- 
 site preparations for his voyage to England. His memorandum 
 under the date of September 3, 1753, is in these words:
 
 230 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 " This morning I felt the painful rupture of the tender relative ties which bind 
 me to Hanover. I took my leave of some thousands yesterday in public, and 
 to-day I parted with some select friends, and my dear, dear spouse, my honored 
 parents, and three helpless children, and left them in tears. To thee, O Lord, I 
 then solemnly committed them, and now I renew the dedication. I know not that 
 I shall ever see them again, but my life and theirs are in the hands of Divine 
 Providence, and therefore shall be preserved as long as is fit," etc. 
 
 On his way to Philadelphia and Newark, Mr. Davies spent 
 several days at the house of his friend, and his successor in the 
 office of President of the College, the Rev. Samuel Finley, who 
 was then residing at Nottingham, Maryland. Here he met a 
 committee of his Presbytery, and in conjunction with Messrs. 
 Finley, Roan, and (Robert) Smith, revised and corrected a 
 draft drawn up by Mr. (John) Blair, of a warning or testimony 
 of the Presbytery of New Castle (New Side) against several 
 errors and evil practices of Mr. John Cuthbertson, a native of 
 Scotland.* 
 
 The five members of the Presbytery here mentioned all 
 became men of note; and it is worthy of remark that two of 
 them, viz., Davies and Finley, were, some years after, Presidents 
 of the College of New Jersey, that Mr. Blair was the first 
 prominent Vice-President and Professor in the College, and that 
 Dr. Robert Smith was the father of the Rev. Dr. S. S. Smith, 
 the seventh President of the College. From Nottingham he 
 went to Fagg's Manor to see Mrs. Blair, the widow of the Rev. 
 Samuel Blair, his venerated teacher, under whose guidance he 
 was prepared for the office of the holy ministry, and of whom 
 he speaks in this connection as " the great Mr. Blair," and else- 
 where as "the incomparable Mr. Blair." On the i$th of Sep- 
 tember he reached Philadelphia, and was kindly received by 
 Mr. Tennent and his other friends there. Upon visiting his 
 dear and valuable friend Captain Grant of that city, he was 
 
 * The errors on which the Presbytery animadvert are these : " That God has 
 made over Christ and all his benefits to all that hear the gospel by a deed of 
 gift (as he affects to speak), so that every sinner that hears the gospel offer ought 
 to put in a claim of right to him as his Saviour in particular. That saving faith 
 consists in a persuasion that Christ is mine, and that he died for me in particular. 
 That redemption is universal as to purchase. That civil government, both heathen 
 and Christian, is derived from Christ as mediator."
 
 MEMOIR OF THE REV. SAMUEL DA VIES. 
 
 231 
 
 shown a letter received by that gentleman from Mr. De Berdt, 
 of London, in which was the following sentence : 
 
 " That the principles inculcated in the College of New Jersey are generally 
 looked upon as antiquated and unfashionable by the Dissenters in England." " A 
 dismal omen," adds Mr. Davies, "to our embassy, and, I fear, to the interests 
 of religion." 
 
 He reached Newark on the following Thursday, " and was re- 
 ceived with much affection by the worthy President," and was 
 honored with a visit and with free conversation with his Excel- 
 lency the Governor, and on the next day he waited on Gover- 
 nor Belcher, at Elizabethtown, in company with President Burr 
 and his lady. The Governor treated him with marked atten- 
 tion, and insisted upon his preaching for Mr. Spencer, pastor 
 of the church in that town, which he did on Sunday, the 3Oth 
 of September. On the preceding Sabbath he preached twice 
 in Newark ; and he also heard President Burr preach a fare- 
 well sermon to the candidates for a degree at the Commence- 
 ment to take place on Wednesday of that week. Mr. Burr's 
 text was, " And now, my son, the Lord be with thee and pros- 
 per thee." "And I was amazed," says Mr. Davies, "to see how 
 readily good sense and accurate language flowed from him ex- 
 tempore. The sermon was affecting to me, and might have 
 been to the students." 
 
 On Commencement-day Mr. Davies delivered a thesis (Per- 
 sonales Distinctiones in Trinitate sunt aeternae), and vindicated 
 it against the opponents, and afterwards was honored with the 
 degree of Master of Arts. 
 
 While in Newark, he spent a part of his time in drawing up 
 a petition from the Synod of New York to the General As- 
 sembly of the Church of Scotland. Upon leaving Newark, he 
 visited New York, and Elizabethtown, took leave of Governor 
 Belcher, lodged at the house of the Rev. John Brainerd, who 
 had succeeded his brother, David Brainerd, as a missionary 
 among the Indians, at or near Cranbury, and visited the Indian 
 town or settlement. He then proceeded to Philadelphia, to 
 attend the Synod, which convened in that city on Wednes- 
 day, the 3d of October. On Friday evening he heard Mr.. 
 Bostwick preach, and inserts in his journal this remark re-
 
 232 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 specting him : " He has, I think, the best style extempore of 
 any man I ever heard." * 
 
 Mr. Davies preached several times in Philadelphia, and oc- 
 casionally in neighboring places, while waiting for the sailing 
 of the vessel in which he and his associate, the Rev. Gilbert 
 Tennent, were to take their passage. And during this period 
 he found time to attend a meeting of his Presbytery at Fagg's 
 Manor, and to visit his intimate friend the Rev. John Rodgers, 
 at St. George's, Delaware. The delay in the sailing of the 
 vessel was a severe trial to his patience, and the more so from 
 the circumstance that it was probable that it would add much 
 to the discomforts of the voyage, which proved to be the case. 
 The pilot did not leave the ship until the afternoon of the iSth 
 of November, and it was not until the 25th of December that 
 the fellow-voyagers reached the city of London. The vessel 
 having ascended the Thames, they landed near London bridge, 
 and were conducted to the house of Mr. De Berdt, the gentle- 
 man named above as a correspondent of Captain Grant, of 
 Philadelphia, and of whom Mr. Davies says in his journal that 
 he " is a most amiable, pious gentleman, and entertained us 
 very kindly till we could provide a lodging." 
 
 Mr. Whitefield very promptly and kindly invited them to 
 make his house their home ; but upon consultation with some 
 other friends they deemed it expedient to decline his generous 
 offer, and to take lodgings and board in a private boarding- 
 house; which they did. Not only by this eminent preacher 
 but by sundry other of the leading non-conformists were they 
 courteously received and entertained. Prominent among these 
 were the Rev. Mr. Stennet, of the Baptist Church, to whose 
 kind offices they were indebted for much of their success in 
 London; the Rev. Mr. Gibbons, minister of the Independent 
 congregation at Haberdashers' Hall, and Mr. Davies's corre- 
 spondent, and who upon the death of Mr. Davies published 
 a volume of his sermons, with a sketch of the author's life. 
 
 * Mr. Bostwick was at this time minister of the Presbyterian church of Jamaica, 
 Long Island, and in 1755 he removed to the city of New York and took charge 
 pi the Presbyterian church in that city. In 1761 he was chosen a Trustee of the 
 College of New Jersey, and held this office till his death.
 
 MEMOIR OF THE REV. SAMUEL DA VIES. 
 
 233 
 
 Of these two distinguished preachers Mr. Davies makes fre- 
 quent mention, expressive of his high respect, and of his great 
 indebtedness to them. In his " Diary," under the date of Jan- 
 uary 8, 1754, a fortnight after his arrival in London, he makes 
 this entry: 
 
 " Dined at Mr. Elea/er Edwards's, ... of the Baptist persuasion. Here we 
 enjoyed Mr. Stennet's company, and his son's. He is a judicious, prudent, and 
 candid gentleman, and has more influence in court than any dissenting minister in 
 London. Mr. Tennent having visited Mr. Partridge, the Agent of Pennsylvania, 
 was advised to apply to some of the court, particularly to the Lord Chancellor, 
 Lord Halifax, and Mr. Pelham [the Prime Minister], and he seemed inclined to 
 do it. But to me it appeared very doubtful ; I was afraid, in case the College should 
 be discountenanced by them, they would find some flaw in the charter, and so 
 overset it ; and that a refusal at court would have a bad influence upon those who 
 otherwise might contribute towards it. We consulted Mr. Stennet, and he was 
 fully of my mind." 
 
 Mr. Stennet accompanied Messrs. Tennent and Davies to the 
 Duke of Argyle's when they went to deliver to his Grace the 
 letter for him given to them by Governor Belcher. The Duke 
 having advised them to call upon Lord Halifax, or Lord Duplin, 
 both of whom were members of the Board of Trade and Plan- 
 tations, Mr. Stennet went for them to Lord Duplin and con- 
 sulted him in confidence, and his Lordship assured Mr. Stennet 
 that he would do nothing to their injury. 
 
 On the day after their arrival in London they were visited, says 
 Mr. Davies, "by a venerable old gentleman, Mr. Hall, author 
 of some of the ' Lime Street Sermons,' who seems to be of a 
 true puritanic spirit and full of religion;" by Mr. Gibbons, "my 
 dear correspondent, who informed us of the general apostasy of 
 the Dissenters from the principles of the Reformation;" and by 
 "good Mr. Cruttenden, who sent me over ten pound sterling 
 worth of books to be distributed among the poor in Virginia." * 
 
 * This last-named gentleman, Mr. Robert Cruttenden, the Rev. Richard Webster 
 thinks (see note to page 557 of his History) -was, probably the friend who suggested 
 to Mr. Davies, after his return from England, a plan for obtaining, if practicable, 
 some three or four young Africans, who still retained their native language, were 
 pious, and of good abilities, to be educated at the College of New Jersey for mis- 
 sionaries. Whether Mr. Davies availed himself of this suggestion is not known. 
 But nearly twenty years after, the well-known Dr. Samuel Hopkins, a pupil of the 
 Rev. Jonathan Edwards, and his first biographer, adopted a like scheme, and in 
 VOL. I. 16
 
 234 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 In the prosecution of their work they called upon all or 
 nearly all the Dissenting ministers in London and its vicinity, 
 and in general they were kindly received and encouraged, 
 although not a few of these ministers had no sympathy what- 
 ever with Messrs. Tennent and Davies in their religious views 
 and feelings, being tainted with anti-Calvinistic and latitudina- 
 rian principles. The diversity of views among the Dissenters 
 was a source of no small embarrassment to these agents of 
 the College; and on this head Mr. Davies makes this remark: 
 
 " There are so many parties here that it is very perplexing to us to know how to 
 behave so as to avoid offence, and not to injure the business of our embassy. The 
 Independents and Baptists are more generally Calvinists than the Presbyterians, 
 though I fear some of them are tainted with Antinomianism." 
 
 By Mr. Chandler, a Presbyterian minister of much note, they 
 were advised to represent, in their petition for the College, that 
 it would be of use "to keep a sense of religion among the Ger- 
 man Protestant emigrants settled in the British plantations, to 
 instruct their children in the principles of our common Chris- 
 tianity, and to instruct them in the knowledge of the English 
 language, that they may be incorporated with the rest of his 
 Majesty's subjects." Mr. Davies adds, " Mr. T. approved of 
 the addition, but I could not help scrupling it, because the Col- 
 lege is not immediately intended to teach the English language ; 
 but I submitted." They finally, however, determined to " soften 
 the terms in the clause about the German Protestants." On 
 the day following that of their call upon Mr. Chandler, viz., on 
 January 19, 1754, they "were sent for by a company of lords 
 and gentlemen who have the disposal of the money lately given 
 by the King for the support of schools among the Germans in 
 Pennsylvania." " Mr. Chandler," adds Mr. Davies, "who is the 
 Company's Secretary, introduced our affairs, and our petition 
 
 conjunction with the Rev. Dr. Ezra Stiles, afterwards President of Yale, formed 
 the design to prepare two African youths, members of his church in Newport, 
 Rhode Island, for preaching the gospel in Western Africa. That they might be 
 prepared for their missionary work, it was judged expedient to send them to Prince- 
 ton, New Jersey, to be for a season under the tuition of the Rev. Dr. Witherspoon. 
 How long they continued here, and what proficiency they made in their studies, are 
 matters respecting which we have no record. (See Dr. Alexander's " History of 
 Colonization," pages 48523.)
 
 MEMOIR OF THE REV. SAMUEL DAV1ES. 
 
 235 
 
 was read. There was no time to consider it, and it was deferred 
 until their next meeting." It does not appear that the petition 
 was ever again brought before them for consideration; but Mr. 
 Chandler himself gave it his countenance and recommendation, 
 as did some sixty or more of the Dissenting ministers, includ- 
 ing Baptists, Independents, and Presbyterians. Among these 
 are some of the well-known scholars of that day, e.g., Rev. 
 Drs. Lardner, Jennings, Guyse, Benson, Price, and Milner. The 
 Rev. Dr. Samuel Chandler, spoken of above as the Rev. Mr. 
 Chandler, was an eminent scholar, and he had the happiness to 
 number among his pupils Archbishop Seeker and Bishop But- 
 ler. His sermons were published in four volumes quarto, and 
 as early as 1725 he published his "Vindication of the Christian 
 Religion." 
 
 There was danger at one time that Mr. Chandler would dis- 
 countenance the efforts of Messrs. Tennent and Davies, a copy 
 of Mr. Tennent's famous Nottingham Sermon having been 
 placed in his hand, with this very end in view, through the 
 agency of a member of the Synod of Philadelphia. But upon 
 receiving a full explanation of all the facts, Mr. Chandler signed 
 their petition. Messrs. Tennent and Davies waited also upon 
 Mr. Penn, the Proprietor of Pennsylvania, and were kindly re- 
 ceived by him ; but he gave them no encouragement, regarding 
 himself as under peculiar obligations to favor the Academy in 
 Philadelphia. From a Mr. Cromwell, a great-grandson of the 
 Protector, Mr. Davies received three guineas for the College. 
 Messrs. Tennent and Davies, while yet in London, dined with 
 the Marquis of Lothian, and at dinner met Lord Leven, the 
 King's Commissioner and representative at the sessions of the 
 General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland. These noblemen 
 favored their mission and encouraged them in their work. 
 
 Mr. Davies was frequently invited to preach by the Dissenting 
 ministers of London, and he was repeatedly urged to prepare a 
 volume of his sermons for publication, which he tells us he had 
 serious thoughts of doing. An anecdote has been very current 
 in the United States to the purport that on one occasion his 
 Majesty George the Second heard Mr. Davies preach, and 
 that he was so delighted with the eloquence of the speaker as
 
 236 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSE\. 
 
 to express aloud his approval, and to call down upon himself a 
 reproof for his interruption of the service ; and that by invita- 
 tion Mr. Davies waited upon the King and received from him 
 a handsome donation for the College. There is not the least 
 foundation for this story. His " Diary" shows beyond all 
 doubt that Mr. Davies never saw his Majesty, and that he had 
 no desire to see him or the members of his court, lest inquiry 
 should be made respecting the validity of the charter given 
 to the College by Governor Belcher, and the character of the 
 charter essentially altered, if not totally suppressed. 
 
 Upon leaving London, Messrs. Tennent and Davies went 
 directly to Edinburgh, where they met with a very kind recep- 
 tion from all classes, clergy and laity, nobles and commoners. 
 
 In their application to the General Assembly of the Church 
 of Scotland they were successful beyond all expectation. On 
 Monday, the 2/th of May, their petition was received by the 
 Assembly, and it was agreed to without an objection from 
 any one. Their cause was ably advocated by Mr. Lumsden, 
 Professor of Theology at Aberdeen, who, without any confer- 
 ence with either Mr. Tennent or Mr. Davies, urged that it was 
 the duty of the Assembly to promote such institutions as the 
 College of New Jersey, and especially among the Presbyte- 
 rians in the Colonies. Mr. Lumsden was seconded by Mr. 
 McLagan, and a committee was appointed to draw up an act 
 and a recommendation for a national collection. Of this com- 
 mittee Mr. McLagan was a member. 
 
 " The approbation of the General Assembly," says Mr. Davies, in his " Diary," 
 May 27, 1754, "will be attended with many happy consequences; particularly it 
 will recommend our College to the world, and wipe off the odium from the Syruxl 
 of New York as a parcel of schismatics." 
 
 The action of the Assembly was the more pleasing to Messrs. 
 Tennent and Davies, from the circumstance that special pains 
 had been taken by one or more of the members of the Synod 
 of Philadelphia to excite a prejudice against their mission by 
 means of a letter written for this very purpose, and by the dis- 
 tribution of copies of Mr. Tennent's Nottingham Sermon. Mr. 
 Tennent and Mr. Davies waited also upon the Society for 
 Propagating Christian Knowledge, of which the Marquis of
 
 MEMOIR OF THE REV. SAMUEL DA VIES. 
 
 237 
 
 Lothian was the President, and at the request of the Society 
 gave them their advice as to the' best method of conducting 
 the mission among the Indians. The members of the Society 
 also drew up a letter in favor of the College of New Jersey, 
 to be annexed to the Act of the General Assembly. On the 
 same day Messrs. Tennent and Davies dined with his Grace the 
 Lord Commissioner. 
 
 From Mr. Davies's journal, it appears that he preached in 
 several of the principal churches of Edinburgh, and to very 
 crowded auditories, having among his hearers on one occasion 
 the Lord Provost and the Magistrates of the city. He preached 
 three times in the College Kirk, and evidently with much ac- 
 ceptance, and to the profit of not a few of his hearers. He had 
 every reason to be pleased with his reception in Edinburgh, 
 and we are not surprised at his remark, 
 
 " I met with more Christian friendship in Edinburgh than anywhere in Great 
 Britain. There is too general a decay of experimental and practical religion, and 
 yet there is a considerable number of pious people in the City." (Davies's Jour- 
 nal, June 15, 1754.) 
 
 Under the same date with the above he adds : 
 
 " I find a great number of the clergy and laity have of late carried church power 
 to an extravagant height, deny to individuals the right of judging for themselves, 
 and insist upon absolute universal obedience to all the determinations of the Gen- 
 eral Assembly. I heard several speeches in the House on this head which really 
 surprised me. The nobility and gentry, who are lay elders, are generally high- 
 flyers, and have encroached upon the rights of the people, especially in the choice 
 of their ministers. Violent settlements are enjoined by the authority of the Gen- 
 eral Assembly, and there is no prospect of redress. There is a Piece published, 
 under the title of ' The Ecclesiastical Characteristics,' ascribed to one Mr. Weather- 
 spoon [Witherspoon], a young minister. It is a burlesque upon the high-flyers, 
 under the name of moderate men, and I think the humor is nothing inferior to 
 Dean Swift." 
 
 It never occurred to Mr. Davies while penning the above 
 sentence that this " one Mr. Weatherspoon" would ever have 
 any connection with the College of New Jersey, much less that 
 they would both be Presidents of it ; and yet within fifteen 
 years from this time they both were, Mr. Davies from 1759 to 
 1761, and Mr. Witherspoon from 1768 to 1794. 
 
 After spending a month or more at Edinburgh, Mr. Tennent
 
 238 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 left for Ireland, to present the cause of the College to the Irish 
 Presbyterian Synod, and Mr. Davies went on a visit to Glas- 
 gow, where he was kindly received and hospitably entertained. 
 The freedom of the city was presented to him, and at the same 
 time it was conferred upon Mr. Tennent and Mr. President Burr, 
 although they were not there. Mr. Davies tarried at Glasgow 
 about ten days, and preached there six times. He formed firm 
 friendships with some of the leading ministers of that city, and 
 more especially with Mr. Gillies, afterwards the Rev. Dr. Gillies, 
 by whom some of his letters to his English and Scotch cor- 
 respondents were preserved and published. Upon the decease 
 of the Rev. Mr. McLaurin, another of his Glasgow friends, he 
 made in his " Diary" the following entry : " That city has lost 
 one of its brightest ornaments, the Church of Scotland one of 
 its most excellent ministers, and the College of New Jersey one 
 of its best friends." The attentions which were paid to him in 
 Glasgow were owing, no doubt, in part to the circumstance that 
 Governor Dinwiddie, of Virginia, without Mr. Davies's knowl- 
 edge, had kindly commended him to his brother, the Provost of 
 the city, and to his brother-in-law, the Rev. Mr. McCulloh, at 
 Cambuslang. This gentleman, " an humble, holy minister of 
 Christ," as Mr. Davies calls him, had a conversation with Mr. 
 Davies about a donation of two hundred pounds for propa- 
 gating the gospel among the Indians. 
 
 Mr. Davies also visited the Rev. John Erskine, of Culross, 
 afterwards the Rev. Dr. Erskine, of Grey Friars' Church, Edin- 
 burgh. This distinguished divine took a lively interest in the 
 welfare of the College, and revised and prepared for the press a 
 sermon of Mr. Davies's on I John ii. 2, and published it, with a 
 preface in favor of the College, which, says Mr. Davies, " has 
 already had happy effects in Braintree, and excited sundry to 
 double their intended benefactions." At the place named resided 
 Mr. Samuel Ruggles, a gentleman of wealth and of great liber- 
 ality, who first subscribed thirty pounds to the fund for the Col- 
 lege, and who subsequently increased his subscription and made 
 it fifty pounds. 
 
 Upon his way from Edinburgh to London, Mr. Davies stopped 
 at Durham, and waited upon his Lordship the Bishop of that
 
 MEMOIR OF THE REV. SAMUEL DA VIES. 
 
 239 
 
 diocese. This right reverend prelate, the immediate succes- 
 sor of the eminent scholar Bishop Butler, " gave me," says 
 Mr. Davies, " a condescending reception. He particularly in- 
 quired whether the Church of England had any share in the 
 management of the College, complained of the intolerant prin- 
 ciples of the Dissenters in New England, asked me if I had 
 waited upon the Archbishop of Canterbury, or obtained the 
 consent of the Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign 
 Parts, and told me until I had done so he could not in a public 
 character do anything in favor of the design. But he gave me 
 five guineas as a private person; which afforded me no small 
 satisfaction, as it may open the door for further benefactions in 
 the Established Church." But it did not 
 
 Mr. Davies also visited Norwich and several of the other 
 larger towns and cities in England. He reached London on the 
 1st of October, and found there a letter from Mr. Tennent, in- 
 forming him that Mr. Tennent, having finished his applications 
 in the west of England, intended to come to London as soon as 
 possible, to prepare to embark for America. 
 
 " The prospect of so speedy a return gave me," says Mr. Davies, " no small 
 pleasure ; but the prospect of a winter passage was very shocking, especially as I 
 had such a melancholy time in my last voyage, and in the present diffident state of 
 my mind I am not a little intimidated at the dangers of the ocean." 
 
 Nor is his state of mind at all surprising, in view of the perils 
 then attending a voyage across the Atlantic in midwinter. 
 Among the reasons urged by the friends of Episcopacy in 
 America for the consecration of one or more Bishops in this 
 country was the loss of life on the part of the candidates who 
 went to England to be admitted to orders by the Bishop of 
 London. The Rev. Dr. Thomas Bradbury Chandler, in his 
 Appeal, asserts that one-fifth of all who had gone to England 
 for ordination, up to 1767, had died of disease or had been lost 
 at sea. 
 
 Mr. Tennent left London on the I3th of November, in a ves- 
 sel going directly to Philadelphia. Mr. Davies sailed on Fri- 
 day, the 1 5th of the same month. The reasons for not return- 
 ing home in the same vessel are briefly given by Mr. Davies in 
 his "Diary," under the date of November 18: "The impossi-
 
 240 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 bility of getting the Trustees together, and of my travelling 
 home by land from Philadelphia, determined me, with Mr. Ten- 
 nent's consent, to deny myself the pleasure of his company and 
 sail directly for Virginia, that I may the sooner see my earthly 
 all at home." After a long and tempestuous voyage, he arrived 
 at York, Virginia, on the I3th of February, 1755, and reached 
 his own home on Saturday, the 1 5th of that month, "and found 
 all well. What shall I render to the Lord for all his good- 
 ness ?" 
 
 The above recital gives a succinct view of Mr. Davies's labors 
 and of his success in fulfilling the duties of his mission in be- 
 half of the College; but it gives no intimation of his anxieties 
 and trials occasioned by his long and painful separation from 
 his family, to which he often refers in expressions of earnest 
 feeling. Nor has any mention been made of the sudden and 
 threatening attacks, superinduced, doubtless, by his untiring 
 and arduous labors, one of which, an apoplectic fit, as it was re- 
 garded by the physician in attendance, came very near termi- 
 nating his life, during his visit to the city of Norwich, in the 
 month of September, 1754. 
 
 The sums of money collected by Messrs. Tennent and Davies, 
 although far exceeding the most sanguine expectations of them- 
 selves and of the Trustees, are by no means the full measure of 
 their services to the College and to the interests of religion and 
 learning in the American Colonies. Their mission added much 
 to the reputation and the usefulness of the College, and turned 
 the attention of not a few persons of influence and of wealth to 
 the great importance of promoting Christian education among 
 all classes in this country. Their preaching, and more espe- 
 cially the preaching of Mr. Davies, attracted much attention, 
 and doubtless was productive of much good. In the course of 
 the eleven months which Mr. Davies spent in England and 
 Scotland he preached sixty or seventy times, and he was earn- 
 estly solicited, in conversation and by letters, to publish some 
 of these discourses. 
 
 While he diligently and successfully prosecuted the work of 
 collecting funds for the College, he at the same time availed 
 himself of every opportunity to further the interests of his Dis-
 
 MEMOIR OF THE REV. SAMUEL DA VIES. 
 
 241 
 
 senting friends in Virginia, and to secure for them all the privi- 
 leges conferred by the Act of Toleration upon Dissenters in 
 England. The hope that he might accomplish something in 
 this line was a strong inducement with him to accede to the 
 proposal of the Trustees that he should accompany Mr. Ten- 
 nent to Britain. And the last thing which he did before leaving 
 London was to call upon Dr. Avery, Mr. Mauduit, Dr. Stennet, 
 and others with the petition sent to him from Virginia, in refer- 
 ence to the rights of the Dissenters there under the English 
 Act of Toleration, and to solicit their aid in this matter which 
 he had so much at heart. At his earnest request these gentle- 
 men promised their assistance; nor were they unmindful of their 
 engagement. They conferred with the committee of the depu- 
 tation of Protestant Dissenters in regard to the expediency of 
 presenting the petition to the King in Council, and it was 
 deemed imprudent to present it at that time. The committee 
 gave it as their advice that the Dissenters in Virginia should 
 apply first to the County Court ; and if refused, then to the Gov- 
 ernor and Council ; and if refused by them, to use the house for 
 which a license had been sought, as if it had been licensed ; and 
 if prosecuted for so doing, to let the committee know. At the 
 same time the committee sent them private instructions, in case 
 any persons should be prosecuted for using such unlicensed 
 houses, that they should appeal to the King in Council, and the 
 committee engaged to prosecute the appeal. But no appeal 
 was ever made. By the time Mr. Davies returned home, the 
 state of public affairs in Virginia was so much changed, in con- 
 sequence of the incursions of the French and of the Indians 
 upon the western frontiers, that the Colonial Government, which 
 depended in no small degree upon the aid of the Dissenters to 
 repel these hostile aggressions, had less time and probably less 
 inclination to molest these loyal men, who were ready to lay 
 down their lives, if need be, in defence of their country. Mr. 
 Davies was among the foremost in urging upon his friends the 
 duty of taking up arms in defence of their King and of their 
 homes ; which, under the influence of his powerful appeals, they 
 promptly did, and in large numbers. 
 
 In a note to a sermon preached on the i/th of August, 1755,
 
 242 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 to the first volunteer company raised in Virginia after Braddock's 
 defeat, occur these words : 
 
 " I may point out to the public that heroic youth, Col. 
 Washington, whom I cannot but hope Providence has hitherto 
 preserved in so signal a manner for some important service." 
 Washington was then in the twenty-fourth year of his age. 
 By his prudence and courage he had rescued from destruction 
 the remnant of Braddock's army. 
 
 About this time, too, the Established clergy became involved 
 in a controversy with the Legislature with respect to the pay- 
 ment of their stipends of sixteen thousand pounds of tobacco* 
 " whether they should be paid in kind or at an estimated value." 
 " While this contest waxed hotter and hotter, Dissenters of dif- 
 ferent names," says Dr. Foote, " multiplied, and the rigor of the 
 courts relaxed. This unadvised proceeding of the clergy did 
 more for the Dissenters than all their appeals to natural and 
 constitutional law had been able to accomplish." The Revolu- 
 tion of 1776 put an end to all the restraints to which the Dis- 
 senters had been subjected by the laws of Virginia, and gave 
 them that perfect freedom in all matters of religion for which 
 Mr. Davies so long and so earnestly contended. But amidst 
 all his labors in defence of civil and religious liberty, he never 
 forgot that his chief business was to preach the gospel ; and 
 this he continued to do most diligently to all classes, rich and 
 poor, white and black. 
 
 In December, 1755, the Presbytery of Hanover was formed, 
 and of this Presbytery Mr. Davies was the first Moderator. It 
 comprised all the Presbyterian ministers in Virginia and North 
 Carolina, with their respective charges. " Of the whole Dis- 
 senting interests in these two colonies, Mr. Davies," says Presi- 
 dent Green, " was the animating soul. He made his influence 
 felt everywhere ; he transfused his spirit into the bosoms of his 
 associates, and roused them by the force of his example. His 
 popularity in Virginia was almost unbounded ; so that he was 
 invited and urged to preach in almost all the settled portions 
 of that colony." 
 
 Three years and a half after his return from England, Mr. 
 Davies was chosen President of the College of New Jersey.
 
 MEMOIR GF THE REV. SAMUEL DA VIES. 
 
 243 
 
 By the advice of his Presbytery he declined this invitation ; but 
 subsequently, with the approval of the Synod, he accepted the 
 office upon a tender of it a second time ; and he entered upon 
 its duties on the 26th of July, 1759. 
 
 In the sketch given of his administration, it was shown that 
 his career, though short, was brilliant, and that the highest 
 hopes were entertained by the friends of the College that his 
 direction of its affairs would be attended with the happiest 
 results. But these hopes were doomed to a sudden and unex- 
 pected disappointment; and it is by no means improbable that 
 his constant and earnest devotion to his official duties served to 
 undermine his strength, and caused him to succumb the more 
 readily to the fever of which he died. 
 
 "Towards the close of January, 1761," says President Green, "he was seized 
 with a bad cold, for which he was bled. The same day he transcribed for the 
 press his sermon on the death of George the Second.* The day following he 
 preached twice in the College Chapel. The arm in which he had been bled 
 surely for a reason sufficiently obvious became much inflamed, and his febrile 
 disposition was much increased. On the morning of the succeeding Monday he 
 was seized, while at breakfast, with violent chills, succeeded by an inflammatory 
 fever, which in ten days terminated his life." " The violence of his disease de- 
 prived him of the exercise of his reason through most of his sickness, . . . and 
 even in his delirium he manifested what were the objects which chiefly occupied 
 his mind. His faltering tongue was continually uttering some expedient to pro- 
 mote the prosperity of the Church of Christ and the good of mankind." 
 
 He died on the 4th of February, 1761, in the thirty-eighth 
 year of his age. 
 
 A sermon on the occasion of his death was preached in Lon- 
 don on the 2Qth of March, by his friend and correspondent, the 
 Rev. Dr. Thomas Gibbons ; and another at Princeton on the 
 28th of May, by the Rev. Dr. Samuel Finley. (Sprague's " An- 
 nals.") The one by Dr. Finley was printed at the request of 
 the Trustees ; and it was republished in London by Dr. Gib- 
 bons, in connection with his own sermon. Both these dis- 
 courses were prefixed to the first volume of Mr. Davies's 
 sermons, edited by Dr. Gibbons. The Rev. David Bostwick, 
 of New York, another intimate friend, who had been intrusted 
 with the printing of President Davies's sermon on the death of 
 
 * This sermon was preached by Mr. Davies in the College Chapel, January 14.
 
 244 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 George the Second, wrote a preface to this sermon, "in which 
 the talents, piety, and usefulness of Mr. Davies were exhibited, 
 and eulogized with much warmth." (President Green's Sketches.) 
 These were the first tributes of respect to the memory of this 
 remarkable man and most eloquent preacher ; but they are not 
 the only ones. Memoirs of President Davies have been given 
 to the public by the Rev. Dr. John Rice, of Virginia, in his 
 " Literary and Evangelical Magazine ;" by the Rev. Dr. Green, 
 in his Sketch of the College ; Rev. Dr. Allen, in his " Biograph- 
 ical Dictionary;" Rev. Dr. Foote, in his " Sketches of Virginia;" 
 Rev. Dr. Sprague, in his "Annals of the American Pulpit;" 
 and Rev. Albert Barnes, in a preface to the third New York 
 edition of Davies's sermons. Mention of him and of his 
 writings is made in Middleton's " Biographia Evangelica," in 
 Allibone's "Dictionary of Authors," and in other publications. 
 Distinguished as he was in various respects, he was pre- 
 eminent in the pulpit, of which fact the great demand for his 
 published sermons is sufficient evidence were there none other. 
 Before the close of the last century not less than nine editions 
 were printed in England. (See Dr. Green's Sketches of the 
 College.) And the publishers of the first stereotyped edition 
 in this country tell us that in 1842, "notwithstanding four 
 large American editions have been published, the book is 
 entirely out of the market." Fifty years ago viz., in 1822 
 Dr. Green remarked, " Probably there are no sermons in the 
 English language which have been more read, or for which 
 there has been so steady and unceasing a demand for more 
 than half a century." And to this remark he justly and wisely 
 adds the following criticism : 
 
 " They are certainly not distinguished for minute accuracy of language, or those 
 terse periods which many later compositions of the same kind possess. Nor can 
 they, in all their parts, be vindicated from the charge of something that appears 
 loose, tumid, and declamatory. The general run of the sentences, however, is 
 harmonious ; and they everywhere contain so much just thinking, such powerful 
 reasonings, such pungent addresses to the conscience and the heart, with such an 
 unction of piety, and such a popularity of manner, as may well account for the 
 favorable reception they have met with. The reader soon ceases to attend to any- 
 thing but the subject discussed, and is carried delightfully along by the powerful 
 charm of genius and piety in happy union."
 
 MEMOIR OF THE REV. SAMUEL DA VIES. 245 
 
 The following is a list of President Davies's published works 
 as given by Dr. Sprague in his " Annals of the American 
 Pulpit" : 
 
 "A sermon on Man's Primitive State, 1748. 'The State of Religion among the 
 Protestant Dissenters in Virginia, in a Letter to the Rev. Joseph Bellamy,' 1751. A 
 sermon preached before the Presbytery of New Castle, 1752. A sermon preached 
 at the installation of the Rev. John Todd, 1752. 'Religion and Patriotism, the 
 Constituents of a Good Soldier :' a sermon preached before a company of volun- 
 teers, 1755. 'Virginia's Danger and Remedy:' two discourses occasioned by the 
 severe drought, and the defeat of General Braddock, 1755. Letters showing the 
 State of Religion in Virginia, particularly among the Negroes, 17551757. A ser- 
 mon on the Vessels of Mercy and the Vessels of Wrath, 1757. A Sermon on Little 
 Children invited to Jesus Christ, 1757. 'The Curse of Cowardice :' a sermon before 
 the militia of Virginia, 1758. A Valedictory Discourse to the Senior Class in the 
 College of New Jersey, 1760. A sermon on the Death of George II., 1761. He 
 was also the author of several important documents of a public nature, and various 
 hymns and other pieces of poetry of no small degree of merit. 
 
 " A collection of his sermons, including most of those which had been printed in 
 his lifetime, was published after his death, in three volumes octavo." 
 
 To the above list may be added a sermon on John ii. 2, revised and edited by 
 the Rev. Dr. Erskine, of Scotland, from the manuscript notes of Mr. Davies, fur- 
 nished by himself, 1754; his "Diary" or journal of his mission to England, from 
 July 2, 1753, to February 13, 1755, given in Dr. Foote's " Sketches of Virginia;" 
 also sundry letters, including those to Dr. Doddridge, the Bishop of London, and 
 Dr. Avery, respecting the condition of the Dissenters in Virginia. The sermon 
 before the Presbytery of New Castle, 1752, was on Isaiah Ixii. I ; and when he was 
 in England he was urged by friendly ministers and others in various parts of Great 
 Britain to give this sermon a second edition, which in his "Diary," September 
 28, 1754, he expresses his purpose to do. 
 
 In his " Notes," published in 1822, President Green makes the 
 following mention of the family of President Davies : 
 
 " Of the family left by President Davies the writer is able to give but little in- 
 formation. The funeral sermon preached by Dr. Finley is dedicated to Mrs. 
 Martha Davies, the mother, and Mrs. Jean Davies, the widow, of the late President 
 Davies. Of his widow, it is only known that she returned to her friends in Vir- 
 ginia, and remained there till her death. Her eldest son, Colonel William Davies, 
 was educated at Nassau Hall, and graduated in 1765. He studied law, and set- 
 tled at Norfolk, in Virginia. In the Revolutionary War he obtained the rank of a 
 Colonel in the American Army, was an officer of distinguished merit, and possessed 
 in an eminent degree the esteem and confidence of the commander-in-chief, the 
 illustrious Washington. He was well known to the writer [Dr. Green], and was 
 unquestionably a man of powerful mind, highly cultivated, and enriched by various 
 knowledge. He died in Virginia a few years since. John Rodgers Davies was 
 also educated at Nassau Hall, and graduated in 1769. He likewise studied the 
 law. Samuel Davies, the third son, was settled in Petersburg, and died there sev-
 
 246 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 eral years ago.* His mother, Mrs. Martha Davies, made a part of the President's 
 family at the time of his death. The writer [President Green] has been well in- 
 formed that when the corpse of her son was laid in the coffin, she stood over it, in 
 the presence of a number of friends, for some minutes, viewing it attentively, and 
 then said, ' There is the son of my prayers and my hopes, my only son, my only 
 earthly support. But there is the will of God, and I am satisfied.' This eminent 
 saint was received into the family of the Rev. Dr. Rodgers, of New York, and by 
 him was treated with the utmost kindness and veneration till the time of her death." 
 
 President Davies was buried by the side of President Edwards, 
 and over his remains the following inscription was placed : 
 
 Sub Hoc Marmore sepulchrali, 
 
 Mortales Exuvia; 
 
 Reverendi perquam Viri, 
 
 Samuelis Davies, A.M. 
 
 Collegii Nov-Csesariensis Praesidis, 
 
 Futurum Domini Adventum pnestolantur. 
 
 Ne te, Viator, ut pauca de tanto 
 
 Tamque dilecto Viro resciscas, 
 
 Paulisper morari pigeat. 
 
 Natus est in Comitatu de Newcastle, juxta Delaware, 
 III Novembris, Anno Salutis reparatse, 
 
 MDCCXXIV. S. V. 
 Sacris ibidem initiatus, XIX Februarii, 
 
 MDCCXLVII. 
 
 Tutelam pastoralem Ecclesiae 
 
 In Comitatu de Hanover, Virginiensium, suscepit, 
 
 Ibi per XI plus minus Annos, 
 
 Ministri Evangelic! Laboribus 
 
 Indefesse, et favente Numine, auspicate perfunctus. 
 
 Ad Munus Prassidiale Collegii Nov-Qesariensis gerendum 
 
 Vocatus est, et inauguratus, XXVI Julii, 
 
 MDCCLIX S. N. 
 
 Sed, proh Rerum inane ! intra Biennium, Febre correptus, 
 Candidam Animam Ccelo reddidit, IV Februarii, MDCCLXI. 
 
 Heu quam exiguum Vitae Curriculum ! 
 Corpore fuit eximio; Gestu liberal!, placido, augusto 
 
 Ingenii Nitore, 
 
 Morum Integritate, Munificentia, Facilitate, 
 Inter paucos illustris, 
 
 * In a letter from the Rev. David Bostwick to the Rev. Dr. Bellamy, of the date 
 of March 17, 1761, Mr. Bostwick observes: "The people of Philadelphia have 
 collected .95 per annum for five years to support his three sons at College, and 
 Philadelphia and New York have raised between four and five hundred pounds 
 for the widow and two daughters, for he left very little estate." J. M.
 
 MEMOIR OF THE REV. SAMUEL DAVJES. 247 
 
 Rei literarise peritus; Theologus promptus, perspicax, 
 
 In Rostris, per Eloquium blandum, mellitum 
 
 Vehemens simul, et perstringens, nulli secundus, 
 
 Scriptor ornatus, sublimis, disertus. 
 
 Prsesertim vero Pietate, 
 
 Ardente in Deum Zelo et Religione Spectandus, 
 In tanti Viri, majora meriti, 
 
 Memoriam duraturam, 
 
 Amici hoc qualecunque Monumentum, 
 
 Honoris ergo et Gratitudinis, posuere. 
 
 Abi, Viator, ei amulare. 
 
 The following extracts will conclude this memoir : 
 
 " Mr. Davies's death has struck us with astonishment, and spread a gloom over 
 the whole country. The loss cannot be expressed. I believe there never was a 
 College happier in its President, or in a more flourishing state. He far exceeded 
 the expectation of his best friends. As you were not personally acquainted, you 
 can hardly conceive what prodigious uncommon gifts the God of heaven had be- 
 stowed upon that man to render him useful to the world, but he is gone ! O 
 what he might have been, what he might have done, had he lived ! But methinks 
 I hear the admonition, Be still, and know that I am God." 
 
 " His sermon on the death of his late Majesty I purpose to send you with this ; 
 the first impression, tho' 1000, is gone ; a second is in the press. It was the last 
 work of a public nature he ever did." Rev. Mr. Bostwick's letter of Alarch 17, 
 1761, to the Rev. Joseph Bellamy. 
 
 " As to his natural genius, it was strong and masculine. His understanding was 
 clear, his memory retentive, his invention quick, his imagination lively and florid, 
 his thoughts sublime, and his language elegant, strong, and expressive." . . . 
 
 " His appearance in company was manly and graceful ; his behavior genteel, not 
 ceremonious ; grave, yet pleasant, and solid but sprightly too. In a word, he was 
 an open, conversable, and entertaining companion, a polite gentleman, and a devout 
 Christian." 
 
 " In the sacred desk, zeal for God and love to men animated his addresses, and 
 made them tender, solemn, pungent, and persuasive; while at the same time they 
 were ingenious, accurate, and oratorical. A certain dignity of sentiment and style, 
 a venerable presence, a commanding voice, and emphatical delivery concurred both 
 to charm his audience and overawe them into silence and attention." 
 
 " Nor was his usefulness confined to the pulpit. His comprehensive mind could 
 take under view the grand interests of his country and of religion at once ; and 
 these interests as well as those of his friends he was ever ready zealously to serve." 
 
 " His natural temper was remarkably sweet and dispassionate, and his heart was 
 one of the tenderest towards the distressed." 
 
 " He was among the first and highest examples of filial piety." 
 
 " In a word, think what might rationally be expected in the present imperfect 
 state, in a mature man, a Christian in minority, a minister of Jesus, of like passions 
 with others, in a gentleman, companion, and cordial friend, and you conceive of 
 President Davies."
 
 248 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 "I never knew one who appeared to lay himself more fully open to the recep- 
 tion of truth, from whatever quarter it came, than he." 
 
 " The unavoidable consciousness of native power made him bold and enter- 
 prising. Yet the event proved that his boldness arose, not from a partial, ground- 
 less self-conceit, but from true self-knowledge. Upon a fair and candid trial, faithful 
 and just to himself, he judged what he could do ; and what he could, when called 
 to it, he attempted ; and what he attempted he accomplished." (From Dr. Finley's 
 Sermon on the Death of President Davies.) 
 
 The above is the testimony of men who knew him well, and 
 who were able to form a correct judgment of such a man as 
 Samuel Davies.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE ELECTION AND THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE REV. SAMUEL 
 FINLEY, THE FIFTH PRESIDENT OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW 
 JERSEY. 
 
 AT the time Mr. Davies was first chosen President, some of 
 the Trustees were in favor of electing Mr. Finley, and on the 
 death of Mr. Davies no other person appears to have been 
 thought of to supply his place. Before the meeting of the 
 Trustees, which had been appointed for the 28th of May, there 
 was, doubtless, more or less correspondence among the mem- 
 bers of the Board in regard to this important measure, and an 
 understanding that Mr. Finley would be their choice. Mr. 
 Bostwick, a devoted friend of President Davies, in his letter to 
 Mr. Bellamy, of the i/th of March, 1761, speaking of the death 
 of Mr. Davies, adds, " Our eyes are on Mr. Finley, a very accu- 
 rate scholar, and a very great and good man. Blessed be 
 the Lord that such an one is to be found. The internal state 
 of the College is good, and the management of the Tutors so 
 generally approved, that there will be no pro tempore Presi- 
 dent, and the time appointed for choice is the 28th of May." 
 At this date, however, as appears from the minutes of the Board, 
 a quorum did not assemble. " Express messengers were de- 
 spatched to several of the absent members, and on Monday, 
 June I, 1761, being called over, the following members ap- 
 peared, viz. : Messrs. William Smith, Samuel Woodruff, John 
 Pierson, Gilbert Tennent, William Tennent, Caleb Smith, Jacob 
 Green, John Brainerd, Samuel Finley, Elihu Spencer, Charles 
 McKnight, John Light, Richard Stockton." 
 
 The following proceedings of the Board at this meeting are 
 copied from their minutes: 
 
 " The Rev. Mr. David Bostwick, of the city of New York, the Rev. Mr. Israel 
 Reed, of Bound Brook, Dr. John Redman, of Philadelphia, and Doctor Robert 
 VOL. I. 17 249
 
 250 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 Harris, of New Brunswick, were duly elected Trustees of the College in the room 
 of the Rev. Messrs. Davies and Cowell, deceased, and of Mr. Cummings removed 
 to Boston, and Mr. Livingston resigned. Mr. Bostwick was qualified as the Char- 
 ter directs, and took his seat accordingly." 
 
 . " It having pleased a Sovereign God since our last meeting to remove by death 
 the late reverend and ingenious Mr. Davies, President of the College, the Trustees 
 proceeded to the election of a President, whereupon the Rev. Mr. Samuel Finley, 
 of Nottingham, in the Province of Pennsylvania, was unanimously chosen Presi- 
 dent of the College in the room of the said Mr. Davies. And the said Mr. Finley, 
 being informed of the above election, was pleased modestly to accept the same. 
 Whereupon Mr. Treat, one of the members of the Board, is desired to attend the 
 meeting of the Presbytery to which Mr. Finley belongs, to request that he may be 
 liberated from his present pastoral charge." 
 
 " It is ordered, that'Mr. Finley's salary as President of the College be the sum of 
 200, proclamation, per annum, with the usual privileges and perquisites. And 
 that the expense of moving Mr. Finley's family to this place be paid by the 
 Treasurer." 
 
 There is evidently an inaccuracy in the minute respecting 
 the election of two of the new Trustees, in which they are said 
 to have been duly elected in the room of Messrs. Davies and 
 Cowell, deceased. Mr. Davies was a Trustee only in virtue of his 
 being the President of the College ; and the only person who 
 could succeed him as a Trustee would be his successor in the 
 office of President. Mr. Finley, by accepting this office, thereby 
 vacated his seat at the Board as a regular and permanent mem- 
 ber, which made one of the two vacancies among the clerical 
 members of the Board that were filled by the election of the 
 Rev. Messrs. Bostwick and Reed. 
 
 The next meeting of the Board took place on Wednesday, 
 the 3Oth of September, 1761, the day of the annual Commence- 
 ment. His Excellency Governor Boone was present on this 
 occasion, and so were all the Trustees but three, making the 
 number in attendance twenty. 
 
 Although Mr. Finley upon being chosen President of the 
 College had signified his willingness to accept the office, he 
 could not formally do so until he had obtained the consent 
 of the Presbytery of which he was a member ; and therefore 
 his inauguration as President was deferred until this meeting of 
 the Trustees. Having taken the prescribed oaths, he appears 
 to have taken his seat at the Board without any other formality 
 or ceremony.
 
 ADMINISTRATION OF THE REV. SAMUEL FINLEY. 
 
 251 
 
 The Trustees next attended the Commencement exercises, 
 when fourteen young gentlemen were admitted to the first de- 
 gree in the Arts, and three others to their second degree. It 
 appears from a minute adopted at this meeting that one of the 
 students was in considerable arrears for his tuition, and the 
 Board directed that, " in case these arrears were not fully dis- 
 charged before the end of the ensuing vacation, he should be 
 dismissed from the College." Nothing is said of his ability to 
 pay the tuition-fees ; the only thing mentioned is that he was 
 in arrears for his tuition. At this time no provision had been 
 made for the payment of the tuition-fees of young men in in- 
 digent or moderate circumstances, except to a small extent in 
 the case of those preparing for the ministry. Of late years, 
 happily, any worthy youth unable to pay his tuition-fees has 
 had them remitted upon an application to the President or other 
 officer of the College having the oversight of this matter. 
 
 The decision reached in the case just mentioned led to a fur- 
 ther consideration of the whole subject of College dues, and 
 to the adoption of the following minute : 
 
 " The Trustees taking into consideration the damages the Institution has sustained 
 by the Deficiency in the Payment of the Students' Quarterly Bills,* IT is ORDERED, 
 That for the future every Student who enters College be obliged to give sufficient 
 security by Bond or otherwise to the Treasurer for the punctual payment of all his 
 Dues to the College, which Law [is] to take place at the expiration of the present 
 year, in case no objection appears to this measure at the next meeting of the Trus- 
 tees." 
 
 The rule now in force on this subject, and which was adopted 
 many years ago, is, that all charges for College expenses shall 
 be paid in advance at the beginning of each term. 
 
 The settlement of the Steward's accounts was generally one 
 of the items of business which demanded the attention of the 
 Board ; and it is evident from the various resolutions on this 
 subject that there was no little difficulty in adjusting these 
 accounts to the satisfaction of the parties concerned. 
 
 * The bills for the entire year, at this period in the history of the College, 
 amounted to about 25.6.0 proc. These included charges for tuition, ^4; board, 
 ,15; washing, 3; fire-wood and candles, 2; room-rent, i ; and contingent 
 charges, 6 shillings.
 
 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 Happily for the College, this whole system of providing 
 meals for the students has been given up ; yet payments for 
 board continue to be made to the Treasurer of the College, 
 for the better security of the boarders and of the boarding- 
 houses. The change here referred to took place in 1855. 
 
 The examination of candidates for degrees was ordered to 
 be held in future on the third Wednesday in August. Previ- 
 ously to this the examination took place on the last Wednesday 
 in July. No change was made in the time of the annual Com- 
 mencement. 
 
 For his extra services while the College was without a Presi- 
 dent, the Trustees made Mr. Halsey, the senior Tutor, a present 
 of twenty pounds in addition to his salary. 
 
 The following extracts will explain themselves, while they 
 show the action of the Board in reference to matters of more 
 or less interest in the history of the College : 
 
 " Voted, That the Treasurer of the College pay President Finley the sum of 
 22.11, it being the expense of his removal to the College." 
 
 " Voted, That President Finley's salary begin from the third Wednesday in June 
 last, it being the time of his dismission from his people at Nottingham." 
 
 " Ordered, That Mr. Stockton, the Clerk, be desired to return the thanks of this 
 Board to the Gentlemen in Philadelphia who have generously undertaken the man- 
 agement of the Lottery now on foot in favor of the College." 
 
 " Ordered, That all moneys arising from the Lottery made in Philadelphia, for 
 the Benefit of the College, be deposited in the hands of Mr. Sergeant, the Treasurer, 
 as soon as possible, and that the said moneys be by him immediately put out to 
 Interest as soon as opportunities present." 
 
 " Voted, That President Finley be desired to print his Sermon preached at the 
 funeral of Mr. Davies, at the Expense of the College, and that they be disposed of 
 for the Benefit of the College." 
 
 A few extracts from this sermon are given at the close of our 
 memoir of President Davies. This sermon was not preached 
 at Mr. Davies's funeral, but at or near the beginning of the 
 summer term of the College, Thursday, May 28, 1761. The 
 Trustees were to have had a meeting on the previous Thursday, 
 May 21, for the purpose of choosing a President in the room 
 of Mr. Davies. But, a quorum not assembling on that day, 
 they could not proceed with this business, and they only took 
 measures to secure the attendance of a sufficient number on the 
 ist of June.
 
 ADMINISTRATION OF THE REV. SAMUEL FINLEY. 
 
 253 
 
 The next meeting of the Board was held on Wednesday, the 
 29th of September, 1762, the day of the annual Commence- 
 ment. His Excellency Governor Hardy was present, and took 
 his seat as President of the Board. The following address to 
 the Governor, and his reply, are copied from the New York 
 " Mercury" of October 18, 1762, there being no note of them 
 in the minutes of the Board : 
 
 "To his Excellency Josiah Hardy, Esq., Captain-General, Commander-in-Chief 
 in and over his Majesty's Province of Nova Caesarea, or New Jersey, and territories 
 thereon depending in America, Chancellor, and Vice- Admiral in the same. 
 " May it please your Excellency : We, his Majesty's most dutiful and loyal sub- 
 jects, the Trustees of the College of New Jersey, with the greatest pleasure take 
 this opportunity of publickly congratulating your Excellency upon your appointment 
 to and acceptance of this Government. And we are particularly happy in believing, 
 from the specimen your Excellency has already given of your good Disposition, 
 that the loss we sustained in the speedy removal of your immediate Predecessor 
 is made up in you ; and that as the College of this Province has been favoured with 
 the patronage of each of our Governors since its Institution, your Excellency will 
 be pleased to take it under your Protection. We can assure you that the general 
 Principle of preparing youth for public service in Church and State, and making 
 them useful members of Society, without concerning ourselves about their particular 
 religious denomination, is our grand Idea. And we [hope], when you shall be 
 pleased to look into the Constitution of this Seminary of Learning, and, by hon- 
 ouring us with your personal Attendance at our Meetings, see the Manner of our 
 Procedure, you will conceive it an object worthy of the notice of the Supreme 
 Magistrate. 
 
 " We acknowledge the Honour your Excellency has done us by your present 
 Attendance, and we most heartily wish you a long-continued and prosperous Ad- 
 ministration in this Province. Signed in the name of the Trustees, 
 
 " RICHARD STOCKTON, Clerk. 
 
 " To which his Excellency was pleased to return the following answer : 
 
 " GENTLEMEN, I hereby thank you for your Address. It will be at all times a 
 particular satisfaction to me to give you every assistance in my power in promoting 
 the prosperity of this useful Seminary of Learning. 
 
 " JOSIAH HARDY. 
 
 " PRINCET., Sept. 27, 1762." 
 
 The following account of the proceedings at this Commence- 
 ment is given in the " Pennsylvania Gazette" of the 2 1st of Oc- 
 tober, in a letter dated 
 
 " Princeton, September 30, 1762. Yesterday the Trustees of the College of 
 New Jersey, with His Excellency the Governor, attended the Commencement. 
 After the usual Procession, and a solemn Invocation of the Divine blessing on the
 
 254 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 business of the day and the candidates for the honors of the College, the ex- 
 ercises were introduced by 
 
 " I. An elegant Salutatory oration in Latin, pronounced by Mr. James Manning. 
 
 " 2. The young gentlemen gave an agreeable specimen of their skill in Disputa- 
 tion, which was carried on alternately in the syllogistic and forensic way. The 
 subject of the first, which was syllogistic, was the following Thesis : 
 
 " ' Conservatio non est continua creatio,' which was well defended and opposed, 
 
 " 3. This was followed by a forensic dispute on this question : ' Whether a Prince 
 endowed with the virtues of civil government, but not with military, is to be pre- 
 ferred to one of the most shining military genius if he is destitute of the virtues 
 necessary for governing in peace ?' Which was decided in the affirmative, after 
 being debated on both sides with much spirit and eloquence. 
 
 " 4. To relax the attention of the audience, an English oration on politeness 
 was pronounced by Mr. Joseph Periam, which gave universal satisfaction for the 
 justness of the sentiments, the elegance of the composition, and the propriety with 
 which it was delivered. 
 
 " 5. The Thesis next debated was, ' Anima humana dum in corpus infunditur 
 a Deo immediate creatur,' which afforded pleasure to the learned portion of the 
 Auditory. 
 
 " 6. The exercises of the forenoon were concluded by a forensic dispute on this 
 subject : ' Whether moral as well as mathematical truths are capable of demonstra- 
 tion ?' Which was judiciously maintained and determined in the affirmative to 
 general satisfaction. 
 
 " 7. The entertainments in the afternoon were begun by a dispute, which was 
 very ingeniously managed by the respondent, on this Thesis : Sensus moralis qua 
 simplex perceptio atque moralis obligationis fundamentum non datur.' 
 
 " 8. The last question disputed by the Bachelors, being, ' Whether Noah's Flood 
 was Universal ?' gave agreeable amusement to the Auditory by the popular and 
 pertinent manner in which it was canvassed. 
 
 " 9. A Valedictory oration in English, pronounced by Mr. Isaac Allen with 
 graceful ease and propriety, closed the exercises of the candidates for the honor 
 of Bachelor's degree. 
 
 " 10. The following Thesis was learnedly defended and opposed by the candi- 
 dates for Master's degree : ' Deus hominem sine virtute non primario creavit neque 
 creare potuit.' 
 
 "II. After this, twenty-one young gentlemen were admitted to the honor of 
 Bachelor of Arts, and twelve to the second degree. In behalf of the last-men- 
 tioned candidates was agreeably delivered an English oration by Mr. James Lyon. 
 
 " 12. Mr. Ker, who for some time past had officiated in the character of a Tutor, 
 took his leave of the society in a short Valedictory address. 
 
 " The whole concluded with a Poetical Entertainment given by the candidates 
 for Bachelor's degree, interspersed with choruses of Music, which, with the whole 
 performance of the day, afforded universal satisfaction to a polite and crowded 
 auditory." 
 
 The entertainment here referred to was entitled " The Mili- 
 tary Glory of Great Britain." In his notes of President Davies's
 
 ADMINISTRATION OF THE REV. SAMUEL FINLEY. 
 
 255 
 
 administration, Dr. Green speaks of it as " a poetic dialogue, the 
 subject of which was the glorious achievements of the British 
 arms both by sea and land," and which was supposed by him 
 to have been written by President Davies, and to have been 
 recited at the Commencement of 1760 (see his "Notes," page 
 339); but it was a part of the exercises of the class of 1762, at 
 least eighteen months after the death of Mr. Davies, and there 
 was in this class talent fully equal to such a production. 
 
 A copy of this dramatic exercise has been recently given to 
 the College library. It is printed in a quarto pamphlet, and on 
 its title-page it is spoken of as performed at the close of the 
 Commencement of 1762. Dr. Green's account of it is given 
 from a recollection of what he heard in his boyhood, as he 
 himself says. 
 
 At this meeting of the Board there was a further recognition 
 of Mr. Halsey's valuable services, and a vote to add fifteen 
 pounds per annum to his salary. 
 
 The President's salary was also increased by adding to it 
 fifty pounds proclamation money a year, with the profits of the 
 grammar-school ; and it was voted that he be paid his salary 
 half-yearly ; and, further, that he should have the privilege of 
 educating his sons at the College, as in the case of President 
 Davies, without charge for their tuition. 
 
 The following minute was adopted in regard to the tuition- 
 fees of students entering advanced classes : 
 
 " The Trustees having considered the Law formerly made by this Board, order- 
 ing that the Students who enter in any year after the Freshman year should 
 pay the Tuition Money of the preceding years ; It is now Voted, That those who 
 enter this year and hereafter shall enter the Sophomore Class, shall only pay the 
 sum of thirty shillings proc. ; and those who enter the Junior year, shall pay the 
 sum of forty shillings entrance money, besides the ordinary tuition." 
 
 Among the more important measures of the Trustees at this 
 meeting were the following : 
 
 1. The confirming of the gift of a lot of land which ten 
 of the Trustees, not a quorum of the Board, had made to 
 sundry inhabitants of Princeton for the erection of a church 
 building. 
 
 2. Requesting Mr. Wm. Peartree Smith, a member of the
 
 256 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 Board, to draw up a full account of the College from its foun- 
 dation, and to print the same at the expense of the College. 
 
 3. Ordering the erection of a kitchen for the use of the Col- 
 lege. 
 
 4. The appointment of managers of the first and only lottery 
 ever granted to the College by the Legislature of the Province, 
 and the returning of the thanks of the Board to the Legisla- 
 ture for the privilege given. 
 
 The sum authorized to be raised by this lottery was three 
 thousand pounds proc. 
 
 5. The appointment of Messrs. Samuel Blair and James 
 Thompson to be Tutors. 
 
 The next meeting was held on Wednesday, the 28th of 
 September, 1763, the day of the annual Commencement. His 
 Excellency William Franklin, Esq., recently appointed Gov- 
 ernor of the Province, President Finley, and fourteen of the 
 Trustees, were present on this occasion. The Trustees availed 
 themselves of the opportunity now afforded by the Governor's 
 presence to present to him an address, which, with his answer, 
 is taken from the " New York Gazette" of October II, 1763, 
 there being no reference to it in the minutes of the Board : 
 
 " May it please your Excellency : 
 
 " The Trustees of the College of New Jersey deem themselves happy in this op- 
 portunity of presenting your Excellency with their respects ; and beg that you will 
 be pleased to accept their congratulations upon your appointment to this Govern- 
 ment. They have only to wish that a more early day had been in their Power. 
 
 " Your Disposition to favor every Institution calculated to promote Learning and 
 the general Good of Mankind is not to be doubted ; and therefore with Pleasure 
 we beg leave to recommend to your Excellency's Patronage the College under our 
 care. We can assure you that we have endeavored to form it on such a plan, and 
 to conduct it in such a manner, as to make it of the most general and extensive use- 
 fulness. Our Idea is to send into the World good Scholars and useful members of 
 Society. Your Excellency's Predecessors, since the founding of this College, have 
 severally, in their turns, been pleased to think it worthy of their regard ; which, 
 with the Benefactions of the Public Spirited at home and abroad, under the divine 
 blessing, has brought it to its present flourishing state. We hope for and expect its 
 increase under your Excellency's Influence. 
 
 " The Governor of this Colony, for the time being, by the Charter of Incorpora- 
 tion is a member and President of our Board ; and we hope your Excellency will 
 be pleased to honor this Institution by your personal attendance in these capacities. 
 Your Excellency has our most cordial wishes for your Public and Domestic Hap-
 
 ADMINISTRATION OF THE REV. SAMUEL FINLEY. 
 
 257 
 
 piness, and for your Peace, Comfort, and Usefulness in the Administration of the 
 
 Government of this Province. 
 
 " RICHARD STOCKTON, Clerk. 
 
 " To which his Excellency was pleased to give the following Answer : 
 
 " GENTLEMEN, My cordial Acknowledgments are due to you for this obliging 
 Testimony of your Regard. I am fully sensible of the Utility of the Institution 
 under your care, and have the highest opinion of the merits of the Gentlemen by 
 whose good Management it has been brought, in so short a space of time, to its 
 present flourishing condition. If my endeavors can in any way contribute to the 
 further perfecting of this salutary work, you may depend it shall never be wanting." 
 
 Nineteen members of the Senior class were admitted to their 
 first degree in the Arts, and eleven graduates to their second 
 degree. Several of those admitted to these degrees at this time 
 became distinguished in the several professions. 
 
 The Rev. Charles Beatty was chosen a Trustee, in the room 
 of the Rev. Caleb Smith, deceased, and John Berrien, Esq., in 
 the place of James Hude, Esq. 
 
 Among the matters which claimed the attention of the Board 
 at this time was the grant of a lot of land which had been made 
 to the inhabitants of Princeton for the erection of a church edi- 
 fice, and in reference to this there is the following minute : 
 
 " It is ordered, That Mr. \Vm. P. Smith, Mr. Woodruff, Dr. Redman, Mr. Treat, 
 and Mr. Brainerd be a committee to settle with the Congregation of Princeton the 
 matter respecting the lot of land which this Board heretofore has ordered to be con- 
 veyed to them, for the erection of a church and for a burying-ground, and that the 
 said committee have full power to offer the Congregation such terms as they think 
 proper, in consideration of their releasing their claim to the said lot of land, or to 
 make such other agreement with the said Congregation touching the premises as 
 the said committee shall judge proper." 
 
 "It appears from this minute," says President Green, "that the lot granted by 
 the Trustees to the Congregation of Princeton, for the erection of a church and for 
 a burial-ground, was expected to revert to the College. This, however, did not 
 take place. The transactions between the Trustees of the College and the Congre- 
 gation of Princeton relative to this concern were numerous and of long continuance. 
 A particular detail of them will not be given. The result was that in 1762 and 
 1763 a church was built on the lot originally given by the College; that the Trus- 
 tees of the College lent about ^700 to the congregation to aid in building the 
 church ; that a burial-ground was obtained in another place, as a donation from Dr. 
 Thomas Wiggins ; that the money loaned to the congregation was eventually paid ; 
 that the inside of the church, as well as of the College edifice, was destroyed by the 
 British and American armies during the Revolutionary war, and repaired at a very 
 considerable expense; that the church was entirely consumed, except the walls, 
 which were of brick, by a fire which took place by accident in February, 1813;
 
 258 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. . 
 
 that it was rebuilt at the expense of the congregation, with the aid of $500 con- 
 tributed by the College ; that the College has by contract an exclusive right to the 
 church on the day of Commencement, on the evening that precedes it, and at such 
 other times as the faculty shall state in writing that it is needed for the public ex- 
 ercises of the institution ; and also a claim to one-half the gallery for the use of 
 the students on the Sabbath." 
 
 Upon what authority Dr. Green says that the burial-ground 
 mentioned above was the gift of Dr. Wiggins the writer of this 
 history is unable to discover; and he apprehends that it is an 
 error, and that the error arose from the fact that Dr. Wiggins, 
 either then or subsequently, owned some twenty acres of land, 
 more or less, adjacent to the lot used by the College and con- 
 gregation for a burial-ground, and which lot was purchased by 
 the College of the Hon. Thomas Leonard, in 1757, several years 
 prior to these transactions between the College and the people 
 of the town. Of Judge Leonard's deed to the College mention 
 is made in the first volume of the Minutes of the Board, pages 
 193, 340, and 361. The cemetery now in possession of the First 
 Presbyterian Church of Princeton is an enlargement of the 
 above-mentioned burial-ground by adding to it several acres 
 of land, a part of Dr. Wiggins's real estate, bequeathed by him, 
 in 1804, to the trustees of said church. 
 
 The church was burnt again in the summer of 1834, and was 
 rebuilt at the expense of the congregation, with some aid from 
 the College, at which time the College relinquished all claim to 
 the use of the church for public exercises, with the exception 
 of those connected with the annual Commencement. 
 
 At this meeting of the Board measures were taken for the 
 purchase of a small lot of ground adjacent to the College 
 grounds, and belonging to Mr. Robert Smith, of Philadelphia, 
 the architect and builder of the College edifice. 
 
 The next minute of the Board is important, as indicating the 
 time when the spring vacation began, and is as follows : " It is 
 ordered, that a meeting of the Trustees be attended on Wednes- 
 day before the second Monday in April next, at which time the 
 Spring vacation begins." 
 
 The annual Commencement at this time was held on the last 
 Wednesday in September, and the autumnal vacation began at 
 the close of the Commencement exercises. This plan of having
 
 ADMINISTRATION OF THE REV. SAMUEL FINLEY. 
 
 259 
 
 two terms and two vacations continued for more than a hundred 
 years, viz., from the foundation of the College until the year 
 1867, in which year the plan of having three terms and three 
 vacations was introduced. But before this, viz., in 1844, a 
 change was made in the day of holding the Commencement 
 from the last Wednesday in September to the last Wednesday 
 in June, and a corresponding change occurred in the College 
 terms and vacations. 
 
 Mr. Wm. P. Smith having declined the service of drawing up 
 an account of the College, the President of the College, Rev. 
 Dr. Finley, was desired to do the same, and to have his draft 
 ready to lay before the Board at their next meeting in the ensu- 
 ing spring. 
 
 The salaries of the President and of the Tutors were all in- 
 creased at this meeting of the Board : the President's to three 
 hundred pounds proc. per annum, the Senior Tutor's to seventy- 
 five pounds, and those of the two Junior Tutors to sixty-five 
 pounds each ; and it was ordered that the late Tutor, Mr. Ker, 
 should be allowed twenty-five pounds in addition to his salary. 
 
 It was also ordered, "That an English School be forthwith 
 erected in this College, which is to be under the inspection and 
 government of the President of the College for the time being." 
 
 A grammar-school, in connection with the College, was es- 
 tablished in Mr. Burr's time. Respecting these schools the 
 following remarks occur in the account of the College published 
 by order of the Trustees, in 1764 : 
 
 " There is a grammar-school annexed to the College as a nursery for it, under the 
 general inspection of the President, though not a part of the original constitution. 
 This was first set up by President Burr, and has been handed down to his succes- 
 sors, the Trustees taking it under their patronage during the several vacancies in 
 that office. Besides the Latin and Greek languages, into which the youth are here 
 initiated, they have been early taught the graces of a good delivery, and spent a 
 small portion of every day in improving their handwriting, for which purpose a 
 proper attendant hath been hitherto provided. But this expedient being found by 
 experience not fully to answer those purposes, it was lately judged proper that an 
 English school should be also established, for the sole intention of teaching young 
 lads to write well, to cipher, and to pronounce and read the English tongue with 
 accuracy and precision." 
 
 The next meeting of the Board occurred on Wednesday, the
 
 2 6o HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 2Oth of June, 1764. At this meeting there were present his 
 Excellency Governor Franklin, President Finley, and thirteen 
 other Trustees. Robert Ogden, Esq., of Elizabethtown, New 
 Jersey, was chosen Trustee of the College, in the room of the 
 Rev. David Bostwick, deceased, and the Rev. Lambert De Ronde, 
 of New York, in the room of the Rev. Jacob Green, resigned. 
 
 " The President informed the Board that he had erected an English school in the 
 College, and employed a master for that purpose," of which the Board expressed 
 their approval, and desired the President "to carry on the same in such manner as 
 he shall think most advantageous for the College." 
 
 The following minute occurs in reference to Mr. Samuel 
 Blair, who, two years after, was chosen President of the College, 
 but who declined the appointment upon learning that Dr. With- 
 erspoon was willing to accept the Presidency should he receive 
 a second invitation so to do : 
 
 " The Trustees having received information that Mr. Samuel Blair, lately a 
 Tutor of this College, has done extraordinary services in his office, it is ordered, 
 That ^25 be presented to the said Mr. Blair by the Treasurer in consideration 
 thereof." 
 
 There is no intimation whatever as to the character of these 
 extraordinary services, and, for some good reason, no doubt, 
 nothing further is said in regard to them. At the preceding 
 meeting of the Board, in September, 1763, the President of the 
 College, Dr. Finley, was requested to prepare for publication an 
 account of the College. It is probable that the declining state 
 of his health and his various and arduous duties prevented his 
 attending to this matter personally, and that he placed the ma- 
 terials for such a history in the hands of Mr. Blair to prepare 
 the desired account ; that it was written by Mr. Blair under the 
 direction and, it may be, under the supervision of Dr. Finley, 
 and printed by order of the Trustees, as stated in the title-page 
 of the pamphlet containing said account, although no mention 
 of any of these things is made in the minutes of the Board. 
 
 This account is spoken of by President Green and others as Dr. Finley's history 
 of the College. But the writer's name is not given on the title-page, and the 
 pamphlet itself is entitled " An Account of the College of New Jersey, in which are 
 described the Methods of Government, Modes of Instruction, Manner and Expenses 
 of Living in the same, &c., with a Prospect of the College neatly engraved. Pub-
 
 ADMINISTRATION OF TL'E REV. SAMUEL FINLEY. 2 6l 
 
 lished, by order of the Trustees, for the information of the public, particularly of 
 the friends and benefactors of the institution in Europe and America. Woodbriclge 
 in New Jersey. Printed by James Parker, 1764." 
 
 From a comparison of dates, it appears that the presenting of 
 the twenty-five pounds took place the very year in which the 
 account of the College was published by order of the Board. 
 The conj'ecture given above finds abundant corroboration in the 
 fact that within a few years after its publication the pamphlet is 
 mentioned as the work of Mr. Blair. Mr. Madison, the fourth 
 President of the United States, was a student and a graduate in 
 1771 of the College. In a letter of his, of the date of August 
 1 6, 1769, to the Rev. Thomas Martin, who had been an inmate 
 of his father's family and Mr. Madison's tutor, this sentence 
 occurs : " I have been as particular to my father as I thought 
 necessary for this time, as I send him an account of the institu- 
 tion wrote by Mr. Blair, the gentleman formerly elected Presi- 
 dent of this place." (See Mr. Madison's letter in Professor 
 Cameron's " History of the American Whig Society," pages 
 231, 232.) 
 
 The manner in which Dr. Finley and his administration of 
 the College are spoken of in the pamphlet makes it evident 
 that the pamphlet was not all written by him, and the unity 
 of the style shows it to be the work of one individual, and that 
 individual we believe to be Mr. Blair. 
 
 Here it may not be amiss to say that in the view given of 
 the origin of the College we differ from Mr. Blair, who speaks 
 of the College only under the second charter, and who prob- 
 ably was not aware that the College was in existence under a 
 previous charter, given by the Honorable John Hamilton, Presi- 
 dent of the Council and acting Governor of the Province. 
 
 It seems to have been a favorite aim of some of the leading 
 friends of the College, after the granting of the second charter, 
 to regard Governor Belcher as its founder; and Mr. Blair not 
 unnaturally adopted their view of the case. But, for reasons 
 assigned in the chapter on the College charters, it is only in a 
 very limited sense that he can be styled its founder. 
 
 The pamphlet here referred to is one of forty-eight pages, 
 small octavo, neatly printed ; and of course the account given
 
 2 62 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 of the origin of the institution, and of its progress and con- 
 dition for a period of sixteen years, must be a very succinct 
 one. Still, it is a very valuable work to any one desirous to 
 learn the state of the College at the time of its publication. 
 
 Of the meeting of the Board and of the exercises at the 
 Commencement September 26, 1764, there is no record in the 
 minutes of the Trustees. Two blank pages were left for the 
 insertion of these minutes. 
 
 It appears from the minutes of September 25, 1765, that the 
 Rev. John Rodgers, then of St. George's, Delaware, afterwards 
 of New York City, was chosen a Trustee at the meeting of the 
 Board in September, 1764. And in the triennial catalogue are 
 given the names of those who were admitted to their first de- 
 gree in the Arts. The programme of the Commencement exer- 
 cises for the year 1764 gives the names of all who took part in 
 these exercises, with the exception of the Salutatory and Vale- 
 dictory orators. (See pages 268-272, post.} 
 
 The next Commencement of the College was held on Wed- 
 nesday, the 25th of September, 1765, and it was the last one 
 at which President Finley presided. The College was in a 
 very flourishing condition, the number of students larger than 
 at any previous date in the history of the institution, the atten- 
 tion to study and the orderly behavior of the students highly 
 commendable. Thirty-one members of the Senior class were 
 admitted to the first degree in the Arts, and eleven to their 
 second degree. 
 
 Dr. William Shippen, of Philadelphia, was chosen a Trustee, 
 in the room of the Rev. John Pierson, resigned, and Mr. Joseph 
 Periam was chosen a Tutor. Mr. Periam was also chosen 
 Clerk of the Board, in the room of Richard Stockton, Esq., 
 resigned. It appears from the minutes that Mr. Periam had 
 discharged the duties of a Tutor during the previous year 
 without a formal appointment by the Board. 
 
 The President of the College having informed the Board that 
 sundry inconveniences had resulted from having the English 
 school kept in the College building, he was requested to make 
 provision for it elsewhere, and in such manner as he thought 
 proper.
 
 ADMINISTRATION OF THE REV. SAMUEL FIN LEY. 
 
 263 
 
 The first order touching the planting of shade-trees on the 
 College grounds was passed at this meeting of the Board; and it 
 may interest the students and graduates of the College to know 
 that the two very large sycamore-trees standing near the front 
 gate of the President's yard at this date, December 6, 1872, and 
 in their full vigor, are the remnants of the trees planted in the 
 autumn of 1765. 
 
 The President's salary was increased one hundred pounds. 
 
 It was ordered, that every student and graduate, the officers 
 of the College excepted, who makes use of the College library, 
 should pay the sum of two shillings and sixpence every quar- 
 ter of a year, to be expended for the use of the library. And 
 it was further ordered, that no student of the College should be 
 allowed to have the key of the library; and that every person 
 who is admitted there should be introduced by one of the officers 
 of the College. 
 
 The door to the cupola of the College was ordered to be kept 
 constantly locked; it was also ordered that no person should 
 be permitted to have the key but the President, the Tutors, 
 the Steward, and the servant charged with the care of the 
 belfry. The main object of this order was probably to guard 
 against the danger from fire, the roof and belfry being wholly 
 of wood, although the outer walls were entirely of stone and 
 all the inner walls of brick. Every possible care was taken by 
 the College authorities, both before and at this time, to protect 
 the building from fire, by digging an additional well, and pro- 
 viding a fire-engine, ladders and buckets, and everything that 
 would be of use in case of a fire. These precautions were all 
 right and proper, and may have prevented an earlier destruction 
 of the main building than that which took place in March, 1802. 
 
 The next meeting of the Board was held at Nassau Hall, on 
 Wednesday, the 25th of June, 1766. From the minutes of this 
 date it appears that the Trustees received, by the hands of Dr. 
 Redman, one of their number, an order for one hundred pounds 
 sterling, for the use of the College, in support of a Divinity 
 professor. This was the gift of Mr. John Williamson, of Han- 
 over, Virginia, to whom the Board returned their thanks for 
 his generous donation. And the gift was as seasonable as it
 
 264 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 was generous, for it enabled the Board not long after to appoint 
 a Professor of Divinity, in the person of the Rev. John Blair. 
 The order was upon Mr. Samuel Waterman, of London ; and 
 the obtaining of the money was intrusted to the care of Richard 
 Stockton, Esq., a member of the Board, who had gone to New 
 York on his way to London, on his private affairs, but who 
 availed himself of the opportunity to render the College not 
 only this particular service, but others of even greater moment, 
 as will appear in the course of this history. 
 
 A committee, consisting of the Honorable William Smith 
 and the Rev. Messrs. De Ronde and Rodgers, was appointed to 
 prepare an address to his Majesty " for his gracious condescen- 
 sion to these Colonies in the repeal of the Stamp Act ;" and also 
 a petition, to be presented at the same time, for a grant of sixty 
 thousand acres of land in the Province of New York, from the 
 lands then recently added to New York from the Province of 
 New Hampshire. The address and the petition were accord- 
 ingly prepared, and, being signed by the Honorable Edward 
 Shippen, the acting President of the Board at this meeting, 
 were sent to Mr. Stockton, with the request that he should 
 take such measures and engage such friends of this institution 
 in London to assist him in this matter as he should be advised 
 by the Rev. Dr. Chandler would be most expedient. A letter 
 was written by the committee to the reverend Doctor, soliciting 
 his aid. The Dr. Chandler here spoken of is the same gen- 
 tleman who is mentioned by Mr. Davies as exercising his friendly 
 offices in behalf of the College at the time Messrs. Tennent and 
 Davies visited London. 
 
 Upon his return home, Mr. Stockton reported to the Board " that he had the 
 honor of presenting to his Majesty the address of the Trustees, which was very 
 graciously received ; that the petition was lodged in the Plantation Office ; and 
 that my Lord Shelburne had promised him to lay the same before the King in 
 Council." The Board returned their thanks to Mr. Stockton for his services to the 
 College while in Great Britain. 
 
 Whether the petition was ever brought to the notice of the 
 King and Council is not known; but one thing is certain, that 
 it did not obtain for the College the grant of land asked for in 
 the petition.
 
 ADMINISTRATION OF THE REV. SAMUEL FINLEY. 
 
 265 
 
 " The Rev. Mr. De Ronde" (of New York) " having laid before 
 the Board a plan for the introduction of a professor of divinity 
 to be obtained from Holland, for the service of the Dutch as well 
 as English Presbyterian Churches in these parts, the Trustees 
 having maturely considered the same, are of the opinion that 
 the proposal is not yet ripe for prosecution, and therefore defer 
 the further consideration thereof to the next meeting." At the 
 next meeting it was again deferred, and this was the end of it. 
 In 1769, Mr. De Ronde resigned his place at the Board. 
 
 " It was ordered, That no student hereafter board out of the College unless by 
 permission of the President, or, in his absence, of the next senior officer, to be given 
 only in case the student applying for such permission produce a certificate of a 
 physician that the state of his health renders such an indulgence necessary." 
 
 Dr. Finley was not present at this meeting of the Board. 
 The cause of his absence is apparent from the following 
 minutes : 
 
 " As Dr. Finley, the President of this College, is now in a languishing state, and 
 as it is highly probable that he will be removed by death before the next Com- 
 mencement, or at least that he will be unable to preside at the public exercises on 
 that occasion, the Trustees have unanimously appointed the Rev. Mr. Spencer 
 to preside on that day, and to confer the degrees in the usual manner ; and the said 
 Mr. Spencer was pleased to signify his acquiescence in this appointment. And the 
 Trustees do further direct, that in case of the President's death, the fees and per- 
 quisites usually paid to the President for the degrees be received by the eldest 
 Tutor, to be disposed of as the Trustees shall hereafter direct." 
 
 " It having pleased our holy God to visit Dr. Finley, the worthy President of 
 this College, with great and distressing illness, whereby he is at present entirely 
 unable to perform the duties of his important station ; and it appearing necessary for 
 the welfare of this institution that some person be invested with the power and author- 
 ity of the President, in order the better to manage the affairs of the Seminary ; this 
 Board have appointed the Rev. Mr. Wm. Tennent to act in the room and stead of 
 President Finley during his absence, and do hereby invest him with full power and 
 authority to execute the said office until next Commencement, or during President 
 Finley's absence and disability; and Mr. Tennent was qualified accordingly." 
 
 Dr. Finley died on the i/th of July, 1766, in the city of 
 Philadelphia, to which city he had gone that he might have 
 the benefit of the best medical skill, and he was buried there 
 by the side of his intimate friend, the Rev. Gilbert Tennent. 
 
 The following references to his illness and death, and to 
 the services of Messrs. William Tennent, Spencer, and Halsey, 
 occur in the minutes of this meeting of the Board: 
 VOL. i. 18
 
 2 66 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY, 
 
 " The Trustees taking into consideration the good services of the Rev. Mr. Wil- 
 liam Tennent since the disability and death of the late Rev'd and worthy Dr. Finley, 
 do unanimously agree to present the said Mr. Tennent with the sum of twenty 
 pounds, besides defraying his necessary expenses in town during that time ; and 
 also to the Rev. Mr. Elihu Spencer, the sum of ten pounds, in consideration of his 
 presiding and conferring the degrees at the public Commencement; both which 
 sums Mr. Baldwin, the Steward, is directed to pay the said gentlemen." 
 
 " Whereas sundry weighty and important reasons have induced this Board to 
 augment the late worthy President's salary, from time to time, to the sum of ^400 ; 
 but inasmuch as the occasion of the late necessary augmentation is removed, and 
 the present low state of the College funds will not allow this Board to continue that 
 salary for the future in its present circumstances ; it is agreed, therefore, that the 
 stated salary of the next President shall be ^250, with the usual perquisites." 
 
 " The Trustees also considering the great and important services that have been 
 rendered to this institution by Mr. Jeremiah Halsey, over and above the necessary 
 duties of his office as Tutor of the College, do, in consideration of his extraordi- 
 nary and faithful services, unanimously agree that the sum of sixty-one pounds, 
 being the graduation money, by calculation, now in his hands, be presented to him, 
 or whatever the fees may amount to, be the same more or less." 
 
 Mr. Jonathan Edwards, a son of President Edwards, was 
 unanimously chosen a Tutor of the College, in the room of Mr. 
 Periam, resigned. 
 
 The following extracts, from the authorized account of the College mentioned 
 above, will show the course of instruction during the Presidency of Dr. Finley. (See 
 pp. 23-30.) 
 
 " As to the branches of literature taught here, they are the same with those which 
 are made parts of education in the European Colleges, save only such as may be 
 occasioned by the infancy of this institution. The students are divided into four 
 distinct classes, which are called the Freshman, the Sophomore, the Junior, and 
 the Senior. In each of these they continue one year, giving and receiving in their 
 turns those tokens of respect and subjection which belong to their standings, in 
 order to preserve a due subordination. The Freshman year is spent in Latin and 
 Greek languages, particularly in reading Horace, Cicero's Orations, the Greek Testa- 
 ment, Lucian's Dialogues, and Xenophorfs Cyropadia. In the Sophomore year they 
 still prosecute the study of the languages, particularly Homer, Longinus, &c.,and 
 enter upon the sciences, geography, rhetoric, logic, and the mathematics. They con- 
 tinue their mathematical studies throughout the Junior year, and also pass through 
 a course of natural and moral philosophy, metaphysics, chronology, &c. ; and the 
 greater number, especially such as are educating for the service of the church, are 
 initiated into the Hebrew. . . . The Senior year is entirely employed in reviews 
 and composition. They now revise the most improving parts of Latin and Greek 
 classics, part of the Hebrew Bible, and all the arts and sciences. The weekly 
 course of disputation is continued, which was also carried on through the preceding 
 year. They discuss two or three theses in a week ; some in the syllogistic and others 
 in the forensic manner, alternately ; the forensic being always performed in the Eng-
 
 ADMINISTRATION OF THE REV. SAMUEL FJNLEY. 2 6/ 
 
 lish tongue. A series of questions is also prepared on the principal subjects of 
 natural and revealed religion. These (disputations) are delivered publicly, on Sun- 
 days, before a promiscuous congregation, as well as the College, in order to habituate 
 them early to face an assembly, as also for other important and religious ends, to 
 which they are found conducive. There is likewise a monthly oration-day, when 
 harangues, or orations of their own composition, are pronounced before a mixed 
 auditory. All these compositions before mentioned are critically examined with 
 respect to language, orthography, pointing, capitalizing, with other minutiae, as well 
 as more material properties of accurate writing." 
 
 " Besides these exercises in writing and speaking, most of which are proper to the 
 Senior class, on every Monday three, and on other evenings of the week, excepting 
 Saturdays and Sundays, two out of each of the three inferior classes, in rotation, pro- 
 nounce declamations of their own composing on the stage. These too are pre- 
 viously examined and corrected, and occasion taken from them early to form a 
 taste for good writing. The same classes also, in rotation, three on Tuesday even- 
 ings, and two on other evenings, with the exceptions just mentioned, pronounce, in 
 like manner, such select pieces from Cicero, Demosthenes, Livy, and other ancient 
 authors, and from Shakspeare, Milton, Addison, and such illustrious moderns, as 
 are best adapted to display the various passions, and exemplify the graces of utter- 
 ance and gesture. A good address, and agreeable elocution, are accomplishments 
 so ingratiating, and so necessary to render a public speaker, especially, popular, 
 and consequently useful, that they are esteemed here as considerable parts of edu- 
 cation, in the cultivation of which no little pains are employed. 
 
 " The classics are taught, for the three first years, in nearer the usual method of 
 grammar-schools than in the last. The students then revise them, principally as 
 examples of fine composition. They first give a more literal translation of a para- 
 graph, afterwards the sense in a paraphrase of their own, and then criticise upon 
 the beauties of the author. In which work they are assisted by the President. No 
 authors are read more particularly with this view than Homer, Horace, and espe- 
 cially Longinus. . . . 
 
 " Each class recites twice a day : and have always free access to their teachers, 
 to solve any difficulties that may occur. The bell rings for morning prayer at six 
 o'clock, when the Senior class read off a chapter from the original into English. 
 The president then proposes a few critical questions upon it, which, after their concise 
 answers, he illustrates more at large. The times of relaxation from study are 
 about an hour in the morning, two at noon, and three in the evening; and in these 
 are included the public meals. Evening prayer is ahvays introduced with psalmody ; 
 and care is taken to improve the youth in the art of sacred music." 
 
 " The usual method of instruction in the sciences is this. The pupils frequently 
 and deliberately read over such a portion of the author they are studying, on a par- 
 ticular science, as it is judged they can be able thoroughly to impress upon their 
 memories. When they attend their recitations, the tutor proposes questions on 
 every particular they have been reading. After they have given, in their turns, 
 such answers as show their general acquaintance with the subject, he explains 
 it more at large; allows them to propose any difficulties; and takes pains to 
 discover whether his explications be fully comprehended. Advantages which are 
 seldom attainable in the usual method of teaching by lecture.
 
 2 68 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 " In the instruction of the youth, care is taken to cherish a spirit of liberty and 
 free enquiry ; and not only to permit, but even encourage their right of private 
 judgment, without presuming to dictate with an air of infallibility, or demanding 
 an implicit assent to the decisions of the preceptor." 
 
 " The Senior, Junior, and (towards the conclusion of their year) the Sophomore 
 classes are allowed the free use of the college library, . . . and especially to assist 
 them in preparing their disputations and other compositions." . . . 
 
 " On the third Wednesday in August annually,* the Senior class are examined 
 by the trustees, the college officers, and other gentlemen of learning then present, 
 throughout all the branches of literature they have been here taught. And if 
 approved as worthy of academical honors, the president assigns them the parts 
 they are respectively to perform at the anniversary commencement; the general 
 proceedings of which are so publicly known as to supersede all necessity of descrip- 
 tion. They are then graduated Bachelors of Arts. After an interval of three years 
 they are usually admitted to the Master's degree." . . . 
 
 The rules adopted, while Mr. Davies was President, in reference to the con- 
 ferring of the second degree in the Arts (see page 210), continued in force 
 during the administration of President Finley. Although the author of the above 
 extracts deemed the general proceedings at the annual Commencements to be so 
 well known to the public as to do away with the necessity of any mention of them 
 as they were at that time ; still, the students and graduates of the present day will 
 read with pleasure the following programme of the Commencement exercises of 
 1764, copied from Dr. Green's Sketch of the College. 
 
 Dr. Green transcribed it from a paper in the handwriting of President Finley, 
 sent to him by Dr. James Edwards Burr Finley, of Charleston, South Carolina, 
 a son of President Finley. This gentleman is mentioned by Dr. Green under the 
 name of Ebenezer Finley, which was the name of an elder brother, who died several 
 years before Dr. Green received the paper. 
 
 " THE PROCESS, ETC. 
 
 The Trustees, being at the President's house, the candidates standing at the door, 
 two and two, upon his saying, 
 
 Progredimini Juvenes, they walk, 
 
 1. The Bachelor candidates. 
 
 2. The Masters. 
 
 3. The Tutors and any Ministers present. 
 
 4. The Trustees. 
 
 5. The President, the Governor at his right hand. 
 
 All seated, Prayer succeeds. 
 
 Praeses (capite tecto). 
 
 ' Auditores docti ac benevoli, Juvenes priniam Lauream ambientes, cupiunt vos 
 per Oratorem salutare ; quod illis a vobis concessum fidunt.' 
 Ascendat Orator Salutatorius. 
 
 * At first the final examination took place on the last Wednesday in July.
 
 ADMINISTRATION OF THE REV. SAMUEL FINLEY. 
 
 269 
 
 Distribuantur Theses. 
 *********** 
 
 Quoniam, docti Auditores, accurata disputancli Ratio ad verum a falso secer- 
 nendum plurimum valet, Juvenes Artibus initiati, parvula quaedam eorum in ea 
 specimina, vobis jam sunt exhibituri. 
 
 Prima Disputatio, syllogistice tractanda 
 
 Thesis est, 
 
 Mentiri, ut vel Natio conservetur, haud fas est. 
 Qui hanc Thesin probare atque defendere statuit, ascendat. 
 
 Foster 
 Qui Thesin oppugnari judicavit, ascendat. 
 
 Primus Opponens Lawrence. 
 
 Quanquam concederetur Sermonem ad felicitatem hominum provehendam consti- 
 tutum fuisse, attamen non seque nobis constat quid semper ad eum finem conducit ; 
 sed majus credendum est Mendacium nunquam ad eum facere; dum exemplum 
 Virtutis omnibus prodesse potest. 
 
 Secundus Opponens Smith. 
 
 Determinatio. 
 
 Mentiri, quacunque de causa, ignobile et sua Natura pravum esse, res ipsa 
 clamat, et ferme ab omnibus, prsecipue Virtutem colentibus, conceditur. Quod si 
 omnino fas esse possit, Deus comprobat ; et si ille possit probare, non est neces- 
 sario verax; sed impossibile est eum mentiri, ergo et mendacium probare. 
 
 Nee ratio Veritatis ab hominum Felicitate, sed Dei Rectitudine pendet ; et 
 quoniam sibi semper constare necesse est, non potest non esse rectus. Ergo falsum 
 necessario improbat, ut ejus naturae oppositum; et vetat Malum facere, ut quidvis 
 Bonum inde sequatur, etiam ut Natio conservetur. 
 
 *********** 
 
 The following is an English forensick Dispute, which, for Reasons often men- 
 tioned, is introduced, viz., it entertains the English part of the Audience, tends to 
 the cultivation of our native language, and has been agreeable on former occasions ; 
 which I presume are sufficient apologies for continuing the custom. 
 
 The Thesis is 
 
 Somnia non sunt universaliter inania, et nihil significantia. 
 
 In English 
 
 All dreams are not useless and insignificant. 
 
 Who undertakes the defence of this position ? Miller. 
 
 Whoever has any objections against what has been offered, let him speak. 
 Tredwell. 
 
 Who judges it fit to answer these objections ? McCreery. 
 
 Determination. 
 
 Although I see no necessity of accounting for all dreams from the Agency of 
 other Spirits (any more than to interest them in the Reveries of the mind, when 
 lost in mere imaginary scenes, while we are awake, without reflecting that they are 
 not realities) ; yet that foreign Spirits have access to ours, as well when we are 
 asleep as awake, is inconsistent with no Principle of Reason. And if some dreams 
 cannot be otherwise accounted for, than by having recourse to foreign Spirits, we 
 must then admit their agency ; since there can be no effect without a cause. And
 
 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 though it must be granted that our own Spirits at the same time think, yet there is 
 no Inconsistency in supposing that other Spirits gave Occasion to their thinking of 
 some subjects rather than others, as is the case in conversing together when we 
 are awake. 
 
 What has been matter of fact is certainly still possible ; and we know that in 
 some cases infinite Wisdom chose to employ Angels to communicate divine Instruc- 
 tions in Dreams, which establishes the general Doctrine. And Experience assures 
 us that Impressions made on these Occasions are very deep and lively ; and, as has 
 been observed, those very Dreams, that come from fulness of Business, or other 
 causes mentioned, shew us the Temper of our Minds, and in that view are useful 
 and significant. 
 
 * * * * ***##.** 
 
 To unbend the Mind by an agreeable Variety, as far as may consist with the 
 Exercises of the Day, an English intermediate Oration is next to be delivered. 
 Ascendat Orator intermedius. 
 
 * * * * # * *** * * * 
 
 Thesis proxime discutienda, modo pene forensi, est, 
 
 Lux Rationis sola, Incitamenta ad Virtutem satis efficacia, non prsebet. 
 
 Qui hanc Thesin primus defendere statuit, procedat. Woodhull. 
 
 Qui primus opponit Thesi procedat, 
 
 Lawrence, 
 
 Leake.. 
 
 Qui Objectiones refellere, et Thesin firmare suscipit, procedat. 
 Recte notatum fuit, quod Naturam Peccati probe scire necessarium est, ad Vir- 
 tutem rite sestimandum. Peccato enim ignoto, odisse illud nequimus ; et sine Pec- 
 cati odio, nulla datur Virtus. Et quoniam clarum est, quod homines, Luce Naturae 
 sola freti, ignorarunt quid sit virtus, et quales ejus Consequentise in Seculo futuro ; 
 nesciverunt Deum, verse Virtutis Exemplar, nee non Amorem et Satisfactionem 
 Domini Salvatoris, quse sola sunt Incitamenta ad Virtutem idonea ; Thesis Valet. 
 
 The next Thesis is 
 Nullam veram Virtutem habet, qui omnes non habet. 
 
 In English 
 
 He has not one true virtue, who has not every one. 
 
 Who undertakes to defend this position ? Tuttle. 
 
 If any think to oppose it, let him appear. Hazard. 
 
 Who judges he can confute these arguments, let him speak. Clagget. 
 
 Determination. 
 
 That the Thesis is true, appears demonstrable both from the Simplicity of the 
 Soul and the Nature of Virtue. As the soul cannot be divided into any Parts, if one 
 vice is prevalent it possesses the soul entirely, and the whole principle of action 
 is vitiated. And as Virtue is a Disposition of Mind to whatever is morally good, 
 and Goodness must be uniform and of a piece, it can no more be dismembered 
 than the Soul : therefore whatever mixture of vice there may be with virtue, one of 
 them must necessarily predominate ; for seeing that they are perfectly opposite to 
 each other, it is as impossible for a Person to be under the governing power of both 
 at once, as for Fire and Water to subsist together, without the one's being extin- 
 guished or the other evaporated.
 
 ADMINISTRATION OF THE REV. SAMUEL FINLEY. 
 
 271 
 
 Virtue consists in the Love of God and Man, nor can it be separated. The Pre- 
 tence is not tolerable, that a Hater of his Brother should be a Lover of God. Now 
 'tis certain that one cannot love and hate the same thing at the same Time, and in 
 the same Respect. There must then be such a necessary Connexion of all virtues, 
 that one cannot possibly be without all ; consequently a single virtue, where any 
 vice prevails, is but a counterfeit. 
 
 Exercitia quae restant ad tertiam Horam P. M. postponuntur. 
 
 The remaining exercises of the Day begin at three o'clock, afternoon. 
 
 *********** 
 
 Orator hujus Classis valedictorius ascendat. 
 
 Exercitia, quae a Candidatis secundi Gradus praestanda sunt, jam sequuntur. 
 
 Thesis disputanda haec est, scil : 
 
 Jephtha Filiam non immolavit. 
 
 Ascendat hujus Quaestionis Respondens. Mr. Ker. 
 
 Ascendat primus qui hanc Thesim veram esse negat. 
 
 Determinatio. 
 
 Fatendum est, quod in hac Quaestione docti in Partes abeunt. Sed ut Theseos 
 Veritas appareat, considerandum est quod fuit Jephthse Votum. ' Qui vel, quod- 
 cunque exierit e foribus Domus meae, in Occursum meum, erit Domini, et, vel, 
 offeram illud in Holocaustum,' q. d., vel aptum erit at Sacrificium, vel non : si 
 prius, erit in Holocaustum ; si non, erit Domino sacrum, devotum. Hebraeae Voces 
 non aliter necessario significant; nam Vau saepe disjunctive sumitur, ut multis ex- 
 emplis patet. Adde, quod Deus detestatus est humanas Victimas, et improbavit ; 
 quod cum Sacerdotes saltern norunt, non verisimile est Jephtham eos in tanta causa 
 non consuluisse. Nee parvum habet momentum, Filiam ejus Spatium deflendi, 
 non Mortem sed Virginitatem, petiisse; cum enim dicitur Jephtha fecisse quod 
 voverat, sequitur, et non cognoverat Virum. 
 
 Descendant Candidati hujus Collegii ambientes. 
 
 Ad Curatores. 
 
 Juvenes, quos coram vobis, Curatores honorandi ac reverendi, jam sisto, publico 
 Examini, secundum hujus Academiae Leges subject!, habiti fuerunt omnino digni 
 qui Honoribus academicis exornarentur : Vobis igitur comprobantibus, illos ad 
 Gradum petitum, toto Animo admittam. 
 
 Eadem Auctoritate regia, virum Davidem McGregor, Novangliaj, de Religione et 
 Literis bene meritum, ad secundum in Artibus Gradum, Honoris causa, admitto. 
 
 Eadem Auctoritate, Reverendum Nathan Ker, Davidem Caldwell, Conciona- 
 torem Evangelii, necessario absentem ; Reverendum Johannem Strain, hujus Col- 
 legii alumnos, ad secundum in Artibus Gradum admitto. Hoc Anno etiam, 
 Jacobus Thompson, A.M.; Thomas Henderson, A.M.; Johannes Leflferty, A.M. 
 
 Forma constituendi A.B. 
 
 Auctoritate, regio Diplomate mihi collata, pro More Academiarum in Anglia, vos 
 ad primum in Artibus Gradum admitto; vobisque hunc Librum trado, una cum 
 Potestate in Artibus pnelegendi et docendi, quotiescunque ad hoc Munus evocati 
 fueritis ; cujus, hoc Instrumentum, sigillo nostri Collegii ratum, Testimonium sit. 
 
 Forma constituendi A.M. 
 
 Auctoritate, regio Diplomate mihi collata, pro More Academiarum in Anglia, vos 
 ad secundum in Artibus Gradum admitto ; vobisque hunc Librum trado, una cum
 
 272 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 Potestate in Artibus prselegendi, publiceque profitendi ac docendi, quotiescunque 
 ad hoc Munus evocati fueritis : cujus hoc Instrumentum, sigillo nostri Collegii ratum, 
 Testimonium sit. 
 
 In constituendo A.M. honorarios, inseratur hasc Clausula, scil ad secundum in 
 Artibus Gradum, Honoris causa, admitto. ' 
 
 Orator Magistralis valedictorius. 
 
 Rev. McGregor. 
 
 Rev. Nathan Ker. 
 
 Dialogue. 
 
 Prayer." 
 
 The rules for admission into the several classes were very 
 much the same as in the preceding administrations; as will 
 appear from a comparison of the following extracts, from the 
 account of the College in 1764, with the requisites for admis- 
 sion in Mr. Burr's time : 
 
 " Candidates for admission into the lowest or Freshman class must be capable of 
 composing grammatical Latin, translating Virgil, Cicero's Orations, and the four 
 Evangelists in Greek ; and by a late order [made in Mr. Davies's administration] 
 must understand the principal rules of vulgar arithmetic." 
 
 " Candidates for any of the higher classes are not only previously examined, but 
 recite a fortnight upon trial, in that particular class for which they offer themselves ; 
 and are then fixed in that, or a lower, as they happen to be judged qualified. But, 
 unless in very singular and extraordinary cases, none are received after the Junior 
 year." 
 
 " Besides these examinations for admission into the respective classes, and the 
 last examination of the Senior class, previous to their obtaining the first collegiate 
 honors, the three inferior classes, at the end of every year, are examined in such 
 of the classics, arts and sciences, as they have studied, in order for admission into 
 the next. And such as are found unqualified are not allowed to rise in the usual 
 course. These, in like manner as the last examination of the Senior class, are 
 attended upon by the president and tutors, in conjunction with any other gentlemen 
 of liberal education who choose to be present. Dr. Finley hath also instituted 
 quarterly examinations of the three classes before mentioned. But these are not so 
 universal as the former, being restricted to what they have studied during the quarter. 
 They have been found to answer excellent purposes; for thereby the instructors 
 can easily observe the gradual progress each one makes, and are thence enabled 
 to encourage or warn them, as their several cases require. Hence also it may be 
 easily imagined, it hath not a little conduced to the assiduity and carefulness of the 
 students in their daily preparations." 
 
 From the beginning, the government and discipline of the 
 College were administered by the President and the Tutors;
 
 ADMINISTRATION OF THE REV. SAMUEL FINLEY. 
 
 273 
 
 and with eminent success. During the year in which the above- 
 mentioned account of the College was published, viz., 1 764, there 
 were one hundred and twenty students, and there were " very 
 few whose conduct rendered them obnoxious even to the milder 
 methods of punishment." The laws authorized the infliction 
 of fines, but at this period in the history of the College this 
 mode of punishment seems to have been given up; and ad- 
 monition, private and before the classes, and suspension from 
 the privileges of the College, became the exclusive punishments 
 for violations of the established rules of the institution. Ex- 
 pulsion, then as now, could be inflicted only with the consent 
 of the Trustees. 
 
 At the conclusion of this " account of the College of New 
 Jersey" it is spoken of as " a College originally designed for 
 the promotion of the general interests of Christianity," as well 
 as the "cultivation of human science." And the writer of the 
 account adds, " To the singular favor of Heaven on the means 
 of instruction here used, it must be gratefully ascribed that 
 many youth who have come to Nassau Hall for education, with- 
 out any just sense of the obligations either of natural or re- 
 vealed religion, have been here effectually reformed, become 
 men of solid and rational piety, and now appear upon the stage 
 of public action employing their talents to the honor of the 
 Supreme Bestower and in promoting the good of mankind." 
 
 In the year 1762 there was an unusual attention on the part 
 of the students to the subject of religion, and at the close of 
 the College year, viz., in September, one-half of the students 
 were deemed to be hopefully pious. 
 
 An interesting account of this work of grace, written by the 
 Rev. Dr. John Woodhull, is given in Dr. Green's Historical 
 Sketch of the College. 
 
 During Dr. Finley's administration the following-named gentlemen were mem- 
 bers of the Faculty, viz. : 
 
 The Rev. Samuel Finley, President from 1761 to 1766. 
 
 Jeremiah Halsey, A.M., pastor of the church at Lamington, New Jersey, Tutor 
 from 1757 to 1767. 
 
 Jacob Ker, A.M., pastor of the churches at Monokin and Wicomico, 1764 to 
 1795, Tutor from 1760 to 1762. 
 
 Samuel Blair, A.M., pastor of Old South Church, at Boston, Tutor from 1761 to 
 1764.
 
 274 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 James Thompson, A.M., Tutor from 1762 to 1770. 
 Joseph Periam, A.M., Tutor from 1765 to 1766. 
 
 The following were elected Trustees during this period : 
 
 1761. Rev. Israel Reed, A.M., pastor of the Presbyterian church of Bound- 
 brook, New Jersey, of the class of 1748. 
 
 1761. David Bostwick, A.M., pastor of the Presbyterian church of New York. 
 
 1761. Dr. John Redman, Physician, of Philadelphia. 
 
 1761. Dr. Robert Harris, Physician, of New Brunswick, and afterwards of 
 Philadelphia. 
 
 1763. Rev. Charles Beatty, A.M., successor of the Rev. William Tennent as 
 pastor of the church of Neshaminy. 
 
 1763. Hon. John Berrian, Judge of the Supreme Court of New Jersey. 
 
 1764. Robert Ogden, Esq., of Elizabethtown, New Jersey. 
 
 1764. Rev. Lambert De Ronde, of New York City. 
 
 1765. Rev. John Rodgers, D.D., of St. George's, Delaware, and afterwards of 
 New York. 
 
 1765. Dr. William Shippen, Professor of Anatomy, Philadelphia. 
 
 Of one hundred and thirty graduates of the College who were students during the 
 presidency of Dr. Finley, fifty-nine became ministers of the gospel. 
 
 The following named were among the graduates of the greatest note, viz. : of the 
 class of 
 
 1761. Rev. David Caldwell, D.D., President of the University of North 
 Carolina. . 
 
 1761. Hon. Thomas Henderson, A.M., member of the Continental Congress, 
 and also of the United States House of Representatives. 
 
 1761. Rev. Nathan Ker, A.M., Goshen, New York. 
 
 1761. Rev. David Rice, of Virginia and Kentucky. 
 
 1762. Hon. Ebenezer Hazard, A.M., Postmaster-General of the United States. 
 1762. Rev. James Manning, D.D., the first President of Rhode Island College, 
 
 now Brown University, and in 1786 a member of the Continental Congress. 
 
 1762. Rev. Joseph Periam, a Tutor of the College, distinguished for his attain- 
 ments in mathematics, metaphysics, etc. 
 
 1762. Jonathan Dickinson Sergeant, a grandson of President Dickinson, and a 
 member of the Continental Congress. 
 
 1762. Rev. Hezekiah Smith, S.T.D., of Massachusetts, an eminent Baptist 
 preacher. 
 
 1763. Rev. James Boyd, of Pennsylvania, a Trustee of the College. 
 1763. Rev. Robert Cooper, D.D., of Pennsylvania. 
 
 1763. David Cowell, A.M., M.D., of New Jersey, for two years the Senior 
 Physician and Surgeon of the United States Military Hospitals. 
 
 1763. Rev. John Craighead, A.M., of Pennsylvania. He raised a company 
 from the people of his charge, and joined the army in New Jersey under Wash- 
 ington. 
 
 1763. Rev. Samuel Eakin, A.M., of West Jersey.
 
 ADMINISTRATION OF THE REV. SAMUEL FINLEY. 
 
 275 
 
 1 763. Rev. John Lathrop, D.D., of Massachusetts, a Fellow of Harvard College. 
 
 1763. Hon. William Patterson, LL.D., a member of the Continental Con- 
 gress; also of the Convention to form a constitution for the United States, Attor- 
 ney-General and Governor of New Jersey, and a Justice of the United States 
 Supreme Court. 
 
 1763. Hon. Tapping Reeve, LL.D., founder of the Litchfield Law School, and 
 Chief Justice of Connecticut. 
 
 1763. Rev. John Simpson, A.M., a native of New Jersey, but a resident of 
 North Carolina. 
 
 1763. Rev. William M. Tennent, D.D., of Abington, Pennsylvania, a Trustee 
 of the College. 
 
 1763. Right Rev. Thomas John Clagget, D.D., Bishop of the Diocese of 
 Maryland. 
 
 1764. Rev. \Vm. Foster, A.M., of Pennsylvania, a teacher of theology. 
 1764. Rev. Joseph Smith, A.M., of Western Pennsylvania. 
 
 1764. Hon. Thomas Tread well, a membe'r of the U. S. House of Representa- 
 tives. 
 
 1765. Rev. John Bacon, A.M., a member of the U. S. House of Representa- 
 tives, and President of the Senate of Massachusetts. 
 
 1765. Rev. Joel Benedict, D.D., of Connecticut, a Biblical, classical, and mathe- 
 matical scholar. 
 
 1765. Colonel Wm. Davies, A.M., of Virginia, eldest son of President Davies. 
 Colonel Davies was an officer held in high esteem by Washington. 
 
 1765. Rev. Jonathan Edwards, D.D., President of Union College, New York. 
 
 1765. Robert Halsted, A.M., of Elizabethtown, New Jersey, a prominent 
 physician. 
 
 1765. Hon. Richard Hutson, a member of the Continental Congress, and Chan- 
 cellor of South Carolina. 
 
 1765. Rev. Samuel Kirkland, A.M., a missionary to the Seneca tribe of Indians. 
 He contributed very much to the founding of Hamilton Academy, now Hamilton 
 College. 
 
 1765. Robert Ogden, A.M., Esq., of Elizabeth, New Jersey, a counsellor-at-law. 
 
 1765. Ebenezer Pemberton, LL.D , an eminent classical teacher. 
 
 1765. David Ramsay, M.D./ of South Carolina, a member of the Continental 
 Congress, and author of " The American Revolution," and other works. 
 
 1765. Rev. Theodore Dirck Romeyn, D.D., of New Jersey, Professor of Theology 
 in the Dutch Reformed College. 
 
 1765. Hon. Jacob Rush, LL.D., Chief Justice of Pennsylvania. 
 
 1766. Rev. Jacob Van Artsdalen, A.M., of New Jersey, a Trustee of the Col- 
 lege. 
 
 1766. Hon. Waightstill Avery, A.M., Attorney-General of North Carolina. 
 
 1766. Rev. Hezekiah Balch, D.D., President of Greenville College, Tennessee. 
 
 1766. Hon. Oliver Ellsworth, LL.D., Chief Justice of the United States, and 
 a member of the Convention to form a constitution for the United States. 
 
 1766. David Howell, LL.D., a member of the Continental Congress, and Pro- 
 fessor of Law in Brown University. 
 
 1766. Rev. David McCalla, D.D.,of Pennsylvania, Virginia, and South Carolina.
 
 276 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 1766. John McPherson, A.M., Aid-de-Camp of General Montgomery at the 
 attack on Quebec. 
 
 1766. Hon. Luther Martin, LL.D., Attorney-General of Maryland, and a mem- 
 ber of the Convention to form the United States Constitution. 
 
 1766. Nathaniel Niles, A.M., Judge of the Supreme Court of Vermont, and a 
 member of Congress from that State. 
 
 1766. Rev. James Power, D.D., one of the pioneer preachers of Western Penn- 
 sylvania. 
 
 1766. Rev. Isaac Skillman, D.D., pastor of a Baptist church, first in Boston, 
 Massachusetts, and then in Salem, New Jersey. 
 
 1766. Micah Townsend, A.M., Secretary of the State of Vermont. 
 
 1766. Rev. John Woodhull, D.D., an eminent minister and teacher of theology, 
 and for forty-four years a Trustee of the College.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE REV. SAMUEL FINLEY, D.D., FIFTH PRESIDENT 
 OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 DR. FINLEY was a native of Ireland. At the time of his birth, 
 1715, his parents resided in the county of Armagh. In 1734 
 they came to America, and arrived at Philadelphia on the 28th 
 of September. The family settled in West Jersey. Before 
 leaving Ireland he began to prepare for the gospel ministry ; 
 and with this end in view he made considerable progress in 
 classical learning, in which he afterwards became a proficient. 
 After his arrival in this country he devoted several years to 
 study, giving special attention to theology. It is thought, and 
 it has even been affirmed, that he completed his studies at the 
 Log College. But of this there is no certain evidence. It is 
 rather a matter of conjecture, founded upon the well-known 
 facts that his religious views were fully in accord with the 
 teachings of that school; that he labored assiduously and boldly 
 in support of the measures adopted by the Tennents and their 
 friends for the promotion of religion ; and that at this time the 
 Log College was the only preparatory school for the ministry 
 within the bounds of the American Presbyterian Church. But 
 these facts do not determine this question, as he may have pur- 
 sued his studies privately under some approved divine. 
 
 He was licensed to preach the gospel by the Presbytery of 
 New Brunswick on the 5th day of August, 1740, and was or- 
 dained by the same Presbytery on the I3th of October, 1742. 
 His preaching was attended with great success, especially in 
 Pennsylvania and in the lower counties of New Jersey. In 1743, 
 calls for his ministerial services were made by the churches of 
 Cohansey and Deerfield, New Jersey, and from Milford, Con- 
 necticut. The Presbytery sent him to Milford "with allowance 
 
 277
 
 278 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 he should preach for other places thereabouts when Providence 
 may open a door for him." Being at Milford, he went by re- 
 quest to preach for the Second Society in New Haven. As 
 this Society or Church had not been recognized either by the 
 civil authority or by the New Haven Association, it was con- 
 trary to a recently enacted law of the Province for any one to 
 preach for said Society, although it had been organized in 
 conformity with the usages of the Congregational churches. 
 Whether Mr. Finley had any knowledge of this prohibitory 
 enactment is not known. He accepted the invitation, and on 
 his way to the place of meeting he was arrested and confined. 
 This occurred on the 5th of September, 1743, and on the nth 
 of the same month he was presented by the grand jury, and 
 was sentenced to be transported out of the Colony as a vagrant, 
 and under this sentence he was removed from the Province. In 
 the following month he petitioned the Colonial Assembly to 
 review the case, but his petition was refused. This of course 
 prevented his going again to Milford. 
 
 For six months he preached as a stated supply for a new 
 congregation in Philadelphia, of which the Rev. Gilbert Ten- 
 nent became the first pastor. 
 
 In June, 1744, Mr. Finley accepted a call to the church at 
 Nottingham, Maryland, at which place he continued in the 
 faithful discharge of his pastoral duties for seventeen years. 
 Here he established an academy, which acquired a great repu- 
 tation, and one well deserved. Among his pupils at Notting- 
 ham were Governor Martin, of North Carolina, Governor Henry, 
 of Maryland, Dr. -Benjamin Rush, his brother, Judge Jacob 
 Rush, Ebenezer Hazard, Esq., Colonel John Bayard, and the 
 Rev. Dr. William M. Tennent, of Pennsylvania, the Rev. Dr. 
 McWhorter, of Newark, New Jersey, and the Rev. Dr. James 
 Waddell, of Virginia. 
 
 He was, says Dr. Sprague, an accomplished teacher, and 
 among his pupils were some of the very best scholars of the 
 day. He boarded most of them in his own house and at his 
 table. He often indulged in a vein of pleasantry with them. 
 
 In the summer of 1745, Mr. Finley, in company with the 
 Rev. Gilbert Tennent, and by appointment of the conjunct
 
 MEMOIR OF THE REV. SAMUEL FINLEY. 
 
 279 
 
 Presbyteries of New Brunswick and of New Castle, waited upon 
 Governor Gooch, of Virginia, with the view to repel certain 
 insinuations and charges made against the Rev. John Roan, a 
 member of the New Castle Presbytery, who by order of his Pres- 
 bytery had spent some months in Virginia in missionary labors. 
 Mr. Rowan's zeal and success, and perhaps some unguarded 
 expressions, stirred up the wrath of his opponents, who hesi- 
 tated not to charge him and the New Lights generally " with 
 reflecting upon and vilifying the Established Religion," and 
 who were so far successful that they enlisted in their move- 
 ment against Mr. Roan the influence of that eminently candid 
 and liberal-minded Governor. Messrs. Tennent and Finley 
 were kindly received by Governor Gooch, who gave them per- 
 mission to preach in Hanover. They continued there a week, 
 and " much good was done by their ministry. The people of 
 God were refreshed, and several careless sinners were awakened." 
 (See report of their visit by Mr. Samuel Morris, in Foote's 
 " Sketches of Virginia.") 
 
 Upon the death of President Davies, Dr. Finley was unan- 
 imously chosen his successor. Davies's own opinion of Fin- 
 ley's qualifications for the office is apparent from the following 
 extracts. Writing to the Rev. Mr. Cowell, of Trenton, a Trus- 
 tee of the College, in reference to the choice of a President, he 
 says: 
 
 " I recommend Mr. Finley, from long and intimate acquaintance with him, as 
 the best qualified person, in the compass of my knowledge, in America, incom- 
 parably better qualified than myself. Though the want of some superficial accom- 
 plishments for empty popularity may keep him in obscurity for some little time, his 
 hidden worth, in a few months, or years at most, will blaze out to the satisfaction 
 and even astonishment of all candid men. A disappointment of this kind will 
 certainly be of service to the College." 
 
 The letter from which this extract is made was written after 
 Mr. Davies had declined the appointment of President, and 
 also after he had refused to act as Vice-President for six 
 months. 
 
 On another occasion Davies speaks of Finley as " the best of 
 men, and my favorite friend." 
 
 The College flourished greatly under his administration of its
 
 2 8o HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 affairs, and he himself enjoyed in a very high degree the confi- 
 dence and respect of the Trustees, as is evident from their resolu- 
 tions and minutes, and still more from the liberal provision they 
 made for his support when his protracted illness, which ended 
 in death, rendered necessary an increased expenditure of funds. 
 His reputation was not limited to the Colonies. He was well 
 known to not a few of the prominent Presbyterian and Dissent- 
 ing ministers in Great Britain, with some of whom he kept up 
 a friendly correspondence. Such was the opinion which they 
 entertained of him as a scholar and a divine that, without his 
 knowledge, they procured for him from the University of Glas- 
 gow the degree of Doctor in Divinity. This is said to have been 
 the second time that this degree was ever conferred upon an 
 American divine by a British university, the Rev. Dr. Francis 
 Allison, of Philadelphia, being the first to receive this honor. 
 
 The diligence and earnestness with which Dr. Finley devoted 
 himself to the discharge of his official duties, after a few years 
 sensibly and most seriously affected his health. As mentioned 
 in the sketch of his administration, he went to Philadelphia for 
 medical advice and attendance, and he died in that city on the 
 l/th of July, 1766, in the fifty-first year of his age. 
 
 " When he first applied to the physicians in Philadelphia," observes Dr. Green, 
 " he had no apprehension that his dissolution was so near as it afterwards ap- 
 peared, for he observed to his friends, ' If my work is done, I am ready. I do 
 not desire to live a day longer than I can work for God. But I cannot think this 
 is the case as yet. God has much more for me to do before I depart hence.' 
 
 " About a month before his death his physicians informed him that his disease 
 appeared incurable. Upon which he expressed his perfect resignation to the 
 Divine will, and from that time till his death he was employed in setting his house 
 in order. Upon being told by one of his physicians that according to present ap- 
 pearances he could live but a few days longer, he lifted up his eyes, and exclaimed, 
 ' Then welcome Lord Jesus.' " 
 
 All his remarks and all his conversations with his friends in- 
 dicated a tranquil and even a joyous state of mind in view of 
 his departure. He had no doubt as to his personal interest in 
 Christ, and he felt assured that, for him, to die would be gain. 
 Upon seeing a member of the Second Presbyterian Church in 
 Philadelphia he said, " I have often preached and prayed among 
 you, my dear sir, and the doctrines I preached to you are now
 
 MEMOIR OF THE REV. SAMUEL F1NLEY. 2 8l 
 
 my support, and, blessed be God, they are without a flaw. May 
 the Lord bless and preserve your church ! He designs good for 
 it yet, I trust." To a person from Princeton he said, " Give my 
 love to the people at Princeton, and tell them I am going to 
 die, and that I am not afraid to die." 
 
 On the day before his death, " with a pleasing smile and with 
 a strong voice, he cried out, ' Oh, I shall triumph over every foe ! 
 The Lord hath given me the victory! I exult! I triumph!'" 
 And he did triumph over death, and, committing his spirit to 
 his Lord, he fell asleep, in the assured hope of a happy resur- 
 rection. 
 
 Dr. Finley's remains were interred in Philadelphia by the side 
 of his friend the Rev. Dr. Gilbert Tennent, the heat of the weather 
 not permitting their removal to Princeton. His funeral sermon 
 was preached by the Rev. Dr. Richard Treat, D.D., of Abing- 
 ton, Pennsylvania, a Trustee of the College. A large number 
 of the College students attended the funeral, and he was car- 
 ried to his burial by eight members of the Senior class. The 
 Trustees caused a cenotaph to be erected to his memory in the 
 graveyard at Princeton, in a line with and nigh to the tombs of 
 his predecessors in the office of President. 
 
 Ebenezer Hazard, Esq., of Philadelphia, formerly Postmaster- 
 General of the United States, and, as before mentioned, a pupil 
 of Dr. Finley's at the Nottingham Academy, gives this testi- 
 mony to his honored preceptor : 
 
 " He was remarkable for sweetness of temper and politeness of behavior. He 
 was given to hospitality, charitable without ostentation, exemplary in the discharge 
 of all relative duties, and in all things showing himself a pattern of all good works.. 
 As a divine he was a Calvinist in sentiment. His sermons were not hasty produc- 
 tions, but filled with good sense and well-digested sentiment, expressed in lan- 
 guage pleasing to men of science, yet perfectly intelligible by the illiterate. They 
 were calculated to inform the ignorant, to alarm the careless and secure, and to. 
 edify and comfort the faithful." 
 
 Another pupil, the late Rev. Dr. John Woodhull, of Mon- 
 mouth, New Jersey, thus speaks of him in a communication 
 written at the request of Dr. Green : 
 
 " Dr. Finley was a man of small stature, and of a round and ruddy countenance. 
 In the pulpit he was always solemn and sensible, and sometimes glowing with 
 fervor. His learning was very extensive. Every branch of study taught in the 
 VOL. I. 19
 
 2 82 Hf STORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 College appeared to be familiar to him. Among other things he taught Latin, 
 Greek, and Hebrew in the Senior year. He was highly respected and greatly 
 beloved by the students, and had very little difficulty in governing the College. 
 He died in Philadelphia, of a complaint in the liver, and requested to be carried 
 to the grave by some of the Senior class. This was done accordingly, and I was 
 one of those who were bearers of his corpse." 
 
 In early life President Finley manifested a fondness for public 
 disputation, and sometimes an undue warmth and earnestness in 
 maintaining his views. But mature age and Christian experi- 
 ence corrected this tendency to harsh judgment and expression; 
 and he became an acknowledged model of courteous deport- 
 ment and sweetness of temper, a man greatly beloved. 
 
 Soon after he was licensed he went within the bounds of the 
 Donegal Presbytery, in Pennsylvania, and gave his countenance 
 to the Rev. Alexander Craighead in his disorderly opposition to 
 the Presbytery, by taking part in reading to the people Mr. C.'s 
 defence of himself. January 20, 1741, he preached, at Notting- 
 ham, Maryland, a sermon on Matthew xii. 27, 28: "If I by 
 Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your sons cast them 
 -out ?" This sermon was published under the title of " Christ 
 Triumphing and Satan Raging," and was reprinted both at Bos- 
 ton and at London. He also wrote a letter in commendation 
 of Mr. Whitefield, which was published. 
 
 Dr. Finley's other publications were : 
 
 "A Refutation of Mr. Thomson's Sermon on the Doctrine of Conviction," 1743. 
 A sermon on 2 Thessalonians ii. II, 12, against the Moravians, being the substance 
 of several sermons preached in Philadelphia, showing the Strength, Nature, and 
 .Symptoms of Delusion, 1743. "A Charitable Plea for the Speechless," 1747, 
 and a Vindication of it, in 1748. A sermon preached at the ordination of the 
 Rev. John Rodgers, at St. George's, Delaware, 1749. A sermon on the death of 
 the Rev. Samuel Blair, 1751. A sermon from 2 Cor. x. 4, preached at Newark, 
 New Jersey, before the Synod of New York, 1754. A sermon entitled "The 
 Curse of Meroz, or the Danger of Neutrality in the Cause of God and our Country," 
 1757. A sermon on the death of President Davies, 1761. A sermon preached at 
 the funeral of the Rev. Gilbert Tennent, D.D., 1764. 
 
 A few years before the publication of his " Charitable Plea 
 for the Speechless," and not long after his licensure by the 
 Presbytery of New Brunswick, Dr. Finley engaged in a public 
 debate on the mode and subjects of baptism with the Rev. Abel 
 Morgan, Jr., of Middletown, New Jersey, a Baptist preacher
 
 MEMOIR OF THE REV. SAMUEL FINLEY. 
 
 283 
 
 of much note in those days. The debate was begun at Cohan- 
 sey, in West Jersey, and resumed at Cape May, at which latter 
 place there was at this time "a powerful revival of religion, in 
 which," says Dr. Sprague, " the labors of Baptist and Presby- 
 terian ministers were to a great extent intermingled." At this 
 time, as we learn from the Rev. Richard Webster, two elders and 
 six members left the Presbyterian Church for the Baptist. To 
 the Charitable Plea Mr. Morgan replied in a pamphlet entitled 
 " Anti-Pedo-Rantism, or Mr. Samuel Finley's Charitable Plea 
 for the Speechless examined and refuted, the Baptism of 
 Believers maintained, and the Mode of it by Immersion vindi- 
 cated." To this Dr. Finley published a rejoinder in vindica- 
 tion of his plea, to which Mr. Morgan published a reply, and 
 this ended their discussion. (See Sprague's " Annals of the 
 American Pulpit," vol. vi. page 34, art. Abel Morgan, Jr.) 
 
 Dr. Finley was twice married. His first wife was Miss 
 Sarah Hall, whose mother was the second wife of the Rev. 
 Gilbert Tennent. She is spoken of by President Green as a 
 lady of amiable character, who was truly a helpmeet to her hus- 
 band, and by Dr. Sprague as a lady of rare excellence. By her 
 Dr. Finley had eight children. She died in 1760, previously to 
 his leaving Nottingham. The year following he married Miss 
 Ann Clarkson, whose father, Matthew Clarkson, had been an 
 eminent merchant in New York, and who was a lineal descend- 
 ant of David Clarkson, B.D.,one of the two thousand ministers 
 ejected for non-conformity in England in 1662. Miss Clarkson 
 was also a lady distinguished for her piety. 
 
 Dr. Finley's son Ebenezer Finley was graduated at Nassau 
 Hall in 1772, and resided in Charleston, South Carolina. By 
 some persons he has been confounded with his brother James 
 E. B. Finley, a physician of Charleston. William Perroneau 
 Finley, LL.D., a grandson of President Finley, was also gradu- 
 ated at this College, in 1820, with great distinction. He studied 
 law, and he is now (1873) engaged in the practice of his profes- 
 sion. For several years he was President of Charleston College. 
 Professor Morse, so well known for his connection with the 
 electro-magnetic telegraph, is a grandson of Dr. Finley's daugh- 
 ter, Mrs. Breese, wife of Samuel Breese, Esq., of New Jersey.
 
 284 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 The cenotaph erected to the memory of President Finley by 
 the Trustees of the College has the following inscription : 
 
 Memorise Sacrum 
 
 Reverend! Samuelis Finley, S.T.D. 
 Collegii Neo-Csesariensis 
 
 Presidis, 
 
 Armachae in Hibernia natus, A.D. MDCCXV. 
 
 In American! migravit, Anno MDCCXXXIV. 
 
 Sacris ordinibus initiatus est, Anno MDCCXLIII, 
 
 apud Novum Brunsvicum, 
 
 Neo-Csesariensium: 
 
 Ecclesise Nottinghami, Pensylvaniensium, 
 
 Munus pastorale suscepit, XIV. o Kal. Julii, MDCCXLIV; 
 
 Ibique, Academise celeberrimse 
 
 diu prsefuit. 
 
 Designatus Prseses Collegii Neo-Csesariensis, 
 
 Officium inivit, Id. Julii MDCCLXI. 
 
 Tandem, dilectus, veneratus, 
 
 Omnibus flendus 
 
 Morti occubuit, Philadelphise, 
 
 XV. o Kal. Sextilis, A.D. MDCCLXVI. 
 
 Artibus literisque excultus.' 
 
 Prse cseteris prsecipue enituit. 
 
 Rerum divinarum scientia. 
 Studio divinse glorise flagrans 
 
 summis opibus 
 Ad veram Religionem promovendam, 
 
 et in concionibus, 
 
 et in sermone familiari 
 
 Operam semper navabat 
 
 Patientia, modestia, mansuetudo 
 
 Miranda 
 
 animo moribusque enituerunt, 
 
 Ob charitatem, observantiam, vigilantiam, 
 
 erga juvenes fidei suse mandatos 
 
 fuit 
 
 insignissimus 
 
 Moribus ingenuis, pietate sincera, 
 
 Vixit omnibus dilectus, 
 
 Moriens triumphavit.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE INTERVAL BETWEEN THE DEATH OF DR. FINLEY AND THE 
 ACCESSION OF DR. WITHERSPOON, FROM JULY 18, 1766, TO 
 AUGUST 17, 1768. 
 
 DURING Dr. Finley's last illness, his death being apprehended, 
 the Trustees, at a meeting held on the 25th of June, made 
 provision for the government of the College by appointing 
 the Rev. William Tennent " to act in the room and stead of 
 President Finley," and by investing him "with the power and 
 authority of the President." 
 
 The Board had their next meeting on Wednesday, the 2$th 
 of September, the day of the annual Commencement, and ad- 
 mitted the members of the Senior class, thirty-one in number, to 
 their first degree in the Arts, the Rev. Elihu Spencer presiding 
 and conferring the degrees. The usual exercises on such occa- 
 sions were attended to, and also the ordinary routine of busi- 
 ness, but the Trustees thought it best to defer the election of 
 a President, for which they appointed a special meeting to be 
 held on Wednesday, the igih of the ensuing November. Mr. 
 Jonathan Edwards, son of the late President Edwards, was 
 chosen a Tutor of the College. 
 
 In reference to the salary of the President, they adopted the 
 following minute: 
 
 " Whereas sundry weighty and important reasons have induced this Board to 
 augment the late worthy president's salary from time to time to the sum of ^400, 
 but inasmuch as the occasion of the late necessary augmentation is removed, and 
 the present low state of the College funds will not allow this Board to continue 
 that salary for the future in its present circumstances, it is agreed, therefore, that 
 the stated salary of the next president shall be ^250, with the usual perquisites." 
 
 Having met on the day appointed, they elected the Rev. Dr. 
 John Witherspoon, of which the following is the record : 
 
 285
 
 2 86 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 " It having pleased a holy and wise God to remove by death the late Reverend 
 and worthy Dr. Samuel Finley from the Presidentship of the College, the Board 
 proceeded to the choice of another to succeed him in that office ; when, after 
 mature deliberation, the Reverend Dr. Witherspoon, of Paisley, Scotland, was 
 duly elected as the Charter directs, nemine contradicente ; and it is ordered, that a 
 copy of this minute be enclosed and transmitted to the said Dr. Witherspoon, in 
 a letter, signed by the President, from this Board, praying his acceptance of the 
 said office. And it is further ordered, that a letter, in like manner, be transmitted 
 to Richard Stockton, Esq., one of the members of this Board, now in London, 
 enclosing the above to his care; and requesting his personal application to Dr. 
 Witherspoon, to solicit his acceptance, and informing him that this Board will de- 
 fray his, the said Mr. Stockton's, expenses in his journey to Scotland for the said 
 purpose ; and also that another letter, to be signed in like manner, be transmitted 
 to Mr. Dennys De Berdt, Merchant in London, enclosing a duplicate of the letter 
 to Dr. Witherspoon, in case the said Mr. Stockton should not happen to be in 
 London, requesting the said Mr. De Berdt to forward the same ; and that he would 
 be pleased to use his influence and interest for the same purpose. 
 
 " Ordered, That Messrs. Spencer, Redman, and Shippen do prepare draughts 
 of said letters, to be laid before this Board to-morrow morning. 
 
 " Resolved, That in case of Dr. Witherspoon's acceptance of the Presidentship 
 of this College, the sum of one hundred guineas be allowed to defray the expenses 
 of his removal and voyage ; and that his salary do commence on the day of his 
 arrival in North America." 
 
 On the following day the committee charged with this duty 
 submitted drafts of letters to Dr. Witherspoon, Richard Stock- 
 ton, Esq., and Mr. De Berdt, which were read and approved. 
 
 It was then ordered, that these letters be transcribed and 
 signed by the President of the Board (for the time being), Mr. 
 William Peartree Smith ; who was requested to despatch the 
 same by the first vessel bound from New York to London. 
 All which was done, as appears from a report made by Mr. 
 Smith at the next meeting of the Board. 
 
 Mr. Jonathan Edwards, elected a Tutor at the last meeting 
 of the Board, appeared, and was qualified in accordance with 
 the charter. 
 
 The Rev. William Tennent, who (both before and after the 
 decease of President Finley) had discharged the duties of 
 President of the College pro tempore, greatly to the satisfaction 
 of the Board, was again requested to take upon himself the 
 charge and burden of this office until the services of a perma- 
 nent President were secured ; and he having complied with this 
 request was qualified as directed by the charter.
 
 INTERVAL BETWEEN JULY, 1766, AND AUGUST, 1768. 2 8/ 
 
 At this meeting there was begun a most important negotia- 
 tion in reference to the establishment of sundry professorships 
 in the College, and the selection of the incumbents from the 
 two parties in the Presbyterian Church which, before the re- 
 union of the Synods of New York and of Philadelphia, had 
 been known under the designations of Old Side and New Side. 
 
 The first minute relative to this business is in these words: 
 
 " Messrs. George Bryan, John Johnson, William Allison, James Meas, and 
 Samuel Purviance, from Philadelphia, waited upon the Board, and presented a 
 petition signed by some gentlemen of Lewistown, in Pennsylvania; and also a 
 letter signed by twenty-six gentlemen of Philadelphia, requesting and recommend- 
 ing, among other things, the establishment of several Professorships in the College. 
 
 " Ordered, That the said papers do lie on the table for further mature considera- 
 tion." 
 
 The following remarks on this overture are copied from the 
 Notes of President Green, and they give within a comparatively 
 narrow compass a clear view of the ends sought to be attained 
 by the respective parties. On one point, however, the writer 
 dissents from his venerated preceptor, viz., as to the origin of 
 the College, which was originally established, not by the Synod 
 of New York, or under its auspices, but by the leading ministers 
 of the Presbytery of New York : 
 
 " In order to understand fully the nature of a negotiation of which this minute 
 gives the first intimation, but which will afterwards be found to have occupied the 
 most serious attention of the Board, it will be necessary to recollect what has been 
 said in regard to the rival Synods of New York and Philadelphia ; and that the 
 College was the offspring and favorite child of the former of these bodies. It has 
 been cursorily mentiQned that the schism was healed in the year 1757, and that 
 the two Synods were again united. This, notwithstanding much of the spirit 
 which had produced the separation still remained, and indeed was not extinct till 
 many years after this period. The cause and peculiarities of the Synod of Phila- 
 delphia had been denominated (he old side, and those of the New York Synod the 
 new side ; and these shibboleths of party remained long after the formal union of 
 the Synods. It is hoped that none of the acrimony with which they were once 
 used any longer exists ; but they still serve as convenient designations of parties 
 which once divided the Presbyterian Church. 
 
 " The College of New Jersey, notwithstanding the adverse circumstances which it 
 experienced in the death of four Presidents in less than nine years, had, on the whole, 
 been advancing in reputation ever since its establishment ; and under Dr. Finley had 
 probably risen higher than at any preceding period. At his death it was unques- 
 tionably the most reputable institution of which the Presbyterians could boast. This 
 circumstance, it is believed, induced the old side party to seek an alliance with it;
 
 2 88 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 and if a cordial alliance could have been formed, it would, without doubt, have 
 been an event highly favorable for the College, and for the Presbyterian Church 
 at large. That some of the leading men in each party hoped that this might be 
 effected, and honestly labored to bring it about, there is good reason to believe. 
 But there was still too much of party views and feelings to admit of such an issue. 
 The whole transaction bears marks of jealous caution and diplomatic arrangement 
 on both sides. The College being now without a President, and known to be in 
 great want of funds, the opportunity was thought to be favorable for obtaining a 
 participation, by the old side party, in the whole government and instruction of the 
 institution, in consideration of the pecuniary aid which that party could afford to 
 give. But the Board of Trustees proceeded, as we have seen, to elect a President, 
 even before they opened a negotiation ; and with a design, it is believed, to fore- 
 close all interference or propositions in regard to the choice of that officer. On 
 the other hand, such representations were speedily made in Scotland of the state 
 of the College as were calculated to induce Dr. Witherspoon to refuse the Presi- 
 dency, and which actually had that effect till his misapprehensions were removed 
 by an agent of the Board. The writer has in his hands the unquestionable evidence 
 of this fact, although it does not appear in the records of the Trustees." (See Dr. 
 Green's " Notes.") 
 
 Of the precise character of this evidence the venerable writer 
 gives us no intimation ; but his positive declaration is conclusive 
 as to the existence of such evidence at the time he penned this 
 statement.* 
 
 On the next morning, November 20, the Trustees continued 
 their sessions, and in the minutes for that day the following 
 record occurs : 
 
 " A letter was delivered into this Board, signed by several gentlemen of Balti- 
 more, Maryland, on the subject-matter of those presented yesterday. 
 
 " Ordered, That the said letter do lie with the others on the table for further 
 consideration." 
 
 " Resolved, That Messrs. Woodruff, Tennent, Spencer, and Rodgers be a com- 
 mittee forthwith to wait upon the gentlemen from Philadelphia who have signified 
 it to be their desire to meet a committee of this Board in order to a free conference 
 on the subject-matter of sundry letters, &c., which have been delivered by them; 
 and that the said committee do report the result of the said conference to this 
 Board." 
 
 " The committee appointed to wait upon the gentlemen from Philadelphia, being 
 returned, reported, That they had a full and free conference together upon the 
 subject-matter of the petitions and letters presented by those gentlemen. That the 
 said gentlemen observed that the proposals made to the Trustees being upon the 
 footing that the President's chair was vacant, they were disconcerted in their gen- 
 
 * It is probable that " the unquestionable evidence" mentioned by Dr. Green 
 was contained in a letter from the Rev. Charles Beatty to Rev. Dr. Treat, of 
 Abington, Pennsylvania. (See sketch of Dr. Witherspoon's Life.)
 
 INTERVAL BETWEEN JULY, 1766, AND AUGUST, 1768. 289 
 
 eral plan by the election of Dr. Witherspoon to the Presidentship before their pro- 
 posals were presented; that the said plan being thereby altered, they were not 
 authorized to determine absolutely what would be done hereafter by their con- 
 stituents respecting the general object they had in view; that nevertheless they 
 were truly desirous that some effectual method might be taken to complete the 
 proposed design. That a proposal was made by the said committee, viz., that on 
 the supposition of the nomination of two gentlemen for Professorships, to wit, the 
 Rev. Messrs. Blair* and McDowell, on the condition that money could be raised 
 by the friends of this Institution to support them, Whether their constituents would 
 be satisfied, and they would undertake to promote a subscription for their support ; 
 to which the said gentlemen replied, That however desirous they were to accom- 
 plish so excellent a design, they would not at present engage for the future conduct 
 of their constituents." 
 
 " The Board, taking in mature consideration the above Report, came to the follow- 
 ing resolution : 
 
 " Whereas it is an object of their greatest concern that union and the strictest 
 harmony among all the friends and patrons of religion and sound literature might 
 be promoted by every proper method, and that this Institution may have every 
 possible advantage of increasing its Reputation and advancing the cause of Learn- 
 ing ; And as there appears reason to expect great and happy consequences both to 
 the interest of religion and of this Seminary from putting into execution the gen- 
 eral design of the proposals made, they will gladly do everything in their power to 
 accomplish the said end ; and accordingly declare themselves greatly desirous that 
 a sufficiency of moneys by subscriptions or otherwise might be obtained to accom- 
 plish this noble design ; and are cheerfully willing to join in any particular method 
 that can be devised for raising the necessary sums. For though this Board would 
 gladly proceed to the election of Professors without delay, were there funds suffi- 
 cient to support such an additional expense ; yet they judge it by no means expe- 
 dient to take that step before they have a certain medium for their support." 
 
 The above extracts comprise all the action on this subject at 
 this meeting of the Board. 
 
 The Rev. John Blair, of Fagg's Manor, Pennsylvania, was 
 chosen a Trustee of the College, in the room of the Rev. John 
 Light or Leydt, pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church, New 
 Brunswick, resigned. 
 
 * Knowing that some of the Trustees, and probably a majority, were desirous, 
 even at this time, to appoint Mr. Blair Professor of Divinity in the College, the Rev. 
 James Caldwell, of Elizabethtown, the Rev. Alexander McWhorter, of Newark, 
 neither, at that time, a Trustee of the College, and Mr. Jonathan Edwards, Jr., 
 then a Tutor in the College, were earnestly in favor of having Dr. Hopkins ap- 
 pointed instead of Mr. Blair. They were of the opinion that the requisite funds to 
 sustain Mr. Blair could not be had from the friends of the College, and this en- 
 couraged these gentlemen to make a strenuous effort to secure the appointment of 
 Dr. Hopkins. (See letter of Mr. Caldwell, in the Bellamy Manuscripts.)
 
 2QQ HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 As the Grammar School connected with the College was " likely to become 
 chargeable to the College funds," the Board resolved that the teacher (Mr. Avery) 
 might continue the school in the College, on his own account, if he thought it 
 expedient ; but that they would no longer be responsible for its support. 
 
 " Mr. Samuel Breese, one of the Executors of the Estate of Dr. Finley, deceased, 
 requesting an order of this Board upon the Treasurer, for the payment of the 
 salary which became due to the said Dr. Finley at the time of his death, the Clerk 
 is directed immediately to make out an order on Mr. Sergeant for the payment 
 of whatever sum remained due to the said Dr. Finley as his salary at the time 
 of his death, together with the interest of the same from the clay of his decease ; 
 and that he take a discharge of the same from the Executor of the Estate." 
 
 The next meeting of the Board took place on Wednesday, 
 the 3Oth of September, 1767, the day of the annual Commence- 
 ment. 
 
 After the exercises usual on such occasions, eleven candidates 
 were admitted to the first degree in the Arts. 
 
 The next day, October I, the Board met again; sixteen 
 Trustees being present. The Hon. Edward Shippen, of Lan- 
 caster, Pennsylvania, one of the Trustees named in the second 
 charter of the College, tendered his resignation, for the reason 
 that " he finds himself incapable, through growing infirmity 
 and distant residence, of giving attendance." His resignation 
 was accepted. 
 
 Mr. William Peartree Smith " communicated a letter to this 
 Board from the Rev. Dr. John Witherspoon, wherein that gen- 
 tleman is pleased to decline an acceptance of the Presidentship 
 of this College, to which he was elected in November last." 
 
 " Mr. Halsey, eldest Tutor of this College, now thought fit to 
 resign his office ; and requesting testimonials in his favor from 
 the Trustees, It is ordered, That an ample certificate be made 
 out, to be signed by the Clerk in the name of this Board and 
 sealed with the Corporation seal, certifying the said Mr. Hal- 
 sey's faithful services and good conduct during his Tutorship in 
 the College, with Recommendation of him as a Gentleman of 
 Genius, Learning, and real Merit." 
 
 The Rev. William Tennent, the President /r0 tern., submitted 
 the draft of sundry laws for the better regulation and order 
 of the College ; which were read, considered, amended, and 
 unanimously adopted.
 
 INTERVAL BETWEEN JULY, 1766, AND AUGUST, 1768. 2 Ql 
 
 The first one empowered the officers of the College to ex- 
 amine the classes at any time of the year, at their discretion. 
 
 The second prohibited the students from taking any part in 
 the choice of orators for Commencement and other public 
 exhibitions. 
 
 The third was a law to prevent damage to the several rooms 
 and apartments of the College and to the furniture of the same. 
 In accord with this last regulation, Mr. James Thompson, one 
 of the Tutors, was appointed " Inspector of the Rooms," and 
 was allowed five pounds per annum for this service. 
 
 The committee, Messrs. Woodruff and Ogden, to examine 
 into the general state of the College funds, reported " that they 
 find the sum total in the hands of the Treasurer, in Bonds, 
 Notes, &c., to amount to the sum of 28 15. 3.1, of which they 
 find only 950, or thereabouts, to be at present under actual 
 improvement at interest." 
 
 Soon after the opening of their session this day, Mr. Stockton 
 mentioned to the Board that there were several gentlemen from 
 Philadelphia now in town, viz., Messrs. George Bryan, William 
 Allison, John Chevalier, John Boyd, and John Wallace, who 
 had informed him that they had something to offer to this Cor- 
 poration, and were desirous of being heard. Mr. Stockton was 
 accordingly requested immediately to wait upon those gentle- 
 men and inform them that the Trustees were now ready to hear 
 them. 
 
 " The Philadelphia gentlemen, being introduced by Mr. Stock- 
 ton, begged leave to remind the Trustees that they had the last 
 year presented sundry papers and letters containing proposals 
 relative to the establishment of a Faculty in this College ; that 
 their constituents were still vejy desirous that the general plan 
 should be carried into execution if the circumstances of the 
 College would possibly admit of it; and prayed that the same 
 might be reconsidered. The said gentlemen were then assured 
 that this Board would come to some determination thereon as 
 soon as possible." 
 
 " Ordered, That the several letters and proposals above mentioned be read and 
 maturely considered; which were read and considered accordingly."
 
 292 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 " Resolved, That Messrs. Stockton, Ogden, and [Dr. W.] Shippen be a com- 
 mittee to confer more fully with those gentlemen on the subject-matter of said 
 proposals." 
 
 This committee had a conference with the delegates from 
 Philadelphia, and made the following report to the Board, 
 
 " That they find those gentlemen and their constituents still heartily desirous of 
 concurring with the Trustees of this College in the establishment and support of k 
 Faculty, and promising to unite their utmost endeavors to raise the necessary funds 
 to carry the same into speedy execution ; that the said gentlemen being asked by 
 the Committee whether the appointment of all or any of the particular persons to 
 Professorships in their proposals named and recommended was intended as a Term 
 of their acceding to and assisting in the establishment proposed, replied, That it 
 was not the intention to make the appointment of any of the particular persons 
 named by their constituents a term of the proposed Union ; but that any other gen- 
 tlemen who might be deemed qualified for their offices, and indiscriminately chosen 
 without regard to party distinctions, would be acceptable to them." 
 
 " The Board having taken the whole into mature consideration were unanimously 
 of the opinion that the constitution of a Faculty to consist of well-qualified Profes- 
 sors in the several branches of Academical Science to be chosen without regard to 
 any little party differences would greatly subserve the interests of Religion and 
 Learning in this Seminary, and would tend to the better and more perfect instruc- 
 tion and government in the same. And it was accordingly resolved, that in pur- 
 suance of said plan, the choice of a Faculty to consist of Professors in some of the 
 most essential parts of literature be entered upon to-morrow morning." 
 
 " October 2, 9 o'clock A.M. Met according to adjournment, and present as 
 yesterday. The Trustees having thought proper, pursuant to their resolution of yes- 
 terday, to enter upon the choice of a Faculty, to consist of Professors in the most 
 necessary branches of education in the College, did, in the first place, proceed to 
 the appointment of a Professor of Divinity and Moral Philosophy; when, after 
 mature deliberation, the Rev. Mr. John Blair, of Fog's [Fagg's] Manor, in Penn- 
 sylvania, and one of the members of this Board, was chosen to that office. Ad- 
 journed to 3 o'clock P.M. 
 
 " The Trustees now proceeded to the choice of a Professor of Mathematics and 
 Natural Philosophy, when Dr. Hugh Williamson, of Philadelphia, was duly elected 
 to that office ; and Mr. Jonathan Edwards, now a Tutor in this College, was also 
 duly chosen to the Professorship of Languages and Logic. 
 
 " The Rev. Dr. John Witherspoon having thought fit to decline the invitation of 
 this Board to the Presidentship of the College, the Trustees proceeded to the choice 
 of a President to succeed the reverend and worthy Dr. Finley, deceased. After 
 mature deliberation, the Rev. Mr. Samuel Blair, of Boston, in New England, was 
 duly elected President of this College, and also Professor of Rhetoric and Meta- 
 physics. Nemine contradicente. 
 
 " Mr. George Bryan, of Philadelphia [one of the delegates from that city to con- 
 fer with the Board], was unanimously chosen a Trustee, in the room of Edward 
 Shippen, Esq., resigned."
 
 INTERVAL BETWEEN JULY, 1766, AND AUGUST, 1768. 293 
 
 " Voted, That the sum of one hundred pounds proclamation be allowed to the 
 Rev. Mr. William Tennent in consideration of his services to this College as Vice- 
 president pro tern, from the igth of November last to the present Commencement; 
 and ordered, That the Treasurer pay unto the said Mr. Tennent the said sum of 
 ;ioo out of the first moneys that he may have in his hands. 
 
 " Voted, That the annual salaries of the President and Professors, now chosen, to 
 commence from the time they shall respectively enter upon their several offices, 
 shall be as follows : 
 
 To the President and Professor of Rhetoric and Metaphysics . 200 
 " Professor of Divinity and Moral Philosophy . . 175 
 
 " Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy . .150 
 
 " Professor of Languages and Logic . . . . .125 
 
 " The Trustees having now, pursuant to the plan proposed, nominated and 
 chosen several gentlemen of reputation in the literary world and undoubted skill 
 in those branches of science to which they are designed, do find, that notwith- 
 standing they have annexed the most moderate salaries to the respective offices, 
 the present state of the College revenues renders it impossible for them to provide 
 the sum total of the said salaries, and that it is therefore not in their power imme- 
 diately to invite and introduce together the four Professors elect to the actual 
 execution of their offices, as a Faculty, even should they all acquiesce in their 
 present election, which is yet an uncertainty; and as four Instructors are imme- 
 diately requisite to carry on the business of the College, it is resolved to continue 
 the present constitution under a Vice-President and three Tutors, at least during 
 the year ensuing, that at the end of the year the President elect be called to the 
 exercise of his office, and if, in the interim, any means may be devised to enable 
 the Trustees to support two other Professors (viz., the Professor of Mathematics 
 and Natural Philosophy, and the Professor of Languages and Logic), in that case 
 the gentlemen now elected to those offices shall be called to enter upon the same, 
 and the constitution by a Faculty shall then take place. 
 
 " Pursuant to the above resolution, the Rev. Mr. John Blair, who is pleased to 
 accept of the Professorship of Divinity and Morality, was chosen Vice-President 
 until the next Commencement, and was accordingly qualified to [hold] those 
 offices, as the Charter directs. 
 
 " Mr. Joseph Periam was also duly elected Senior Tutor of the College, in the 
 room of Mr. Jeremiah Halsey resigned, and [was] qualified, as the Charter directs. 
 
 " Mr. James Thompson, Second Tutor, and Mr. Jonathan Edwards, Junior 
 Tutor, whose services and conduct in their respective offices being much approved, 
 were requested by Mr. Tennent, in the name of this Board, to continue in their 
 said offices for the year ensuing, to which they were pleased to signify their 
 compliance." 
 
 " Voted, That there be allowed the sum of one hundred pounds proc. to each of 
 the Tutors, as their respective salaries for the year ensuing." 
 
 " Voted, That the expenses that may accrue to the Rev. Mr. John Blair, in the 
 removal of himself and family to Nassau Hall, be defrayed out of the College 
 treasury." 
 
 " Dr. Shippen is desired to inform Dr. Williamson, by letter, in the name of this
 
 294 HISTOR Y OF THE COLLEGE OF NE W JERSE K 
 
 Board, of his election to the Professorship of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, 
 and to acquaint him with their resolution to defer calling him to the exercise of 
 the said office for at least one year, and until they are enabled to provide the sup- 
 port annexed to the same. 
 
 " Mr. Spencer is desired to notify the congregation at Fog's [Fagg's] Manor of 
 Mr. Blair's election to a Professorship in this College, and to pursue the necessary 
 steps, in behalf of this Board, for obtaining the said Mr. Blair's discharge from his 
 pastoral office, in order to his speedy removal." 
 
 The Rev. Wm. Kirkpatrick, of Amwell, New Jersey, was elected a Trustee, in 
 the room of Mr. Blair, resigned. 
 
 Mr. Blair was released from his pastoral charge, and removed to Princeton. 
 None of the other Professors accepted their appointments; and no reference to 
 their appointments occurs in the subsequent minutes of the Board, with the excep- 
 tion of the following minutes, of December 10, 1767:* "The Trustees having 
 thought it expedient, in order to enable them to establish and support a number of 
 Professors in this College, that subscriptions in this and the neighboring colonies 
 should be set forward among the friends of religion and learning, and Mr. [W. P.] 
 Smith presenting a draught of a preamble to said proposed subscription papers, the 
 one designed to be subscribed by such persons as may choose to contribute a sum 
 in gross, the other as an annual subscription to continue for seven years, from the 
 1st of August, 1768, the same were examined and approved; and Mr. Bryan is 
 desired to order three hundred of each sort to be forthwith printed at Philadelphia, 
 and to distribute a number of each to every member of this Board, who mutually 
 engage to use their best endeavors to promote subscriptions in the Country. And 
 the said Mr. Bryan is directed to draw upon the Treasurer for the expense of 
 printing the same." 
 
 " This Board being informed that the Synod of New York and Philadelphia 
 have lately appointed an annual contribution to be made in the several congrega- 
 tions throughout their bounds for the laudable purpose of promoting Christian 
 knowledge, and conceiving a yearly appropriation of some part of said contribu- 
 tion for and towards the support of a Divinity Professor in this College would per- 
 fectly accord with the views of the Synod in the said appointment, as the well 
 training up and instruction of our youth in the doctrines of Christianity would be 
 one of the most effectual means to accomplish the excellent purposes designed by 
 said contributions, It is therefore ordered, That the Rev. Mr. Rodgers do pre- 
 pare a draught of a letter to said Synod, requesting an annual appropriation of part 
 of those collections towards the maintenance of a Professor of Divinity in this Col- 
 lege, to be laid before the Board this afternoon." 
 
 " Mr. Rodgers, pursuant to order, laid before the Board a draught of a letter to the 
 Reverend the Synod of New York and Philadelphia ; which being read and ap- 
 proved, it was ordered that the same be transcribed and signed by the Clerk, and 
 that Mr. Rodgers do present it at the next meeting of said Synod." 
 
 This letter was laid before the Synod, at their sessions in 
 
 * On page 181 of the first volume of Minutes there is a reference to the plan for 
 appointing Professors, but no reference to the particular appointments now made.
 
 INTERVAL BETWEEN JULY, 1766, AND AUGUST, 7768. 295 
 
 Philadelphia, in the month of May, 1768, and the following is 
 the minute of the Synod's action in regard to it : 
 
 " A supplication was brought in from the honorable the Board of Trustees of the 
 New Jersey College, praying assistance in supporting a Professor of Divinity, from 
 the last year's collection, and was fully considered, and the Synod judge that they 
 cannot give any part of the money collected last year towards the support of a Pro- 
 fessor of Divinity in said College, but do agree, and hereby order, that a general 
 collection be made for this purpose in all our congregations; and that the money 
 raised by this separate collection be applied particularly by this Synod, yearly, for 
 this purpose till expended ; and in the mean time, in order to assist in supporting a 
 Professor of Divinity in said College, the Synod do agree to give the present Pro- 
 fessor the sum of fifty pounds out of the money now in the hands of our Treasurer, 
 to be refunded next year. 
 
 " Ordered, That Mr. Treat, our Treasurer, pay this sum to the Trustees of the 
 College of New Jersey." 
 
 Mr. Blair, the Professor of Divinity, was the Moderator of 
 the Synod this year. 
 
 Under the date of the 25th of May, 1769, the following 
 minute occurs in the records of the Synod : 
 
 " The Synod do agree to give the honorable Board of Trustees of the New 
 Jersey College, towards supporting a Professor of Divinity in that institution, sixty 
 pounds for the last year, and sixty pounds for the current year, out of the col- 
 lections made in our congregations for this purpose, agreeable to an order of last 
 session. The fifty pounds lent that honorable Board last year is refunded." 
 
 At the opening of the next term after his election, Mr. Blair, 
 as Vice-President, took the oversight of the College, and, aided 
 by the three Tutors above named, conducted its instruction and 
 government, as previously ordered by the Board, it being ex- 
 pressly said at the time of their appointment that the President 
 elect, the Rev. Samuel Blair, and the Professors elect of Mathe- 
 matics and of Languages, were not expected to enter upon the 
 duties of their respective offices for at least one year. 
 
 "These arrangements," says President Green, "appear to have been proposed 
 on the one side, and acceded to on the other, with a view to show a conciliatory 
 disposition. One professor of the old side party was chosen ; and at the same 
 meeting one gentleman of that party was unanimously elected to fill a vacancy 
 which had taken place in the Board of Trustees. While this was done, effectual care 
 was taken to give no pledges which could produce subsequent embarrassment. 
 These measures were, perhaps, the best which the circumstances in which the 
 Board was placed would admit ; yet it seems strange that any one should seriously
 
 296 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 expect that they would ever be carried into effect. It is believed by the writer 
 [Dr. Green] that many members of the Board, at this very time, cherished a pretty 
 sanguine hope that Dr. Witherspoon would yet become the President of the College. 
 That event, whether expected or not, did at length take place ; and not a word after- 
 wards appears on the records in regard to the appointments which were now made, 
 nor in reference to any part of this negotiation and agreement relative to a faculty. 
 There had never, indeed, been any open or avowed opposition to the election of 
 Dr. Witherspoon. And when he entered on his office, his prudence, talents, and 
 weight of character not only put an end to party measures in the Board of Trustees, 
 but contributed greatly to produce effect in the councils of the Church to which he 
 belonged." 
 
 At the meeting of the Board at which the matters above 
 mentioned took place, 
 
 " Mr. Tennent communicated a letter from Mr. Stephen Sayre, of London, 
 merchant, wherein he is pleased to offer, if properly empowered, to exert his en- 
 deavors in England for obtaining benefactions in favor of this College. Resolved, 
 That the thanks of this Board be transmitted to that gentleman for his polite and 
 generous offer, and that Mr. Rodgers do write to the said Mr. Sayre in the name of 
 this Board, expressing their grateful acknowledgments for his proffered services in 
 England ; and at the same time to enclose a general commission from the Trustees 
 of this College, to be signed by the Clerk in their name, and sealed with the Corpora- 
 tion seal, empowering him to act as their agent and attorney in soliciting and re- 
 ceiving benefactions in Books, Philosophical Instruments, and subscriptions for 
 the use of said College, and to employ any attorneys under him for said purpose." * 
 
 Mr. Halsey, who had been a Tutor for ten years, having re- 
 signed his office, the Trustees, in addition to the testimonial 
 which they directed should be given, voted him forty pounds 
 over and above his regular salary for the year. 
 
 The Treasurer was ordered to collect the outstanding debts 
 of the last lottery with all possible despatch. 
 
 A committee was appointed to settle Mr. Stockton's account 
 with the College while he was in Great Britain. 
 
 * " Stephen Sayre, the gentleman named in this minute," says Dr. Green, "was 
 a native American, and graduated at Nassau Hall in 1757. He was at this time an 
 eminent London merchant, and afterwards the high sheriff of that city. His kind 
 dispositions towards his Alma Mater were certainly commendable; but there is no 
 record of any donations which he obtained for the College. Perhaps his earnest 
 expectations were disappointed by the ardent controversies which about this time 
 took place in regard to the claims of the mother-country and the colonies. In those 
 controversies Mr. Sayre participated deeply. He eventually left Britain, returned 
 to his native country, and lived in retirement to a very advanced age. He died in 
 Virginia about four years since, about the year 1818."
 
 INTERVAL BETWEEN JULY, 1766, AND AUGUST, 1768. 297 
 
 Provision was made for a new edition of the Newark (Latin) 
 Grammar, to be revised and published by the Rev. Mr. Caldwell, 
 and Messrs. Reeve and Pemberton, masters of the grammar- 
 school at Elizabethtown. 
 
 December 9, 1767, a special meeting of the Trustees was 
 called, in accordance with the charter, at the request of six 
 members of the Board. 
 
 At this meeting Mr. Wm. P. Smith, the senior Trustee present, 
 and who presided on this occasion, 
 
 " communicated a letter from the Rev. Samuel Blair to the Honorable William 
 Smith, Esq., the President of the Trustees at their last meeting, wherein the said 
 Mr. Blair declines accepting the Presidentship of this College, to which he was 
 chosen ; and the said office was accordingly declared to be vacant." 
 
 At this same meeting 
 
 " Mr. Stockton communicated to the Board sundry letters he had recently received 
 from Scotland, informing him that the difficulties which had prevented Dr. Wither- 
 spoon's acceptance of the Presidentship to which he had been chosen were now 
 removed, and that upon a re-election he would esteem it a duty to enter into this 
 public service. The Board, receiving the intelligence with peculiar satisfaction, 
 proceeded immediately to a re-election, when the said Dr. Witherspoon was again 
 unanimously chosen to the said office;" and it was 
 
 " Resolved, That the salary to be allowed Dr. Witherspoon as President of the 
 College be according to the propositions made to him in the letter wrote him by 
 the President of this Board upon his former election ; together with the explanation 
 thereof mentioned to the said Dr. Witherspoon by Mr. Stockton, one of the mem- 
 bers of this Board, in his letter from Edinburgh, dated ad March, 1767. And 
 that the same sum of one hundred guineas, as on his former election, be allowed 
 him for the expenses of removing himself and his family to this place." 
 
 " Resolved, That the President of this Board be desired immediately to transmit 
 a copy of the above vote to Dr. Witherspoon ; and also to send a duplicate of the 
 same by the first opportunity, to be accompanied with his letter, requesting the said 
 Dr. Witherspoon to hasten his coming over as soon as he conveniently can." 
 
 The Rev. Samuel Blair mentioned above as having declined 
 the Presidency was the son of the Rev. Samuel Blair, of Fagg's 
 Manor, Pennsylvania, and, like his father, was distinguished for 
 talent and learning as well as for piety. He was also a nephew 
 of the Rev. John Blair, the Professor of Divinity and Moral 
 Philosophy. He was a graduate of the College in 1760, and 
 was a Tutor for three years during the administration of Presi- 
 dent Finley, and, as mentioned in the sketch of that administra- 
 tion, he was the author of the account of the College published 
 VOL. i. 20
 
 298 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 by order of the Trustees in 1764. At the time of his election 
 as President of the College he was a colleague of the Rev. Dr. 
 Sevvall, minister of South Church, Boston. He was not thirty 
 years of age when he was chosen President. Speaking of this 
 event, and of his declining the appointment, President Green, 
 in his " Notes," observes, " But at that time a youth of higher 
 promise was probably not to be found in the American Church." 
 
 " The writer," continues Dr. Green, " has learned from good authority that as soon 
 as Mr. Blair had ascertained that a re-election of Dr. Witherspoon would secure his 
 services and influence in favor of the College, a voluntary and prompt tender of 
 the resignation here recorded prevented the embarrassment in which the Trustees 
 might otherwise have been involved. Dr. Witherspoon has been known to men- 
 tion this act as an instance of disinterestedness and generosity highly creditable to 
 Mr. Blair. 
 
 " This gentleman, shortly after his resignation of the Presidency, fell into a vale- 
 tudinary state, which induced him to resign his pastoral charge in Boston, and 
 which rendered his subsequent life little else than a long disease. He resided for 
 many years at Germantown, in the neighborhood of Philadelphia, and performed 
 such ministerial services as his heallh would permit. For two years he served as 
 chaplain in Congress. The writer recollects many pleasing hours spent in his 
 company in an acquaintance of nearly thirty years' continuance. He died about 
 two years since [1820]." (See Dr. Green's " Notes.") 
 
 After their second election of Dr. Witherspoon, the Trustees 
 passed a resolution designed to prevent candidates from enter- 
 ing any other than the Freshman class ; but this order was soon 
 repealed and the previous rule re-established. 
 
 The following important rule was adopted at this time: 
 
 " Voted, That the practice of sending Freshmen upon errands, or employing them 
 as servitors in any manner whatsoever, be from henceforth totally discontinued." 
 
 " Mr. Stockton having informed the Board that he had received when in England 
 the sum of one hundred pounds sterling, which was given to the Trustees of this 
 College in trust for and towards the support of a Divinity Professor in the same, by 
 Mr. Williamson, of Hanover, in Virginia; Resolved, That Dr. Redman do transmit 
 the thanks of this Board, by letter, to the said Mr. Williamson for his generous 
 donation." 
 
 The grammar-school in connection with the College having been discontinued 
 after the death of President Finley, the Trustees now appointed a committee " to 
 consider of ways and means for setting and promoting the same, . . . and to report 
 at the next meeting." 
 
 During this interval the following gentlemen were chosen Trustees : 
 
 The Rev. John Blair, in the room of the Rev. John Light (Leydt), resigned. 
 
 Hon. George Bryan, in the room of Hon. Edward Shippen, resigned.
 
 INTERVAL BETWEEN JULY, 1766, AND AUGUST, 1768. 299 
 
 The Rev. Wm. Kirkpatrick, in the room of the Rev. John Blair, elected Professor. 
 
 The following gentlemen composed the Faculty : 
 
 The Rev. William Tennent, President pro tern., from July 17 to October 2, 1767. 
 
 The Rev. John Blair, Vice-President, from October 2, 1767, to August 17, 1768; 
 Professor of Divinity and Moral Philosophy until the annual Commencement, Sep- 
 tember 27, 1769. 
 
 Mr. Jeremiah Halsey, Senior Tutor. 
 
 Mr. James Thompson. 
 
 Mr. Joseph Periam, Senior Tutor upon Mr. Halsey's resignation. 
 
 Mr. Jonathan Edwards. 
 
 At the annnual Commencement of 1767 there were eleven graduates, and at that 
 of 1768 there were also eleven; total for both years, twenty-two. Of these, eight 
 became ministers of the gospel. The most distinguished of these graduates in after- 
 life were of the class of 
 
 1767. Francis Barber, A.M., of New Jersey, a classical teacher of much repute; 
 also Lieutenant-Colonel in the U. S. Army. 
 
 1767. Nathaniel Ramsay, A.M., of Maryland, a lawyer of eminence, a Colonel 
 in the Revolutionary Army, and a member of the Continental Congress. 
 
 1767. Samuel Witham Stockton, A.M., Secretary of State for New Jersey; pre- 
 viously he was Secretary of the American Commission to the Courts of Austria and 
 Prussia. 
 
 1768. Rev. Robert Blackwell, D.D., of Philadelphia, an Episcopal clergyman, 
 a Chaplain and also a Surgeon in the U. S. Army. 
 
 1768. Ephraim Brevard, M.D., reputed author of the Mecklenburg Resolutions; 
 a Surgeon in the U. S. Army. 
 
 1768. Pierpont Edwards, A.M., a son of President Edwards, Judge of the U. S.. 
 District Court for Connecticut, and a member of the Continental Congress. 
 
 1768. Wm. Churchill Houston, A.M., Professor of Mathematics in the College 
 of New Jersey; a member of the Continental Congress. 
 
 1768. Adlai Osborne, during the Revolution a Colonel in the U. S. Army; also 
 a Trustee of the University of North Carolina. 
 
 1768. Rev. Thomas Reese, D.D., of South Carolina, a scholar and a minister 
 of much repute. 
 
 1768. Rev. Elias Van Bunschooten, a minister of the Reformed Dutch Church. 
 He left a large legacy to Queen's College, New Brunswick.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 DR. WITHERSPOON'S ADMINISTRATION, FROM AUGUST 17. 1768, 
 TO NOVEMBER 15, 1794. 
 
 DR. WITHERSPOON was inaugurated on the i/th of August, 
 1768, at a special meeting of the Board called for this purpose. 
 The minute of the Board in reference to his inauguration is as 
 follows : " The Rev. Dr. Witherspoon being now arrived from 
 North Britain to preside at the head of this Institution, pur- 
 suant to his re-election at the last meeting, was duly qualified 
 as the charter directs ; and, having taken the oaths of office as 
 one of the Trustees and President of the College, took his seat 
 accordingly." 
 
 So far as appears from the minutes, there was no other cere- 
 mony connected with his entrance upon the duties of his office; 
 but in a short sketch of his administration, given by the Rev. 
 Dr. Ashbel Green before the Alumni Association in 1840, and 
 published in the "Presbyterian Magazine" for 1854, it is ex- 
 pressly said that he delivered a Latin inaugural address on the 
 union of Piety and Science. The venerable author of this 
 statement confirmed it by adding, " I had an opportunity, when 
 a member of the Senior class in College, of perusing the Ad- 
 dress, in the handwriting of its author; but it has not been 
 found among the manuscripts which were left by the Doctor at 
 the time of his death." 
 
 Dr. Witherspoon was most cordially welcomed by the Trus- 
 tees and other friends of the College, and also by the commu- 
 nity at large. They all expected great benefits to result to the 
 College from his accession to the Presidency ; and in this they 
 were not disappointed. 
 
 The first order passed by the Board, after his inauguration, 
 was one directing the Treasurer of the College to pay Dr. 
 300
 
 DR. WITHERSPOON' S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 301 
 
 Witherspoon, " with the first moneys that may come into his 
 hands, one hundred guineas, the same being the sum that was 
 voted by this Board for defraying the expenses of his removal 
 to this country." This shows the low condition of the College 
 funds at this time. 
 
 The following resolutions were also passed : 
 
 " Voted, That the salary of the President of this College be fixed at three hundred 
 and fifty pounds proclamation money of this Province, exclusive of house and the 
 customary use of the College lands. Which sum of .350 is equal to .206 sterling 
 money of Great Britain, mentioned to Dr. Witherspoon at his first election, in a 
 letter sent him by order of this Board, and agreeable to an explanation of the same 
 in Mr. Stockton's letter written to him from Edinburgh, ad of March, 1767." 
 
 There is no mention in the minutes of the meeting at which 
 Dr. Witherspoon was chosen President of the College that his 
 salary should be three hundred and fifty pounds proc. At a 
 meeting of the Trustees, held some weeks before his election, 
 it was agreed that the President's salary should be two hundred 
 and fifty pounds proc., with the usual perquisites. It is not im- 
 probable, however, that in the letters sent to Dr. Witherspoon 
 and to Mr. Stockton there were intimations of a willingness to 
 make his salary three hundred and fifty pounds. 
 
 " Voted, That the President's salary do commence from the fifteenth day of May 
 last, being the day of his discharge from his pastoral office at Paisley to enter upon 
 this service." 
 
 " Dr. Witherspoon, President of this College, having, at the request of several 
 friends to this Institution, taken a tour from Paisley to London, and from thence to 
 Holland, and having thereby done eminent service to this College, It is ordered, 
 That the thanks of this Board be given to the said Dr. Witherspoon, and that the 
 Treasurer is ordered to pay unto him the balance of his account of expenses on that 
 service, amounting to the sum of ^42.9.0, sterling money of Great Britain." 
 
 Of the precise character of this " eminent service" no men- 
 tion is made in the minutes of the Board. It no doubt con- 
 sisted, in part, in a successful effort to enlist the kind feelings 
 of sundry friends of religion and learning in behalf of the Col- 
 lege, and to prepare the way for benefactions in books, appa- 
 ratus, and gifts to the College treasury. For at the time the 
 above minute was made we find also the following: 
 
 " The President having informed the Board that he had brought over a consider- 
 able number of Books for the use of the College, amounting to about 300 volumes,
 
 ,02 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 which were gifts of sundry friends abroad, and that he soon expects another con- 
 siderable benefaction in Books, the Trustees do most thankfully accept the same, 
 and request that the President will be pleased, by letter, in their name, to express 
 to the several Benefactors their grateful acknowledgments for these useful dona- 
 tions." 
 
 It was next " Voted, That Dr. Witherspoon be allowed the 
 privilege of educating his sons in this College, without payment 
 of tuition-money or other occasional fees." 
 
 After a reference to the action of the Board in 1751 on the 
 subject of College habits, of which action, however, no mention 
 is made in the minutes of that year, but to which there is an 
 allusion in the minutes of 1752, the following stringent rule was 
 adopted, viz. : 
 
 " That from and after the next Commencement Vacation in this present year, 
 1768, all the officers and students of Nassau Hall shall appear uniformly habited, 
 in a proper collegiate black gown and square cap, to be made in the manner and 
 form of those now used in some of our neighboring colleges, and perfectly uniform, 
 excepting proper distinctions that may be devised by the officers of the College to 
 distinguish the habits of the President, Professors, and Tutors from those of the 
 students. And it is hereby strictly ordained, That no resident student or under- 
 graduate, subject to the rules and orders of the College, shall at any time, after the 
 next Commencement vacation, appear either at church, in the College Hall at prayer, 
 or at any other collegiate exercises, or at any time abroad, or out of the Hall (except- 
 ing the back-yard of the College only, and that on necessary occasions), without being 
 clothed in their proper College habits, on penalty of five shillings proc. money, to 
 be levied upon every student who shall offend against this law." 
 
 How far this rule was ever enforced is not known. To us 
 it seems ill adapted to an American college, not to speak in 
 stronger terms. If it ever went into operation to its full extent, 
 it happily soon ceased to be of binding force with respect to 
 some of its provisions. For many years, indeed, the students 
 were required each to wear a black gown at all services in the 
 College Chapel and at all public declamations ; but at this day 
 (1873) College habits are seen only at Commencements and 
 other exhibitions, and this has been the case for nearly, if not 
 quite, fifty years. 
 
 The law respecting College habits, passed in 1751, was re- 
 pealed by the Trustees at the only meeting at which President 
 Edwards was present, viz., of February 16, 1758. But to this 
 repeal no reference is made in the preamble to this order. The
 
 DR. WITHERSPOON'S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 303 
 
 action of the Board in 1758 may have escaped the recollection 
 of the author of the above minute, who, probably, was Mr. Wm. 
 P. Smith, the gentleman who, in the year 1752, procured two 
 habits, one for the use of the President, and the other as a pat- 
 tern for the habits to be worn by the students, who were left at 
 liberty to wear them or not, as they pleased. It is not improb- 
 able that Dr. Witherspoon, just arrived from Scotland, where 
 college habits were customary, was in favor of the rule now 
 adopted. The minutes show that Mr. Smith was present at this 
 meeting of the I7th of August, 1768. 
 
 The next meeting of the Board was on Wednesday, the 28th 
 of September, 1768. Eleven members of the Senior class were 
 admitted to their first degree in the Arts, among whom were 
 Ephraim Brevard, the author of the Mecklenburg Resolutions ; 
 Pierpont Edwards, a son of President Edwards, and Judge of 
 the United States District Court in Connecticut ; and Wm. 
 Churchill Houston, the first Professor of Mathematics and Nat- 
 ural Philosophy in the College, and afterwards a member of the 
 Convention that formed the Constitution of the United States. 
 
 At this meeting William Livingston, Esq., of New York, was 
 chosen a Trustee. This gentleman was afterwards Governor of 
 New Jersey, and ex officio President of the Board of Trustees. 
 
 Mr. Wm. P. Smith communicated a letter from Mr. Jonathan 
 Smith, of Philadelphia, one of the executors of Colonel Peter 
 Bayard, of Maryland, wherein he informed the Board that Col- 
 onel Bayard left to the College a legacy of twenty pounds, to 
 be paid within one year after his decease, to be applied to the 
 education of candidates for the ministry ; and that the executors 
 were prepared to pay the same. The Treasurer was ordered to 
 receive the same and to give the executors a full discharge. 
 
 A new arrangement was made with the Steward for the 
 boarding of the students, according to which the Steward en- 
 gages to " find and provide for the said scholars such food as 
 has been heretofore served up to them, and Small Beer to drink, 
 at the Price of six shillings and sixpence proclamation money 
 of New Jersey, by the week," or, in other words, for eighty-six 
 and one-third cents a week. 
 
 The attention of the Board was given very much to the aug-
 
 304 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 mentation of the funds of the College, and to the collecting of 
 moneys due the Corporation. And while the Trustees, in the 
 straitened condition of the College treasury, were liberal to- 
 wards the President, they were not equally generous towards 
 Mr. Blair, the Professor of Divinity and Moral Philosophy. To 
 him they gave but one hundred and seventy-five pounds proc.; 
 and when the congregations of Maidenhead (now Lawrence) and 
 Kingston desired to secure his services as their preacher, on 
 alternate Sabbaths, for the ensuing year, the Trustees consented 
 to his acceptance of their offers on the condition that of the 
 ninety-five pounds which he was to receive for this service he 
 should pay to the Treasurer of the College, for the use of the 
 institution, forty-five pounds ; and this they required on the 
 ground that it was a part of his official duty to preach to the 
 students. Had their consenting to this arrangement involved 
 the incurring of additional expense on the part of the Board for 
 the supply of the pulpit, the condition would not have been un- 
 reasonable ; but Dr. Witherspoon was on the ground, and was 
 ready and willing to preach to the students. We shall find, 
 however, that the Trustees thought better of this demand on 
 their part, and relinquished it. Mr. Blair was a man of rare 
 talent and learning, and an able preacher. He was chosen 
 Professor of Divinity and Moral Philosophy, and pro tern. Vice- 
 President of the College, after Dr. Witherspoon declined his 
 first invitation from the Board to become the President, and for 
 nearly a year before Dr. Witherspoon's arrival in this country 
 Mr. Blair was at the head of the institution. 
 
 But notwithstanding all their efforts to obtain funds, and 
 their success to some extent, by contributions from individuals 
 and from the churches under the care of the Synod of New 
 York and Philadelphia, it was found very difficult, if not impos- 
 sible, to meet all the demands upon the treasury of the College. 
 To relieve the Board from their pecuniary embarrassment, Mr. 
 Blair, of his own motion, addressed to the Trustees a letter, of 
 the date of April 6, 1769, offering to resign his place in the 
 College. The paper was read and ordered to be entered on the 
 minutes, and was made the basis of the Board's action in this 
 matter.
 
 DR. WITHERSPOON'S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 305 
 
 " GENTLEMEN, I do hereby gratefully acknowledge the honor you have con- 
 ferred upon me in calling me to this Institution as Professor of Divinity and Moral 
 Philosophy, and it would be very agreeable to me, in itself considered, to continue 
 in this service. But it is a very discouraging consideration that the funds are so 
 very inadequate to the expense as to render it very doubtful whether after the 
 utmost efforts a sufficient capital can be raised. In the course of divine Provi- 
 dence, too, a state of things very different from that in view at the time of my elec- 
 tion has taken place. If, therefore, it appears to the Board that the business they 
 have been pleased to assign me may devolve upon the President, and thereby the 
 expense of my salary be saved, in that case I would willingly resign. And the dis- 
 mission may take place at what time this Honorable Board may judge most con- 
 venient. This matter is submitted to your consideration by, Gentlemen, your very 
 humble servant, J. BLAIR. 
 
 " April 6, 1769. 
 
 " The Board, taking into consideration the above request of Mr. Blair, do agree 
 to his resignation for the reasons therein mentioned, particularly on account of the 
 insufficiency of the College Funds for the present support of a Divinity Professor. 
 And they consider this application as a distinguished proof of his disinterestedness 
 and public spirit ; so they look upon themselves as obliged to give him the thanks 
 of the Board for his services in the College, of which they will retain a grateful 
 sense, and to testify their entire approbation to his whole conduct, both in the point 
 of instruction and government, during his continuance in office. And it is Resolved, 
 That the said Mr. Blair's salary as Professor of Divinity do continue until the next 
 Commencement. And it is also voted, That the sum of one hundred pounds be 
 allowed him over and above the same, to become payable at the next Commencement, 
 together with the remission of the moneys which were to have been paid by him 
 into the College Treasury in consideration of the relinquishment of his services as 
 a preacher to the students for the last half-year ; which the Board have considered 
 as a reasonable compensation for the difficulties and expenses the said Mr. Blair 
 may be put to upon so sudden a removal. And it is further Resolved, That a former 
 vote of this Board respecting a Faculty to be established in this College be, for the 
 reasons above, wholly vacated and annulled. 
 
 " The Board then proceeded to the election of a Divinity Professor in the room 
 of Mr. Blair resigned, when the Rev. Dr. Witherspoon, President of the College, 
 was unanimously chosen ; and in consideration of the additional services thereby 
 required of him they added fifty pounds a year to his salary, to begin on the last 
 Wednesday in September next, the day of the annual Commencement." 
 
 Dr. Witherspoon acquainting the Board "that from accounts 
 received from Boston near ;iooo proc. hath been subscribed, 
 and part of the same remitted, for the use of this College, the 
 Board requested that he would be pleased, by letters in their 
 name, to return the thanks of the Trustees of this College 
 to the Benefactors who have so generously assisted the In- 
 stitution."
 
 306 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 Of the three gentlemen elected Professors in 1767, Mr. Blair 
 was the only one who entered upon the duties of the chair to 
 which he was called. At the time of his appointment he was 
 pastor of the Presbyterian church of Fagg's Manor, Pennsyl- 
 vania, and the principal of the Classical and Theological School 
 established by his brother, the Rev. Samuel Blair, his predeces- 
 sor both in the church and in the school. 
 
 Upon leaving Princeton he was settled as pastor of the 
 church at Goodwill or Wallkill, in the State of New York. 
 He was a man of eminent piety, and of a sound and vigorous 
 intellect: a logician of a high order. His treatises "On the 
 Nature, Uses, and Subjects of the Sacraments," " On Regenera- 
 tion," and " On the Nature and Uses of the Means of Grace," 
 exhibit clear, discriminating, and candid views of these impor- 
 tant topics, and as such must commend themselves to the pious 
 and intelligent reader, whether he can or cannot assent to all 
 his positions. 
 
 Mr. Blair was a native of Ireland, born there in 1720, and 
 died at Wallkill, December 8, 1771. 
 
 His letter, given above, shows him to have been a man of 
 noble and generous impulses, and entirely free from all selfish 
 aims and considerations. 
 
 The President moved " that an extract from a letter to him 
 from William Phillips, Esq., of Boston, might be inserted in the 
 minutes." The same was ordered to be inserted accordingly, 
 and is in the words following: 
 
 "My two brothers have subscribed .100 each (Boston lawful), which, with my 
 subscription, makes $oo, or 1000 dollars ; which I mention, as we are desirous it 
 may be kept by itself, as it may be applied to some particular use hereafter, pro- 
 vided the funds of the College shall admit thereof, and you advise to such appro- 
 priation. In that case it may be enlarged." 
 
 " The Board, considering the Intimation in the above extract contained, desired 
 the President of the College to write to the said Mr. Phillips, and refer the appro- 
 priation of money subscribed by himself and brothers to such uses and purposes as 
 he or they shall think fit to direct." 
 
 This generous gift, or rather the disposing of the annual in- 
 crease of the same, became the occasion for a time of a serious 
 discussion between a committee of the Board and the President, 
 as^to the right of the latter to expend the income from this
 
 DR. WITHERSPOON'S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 fund for the benefit of the College, at his discretion. Contrary 
 to the judgment of the committee which made a report upon 
 this subject, and especially of the author of the report, the 
 Board finally decided that it was the intention of the donors 
 that Dr. Witherspoon should have the disposal of the income 
 from this fund. 
 
 " The Board being informed that the Rev. Mr. Caldwell, of Elizabethtown, had 
 taken a journey to the eastern parts of Long Island, and had set on foot a subscrip- 
 tion there, as well as at Elizabethown, for the use of the College," Mr. W. P. Smith 
 (the Clerk) "was desired to give to Mr. Caldwell the thanks of the Board, and to 
 request his endeavors to have the money collected when payable, and sent to him ; 
 and that he remit the same, when received, to the Treasurer of the College, taking 
 his receipt in discharge." 
 
 Hoping, from information received, that considerable bene- 
 factions would be obtained from the friends of learning and re- 
 ligion in South Carolina should a personal application be made 
 to them by a duly-authorized agent, the Board requested the 
 Rev. Dr. John Rodgers, of New York, a member of the Board, 
 to undertake this service; which he consented to do, with the 
 understanding that provision should be made for the supply of 
 his pulpit during his absence. 
 
 Other friends interested themselves in behalf of the College, 
 as appears from the following minute : 
 
 " The Board being informed that several friends of the College in different parts 
 of the country have set on foot subscriptions to increase the funds, do approve and 
 gratefully acknowledge the measures taken by them for this purpose, and do recom- 
 mend the further promoting and encouragement of like subscriptions." 
 
 Upon the examination of the Treasurer's accounts, it appeared 
 that there was due to the Treasurer the sum of .183.11.6. 
 What was the amount of the bonds held by the College at this 
 time does not appear from the report of the committee charged 
 with the duty of making this examination. 
 
 The next meeting of the Board was held on Wednesday, 
 the 2/th of September, 1769. This was the day of the annual 
 Commencement; and this Commencement is one of note, from 
 the following circumstances: 
 
 i. That the class then graduated was the first one which had 
 had the privilege of being under the tuition and guidance of 
 Dr. \Vitherspoon.
 
 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 2. That not a few of the graduates on this occasion became 
 men of note in their day; and one of their number, Samuel 
 Stanhope Smith, succeeded Dr. Witherspoon in the office of 
 President of the College. 
 
 3. That at this Commencement the degree of Doctor of Laws 
 was conferred upon two distinguished civilians of our country, 
 viz., John Dickinson and Joseph Galloway, Esquires, of Phila- 
 delphia, this being the first time that this degree was conferred 
 by the Trustees of this institution. 
 
 Upon the resignation of Mr. Periam, Mr. Jeremiah Halsey 
 was chosen Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, 
 with a salary of one hundred and twenty-five pounds ; but he 
 declined the appointment. Mr. Wm. Churchill Houston, the 
 Master of the College grammar-school, was then chosen a Tutor 
 in the room of Mr. Periam. At the same time Mr. Tapping 
 Reeve was appointed a Tutor in the place of Mr. Pemberton, 
 resigned. 
 
 The Rev. James Caldwell was chosen a Trustee to fill the 
 vacancy occasioned by the decease of the Rev. William Kirk- 
 patrick ; and the Rev. John Blair, the late Professor of Divinity 
 and of Moral Philosophy, was elected a Trustee in the room of 
 the Rev. Mr. De Ronde, resigned. The Rev. Mr. Caldwell was 
 also appointed " an agent of the Board to solicit subscriptions 
 for the benefit of the College in Maryland, Virginia, the two 
 Carolines, and Georgia," the Trustees engaging to pay his 
 expenses, and also the expense of supplying his pulpit during 
 his absence. 
 
 Mr. Caldwell was well received at the South, and his mis- 
 sion was attended with happy results. The subscriptions ob- 
 tained by him for the College were estimated at not less than 
 one thousand pounds proc., over and above all expenses. Some 
 of the subscriptions were in moneys, and others in the pro- 
 duce of the country. The subscriptions in Georgia, for the 
 most part, were to be paid in produce. 
 
 To the payment of their debts, as well as to the soliciting 
 of funds, the Board now gave their attention. Preceding the 
 record of the matters just mentioned occurs the following 
 minute, under the date of September 28, 1769:
 
 DR. WITHERSPOON'S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 309 
 
 " Whereas an order hath heretofore been made on the Treasurer for the payment 
 of a certain Bill of Exchange formerly drawn for the sum of ,125 sterling by Mr. 
 Field, Bookseller, of London, on Mr. Jeremiah Halsey ; and as a debate hath 
 arisen relating to the rate of Exchange and Interest to be allowed on said Bill, it was 
 now referred to the Board to ascertain the same, which being taken into considera- 
 tion, the Exchange was fixed as supposed to be at or about the Time of presenta- 
 tion of said Bill at the rate of 72^; the sum therefore (including the Interest, also 
 now calculated and allowed) was found to amount to .248. 6. 6 proclamation money 
 of New Jersey, which the Treasurer of this College is hereby warranted to pay in 
 full discharge of said Bill of Exchange." 
 
 The chief interest of this extract is the evidence it furnishes 
 that the purchasing of books in London for the use of the 
 students, begun in Mr. Burr's administration, was still con- 
 tinued. 
 
 But money matters were not the only things to which the 
 attention of the Board was given, essential as these were to the 
 very being of the College. 
 
 " The Board taking into consideration the great want of a Philosophical Appa- 
 ratus, for the use of the students in this College in Natural Philosophy, of which it 
 has long been destitute, It was now Resolved, That Dr. Witherspoon, Mr. Bryan, 
 Dr. Shippen, Dr. Redman, Dr. Harris, Mr. Beatty, and Mr. Caldwell, or any three 
 of them, be a committee to consult and determine upon such and so many of the 
 instruments belonging to an Apparatus as may be judged by them to be the most 
 necessary and immediately wanted. And the said committee are empowered to 
 send their orders to England for the same as they conveniently can : Provided the 
 amount of the cost exceed not the sum of ,250 sterling." 
 
 At the next Commencement, that of 1770, twenty-two were 
 admitted to the first degree in the Arts, and five graduates of 
 the College to the second degree. Four gentlemen received 
 the honorary degree of A.M., and five others the degree of 
 Doctor in Divinity. This was the first occasion on which this 
 degree of D.D. was conferred by this College. The gentlemen 
 upon whom it was conferred were, 
 
 The Rev. Robert Finley, of Glasgow, in North Britain ; the 
 Rev. John Gillies, of Glasgow, in North Britain ; the Rev. 
 Archibald Laidly, of New York; the Rev. George Muir, of 
 Paisley, in North Britain ; the Rev. Ebenezer Pemberton, of 
 Boston, New England. 
 
 Mr. Pemberton was one of the Trustees of the College under 
 the first charter, as well as under the one given by (governor
 
 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 Belcher. Having resigned his pastoral charge in New York, 
 and having removed to Boston in 1754, he vacated his seat at 
 the Board. 
 
 At this meeting of the Trustees provision was made for the 
 sending of a small vessel from Philadelphia to Georgia in order 
 to receive such of the promised benefactions as were to be 
 made from the products of the country. 
 
 Some misunderstanding having arisen with respect to the 
 import of a law passed by the Board in December, 1767, "for 
 ascertaining the power and authority of the respective officers 
 of the College," which officers at this time were the President 
 and the Tutors, there being no Professors or fully-organized 
 Faculty, the Trustees thought it proper to declare " that the 
 President of the College for the time being is invested with 
 the sole direction as to the methods of education to be pur- 
 sued in this Seminary." The rule giving each particular officer 
 "the sole authority of directing the times and manner of the 
 recitations" of their respective classes was passed at a time 
 when there was no regular President, and was designed for the 
 guidance of the officers then in the charge of the College. 
 
 In their explanatory minute of their former action, the Trus- 
 tees pay the following compliment to Dr. Witherspoon : 
 
 " And the Trustees are the rather induced to make the above explanation and 
 amendment of said law, for that when it was enacted the President elect was resi- 
 dent in Great Britain, and it was uncertain how long a time might elapse before he 
 should actually take the chair ; but now he hath actually taken upon himself the 
 charge of the College, and the Trustees have been so fully satisfied from experi- 
 ence of his great abilities in the management of the Institution committed to hi> 
 care, and with high pleasure have seen his indefatigable labors and success in 
 raising the reputation of the College, they are clearly of the opinion that all the 
 authority above declared to be annexed by the said law to the office of President 
 of the College, is highly proper to be put into the hands of the Rev. Dr. Wither- 
 spoon, the now President." 
 
 Further order was taken in regard to the investment of the 
 College funds, and to the safe-keeping of all writings, records, 
 and papers belonging to the Corporation, and with respect to 
 the recording of the deeds in the possession of the Board ; and 
 also in reference to the management of the library and for the 
 preservation and increase of the same; each student, and each
 
 DR. WITHERSPOON 1 S ADMINISTRATION. 3! I 
 
 resident graduate, being required to pay to the Steward of the 
 College for the use of the library " eighteen pence per quarter." 
 
 For various purposes the Steward of the College appears to 
 have discharged the duties of a deputy treasurer. 
 
 A legacy of fifty pounds, from the estate of the late Mr. 
 Robert Walker, was paid to the Treasurer of the College by 
 Richard Walker, Esq , of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, brother 
 of the deceased, to be expended at the discretion of the Rev. 
 Messrs. Treat and Beatty, two Trustees of the College, in aid- 
 ing poor and pious youths pursuing their studies at this Col- 
 lege with the design of entering the ministry. 
 
 Information being received of the decease of the Honorable 
 Wm. Smith, of New York, the Rev. Jeremiah Halsey is chosen 
 to supply his place at the Board. 
 
 In the summer of 1770, and again in 1772, there was mani- 
 fest among the students an unusual interest in the subject of 
 religion and of personal piety, of which further mention will be 
 made in the memoir of Dr. Witherspoon. 
 
 The Tutors, Messrs. Thompson and Reeve, having resigned, 
 Messrs. Richard Devens and Samuel S. Smith were chosen to 
 fill their places. 
 
 The following minute shows that the Trustees still continued 
 to recognize their close connection with the Presbyterian Church : 
 
 " Resolved, That Mr. Caldwell be desired, in the name of the Board, to transmit 
 letters to the several Presbyteries belonging to the Synod of New York and Phila- 
 delphia who have set forward subscriptions in their respective bounds for the 
 benefit of this College, praying their care and diligence to collect or take proper 
 securities for the moneys subscribed, and that they be pleased to direct that exact 
 accounts of the same be brought to the next meeting of the Synod, and that Dr. 
 Witherspoon, Dr. Rodgers, Mr. Treat, and Mr. Bryan be a committee to settle with 
 the Presbyteries." 
 
 Dr. Witherspoon was desired to return the thanks of the 
 Board, by letter, to such gentlemen as were known to be most 
 active and zealous in obtaining the late subscriptions. This col- 
 lection of funds for the College was the result of the action by 
 the Synod the year previous.* 
 
 A committee was appointed to consider the expediency of 
 
 * See Minutes of the Synod, pages 396 and 397.
 
 312 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 applying to the Council of Proprietors at Perth Amboy for a 
 grant of one thousand acres of land for the use of the institu- 
 tion, with power to make such application, if judged advisable. 
 Upon conference, and probably after some inquiry, the 'com- 
 mittee deemed it inexpedient to pursue the matter, and so re- 
 ported to the Board. 
 
 A new agreement was entered into with the Steward, ac- 
 cording to which each student was required to pay in advance, 
 for commons, the sum of ,7.10 every half-year, which sum for 
 twenty-one weeks, a half-year, exclusive of the vacation, was at 
 the rate otj.i^s.proc., or 95T 5 8~ cents, a week ; and it was further 
 ordered, that all College charges should be paid half-yearly, in 
 advance. It was afterwards ordered, that in case three students 
 were lodged in the same room, they should pay in all only five 
 pounds a year rent. 
 
 At the Commencement of 1771 there were but twelve grad- 
 uates; but of these several attained great eminence, and one of 
 them, James Madison, became the fourth President of the United 
 States. 
 
 In the account of the competition of the students on the 24th of September, 
 1771, the day preceding the annual Commencement of the College, it is stated, in 
 the " Pennsylvania Chronicle," thai premiums were awarded in reading the Eng- 
 lish language with propriety, and in Orthography, I. To Aaron Burr, of the Junior 
 class; 2. To W. Linn, of the Junior class; and, 3. To Belcher P. Smith, of the 
 Sophomore class. In extempore exercises in Latin, to H. Brockholst Livingston 
 and David Witherspoon, both of the Freshman class, equally. In reading the 
 Latin and Greek Languages with proper quantity, I. To John Witherspoon, of the 
 Sophomore class; 2. To Aaron Burr; 3. To Henry Lee, of the Sophomore class. 
 For the translation of English into Latin, to Henry Lee. 
 
 In public speaking the competitors were numerous, and it was very difficult to 
 decide the pre-eminence; but the majority of the votes gave the premiums, I. To 
 W. Bradford, of the Freshman class ; 2. To W. Linn ; 3. To Hugh Hodge, of the 
 Freshman class. 
 
 The exercises on the 25th of September were as follows : 
 
 1. The Latin Salutatory, " De societate hominum," by Mr. Brackenridge. 
 
 2. The proposition, " Mendacium est semper illicitum," was defended by Mr. 
 Williamson, and opposed in a syllogistic way by Messrs. McKnight and Taylor. 
 
 3. " Moral qualities are confessedly more excellent than natural ; yet the latter 
 are much more envied in the possessor by the generality of mankind ; a sure sign 
 of the corrupt bias of human nature," was supported by Mr. Black, and opposed 
 by Mr. Cheeseman, and answered by Mr. Taylor. 
 
 4. An Oration on " The advantages of an active life," by Mr. Campbell.
 
 DR. WITHERSPOOWS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 The business of the forenoon concluded with an anthem. 
 
 5. At three o'clock. An Oration on " The Idea of a Patriot King," by Mr. 
 Spring. 
 
 6. An English forensic dispute on this question : " Does Ancient Poetry excel the 
 Modern ?" Mr. Freneau, the Respondent, being necessarily absent, his arguments, 
 in favor of the Ancients, were read. Mr. Williamson answered him, and Mr. 
 McKnight replied. 
 
 7. A Poem on " The Rising Glory of America," by Mr. Brackenridge, was 
 received with great applause by the audience. 
 
 8. An Oration on " The Power of Eloquence," by Mr. Ross. 
 
 The students sung an anthem, and twelve members of the Senior class were 
 admitted to the first degree in the Arts, and six Alumni of the College proceeded 
 Masters of Arts. 
 
 9. A pathetic Valedictory Oration on Benevolence was pronounced by Mr. 
 Bedford. 
 
 Mr. James Madison was excused from taking any part in the exercises. 
 
 The most important measure adopted by the Board at this 
 time was the establishing of the Professorship of Mathematics 
 and Natural Philosophy, and the appointment of Mr. Hous- 
 ton, the senior Tutor, as the incumbent. The minute relating 
 to this subject is as follows : 
 
 " Pursuant to a Plan heretofore concerted, for the establishment of Professorships 
 in various branches of learning in this College, as soon as funds should be found to 
 admit of their support, the Trustees resumed the consideration of that measure ; and 
 conceiving it to be expedient that a Mathematical Professor, as most immediately 
 requisite, be now chosen in the place of one of the Tutors, proceeded to the election 
 of a Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, when William Ch. Houston, 
 M.A., now Senior Tutor in the College, was declared to be unanimously elected to 
 that office. It was then resolved that for the present the salary of the said Mr. 
 Houston, as Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, be the sum of one 
 hundred and twenty-five pounds proc., and that the Board will hereafter provide for 
 his better support, as their funds will admit and the future situation of the said 
 Professor shall reasonably require, as it is intended by this Board that the said Pro- 
 fessorship shall be permanent in this College for the future." 
 
 In adopting the first part of this minute the Trustees seem 
 to have forgotten their action at the time of the Rev. Professor 
 Blair's resignation, when they resolved, " That a former vote of 
 this Board respecting a Faculty to be established in this College 
 be, for the reasons above, wholly vacated and annulled." 
 
 Mr. Houston accepted the appointment, and for twelve years 
 discharged the duties of his office with great fidelity and suc- 
 cess, and to the entire satisfaction of the Trustees, at the end of 
 which time he resigned, to enter upon the practice of the law. 
 
 VOL, I. 21
 
 314 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 Professor Houston was a native of North or South Carolina, 
 and a graduate of the College of New Jersey in 1768. While 
 yet a student, he had charge of the grammar-school under 
 the control of the President of the College. In 1769 he 
 was chosen a Tutor, and in 1771, as above mentioned, he was 
 elected Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy. He 
 was a member of the Continental Congress in 1780, and he was 
 chosen a member of the Convention to prepare a Constitution 
 for the United States. But ill health prevented his taking a 
 seat in this body. He died at Frankford, Pennsylvania, in 
 1788, before the completion of his forty-third year; yet he had 
 'the reputation of being a scholar, a teacher, a lawyer, and a 
 statesman of much more than ordinary ability. 
 
 A committee was appointed " to examine into the state of the College funds, to 
 take an exact list of all bonds, notes, &c., now in the Treasurer's hands, an ac- 
 count of all interest' due, and to inquire into the state of the securities. And the 
 said Committee are empowered to direct the immediate prosecution of all such 
 bonds, notes, &c., as they may judge to be in precarious circumstances. The Com- 
 mittee is also desired to make out as precise an account as possible of all the Dona- 
 tions, Benefactions, and Subscriptions made or received since the arrival of Dr. 
 Witherspoon, in addition to the then Funds of the College, together with an ac- 
 count of all moneys disbursed ; distinguishing on what particular accounts, and 
 what sums in each account respectively; and make report of the whole at the next 
 meeting." 
 
 There is no record in the minutes of the Board of any report 
 from this committee. A special meeting of the Board was 
 held on the nth of March, 1772. 
 
 In consequence of representations made to the Board that there was " a fair pros- 
 pect of collecting a considerable sum for the use of this College, in the West Indies, 
 the Trustees requested Dr. Witherspoon to engage in this service, and provision 
 was made to defray the expenses of his agency. Dr. Witherspoon consenting to 
 undertake this labor, the Rev. Elihu Spencer, one of the Trustees, was chosen to 
 act as Vice-President during Dr. Witherspoon's absence. 
 
 " Dr. Witherspoon informed the Board that his son, Mr. James Witherspoon, 
 proposed going to Barbadoes, and generously offered his service for the benefit of 
 the Institution. The Board therefore cheerfully agree to make out a commission 
 for Mr. Witherspoon, enabling him to receive such benefactions as he may have 
 the opportunity of obtaining either in Barbadoes, Antigua, or any other of the Wes 1 
 India Islands." 
 
 The Board, taking into consideration the encouraging prospects of obtaining 
 benefactions in Barbadoes and other of the Windward Islands, think proper to send 
 an agent more expressly for said purpose, and desire the Rev. Charles Beatty to
 
 DR. WITHERSPOON' S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 315 
 
 undertake the service in conjunction with Mr. Witherspoon, or otherwise, as may 
 appear most advantageous to the general design. The summing up of this prom- 
 ising effort is to be found in the following minute of the Board, under the dale of 
 September 30, 1772: "Dr. Witherspoon did not undertake the tour to the West 
 Indies, according to the appointment of the Board last Spring, for very sufficient 
 reasons which occurred after the meeting. Mr. Beatty, according to appointment, 
 went to Barbadoes, where he died on the ijth of August, before he made any col- 
 lections for the College." 
 
 Upon learning that Mr. Edward Ireland, of Barbadoes, had shown particular kind- 
 ness to Mr. Beatty, it was ordered, " That Mr. W T . P. Smith, the Clerk, write to Mr. 
 Irelandja letter of thanks in the name of the Board." 
 
 Within ten days after consenting to visit the West Indies, 
 and doubtless to prepare the way for his solicitation of benefac- 
 tions, Dr. Witherspoon penned an address to the inhabitants of 
 Jamaica and other West India Islands in behalf of the College, 
 in which he gave a succinct account of the origin and design 
 of the College, and of the facilities it offered to the people of 
 the West Indies for the education of their children.* 
 
 Upon the death of Mr. Beatty, the Board, not being prepared 
 to appoint another agent for this mission to the West Indies, 
 referred the further prosecution of it to the judgment of a 
 large committee, of which the President of the College was 
 made the chairman ; and here the matter ended. 
 
 " The Board being informed that some persons in the County 
 of Essex refused to pay their subscriptions to the College, Mr. 
 [W. P.] Smith was desired to prosecute them in the name of 
 the Board, if they refuse upon further application to them." 
 
 Dr. Witherspoon and Mr. Halsey were appointed a committee to arrange mat- 
 ters for the drawing of a Lottery at New Castle, Delaware, for the benefit of the Col- 
 lege ; and a bond was ordered to be given to George Monroe and others, " in the 
 penalty of fifty thousand pounds proclamation money, with condition to indemnify 
 them from all damages, costs, and charges which they may sustain by reason of 
 their becoming managers of the Lottery." 
 
 Elias Boudinot, Esq., was chosen a Trustee, in the room of 
 John Berrien, Esq., deceased. 
 
 It was ordered, " That fifty pounds proc. should be paid to Mr. Halsey for his 
 services in the management of a previous lottery." 
 
 * This address is to be found in the fourth volume of his works, published in 
 1801, by W. W. Woodward, of Philadelphia.
 
 316 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 Mr. Halsey, having been requested to collect the deeds be- 
 longing to the College, laid before the Board a number of deeds, 
 one of which was a deed from Nathaniel Fitz Randolph for the 
 lot on which the College stands, and another was a deed from 
 Thomas Leonard for a burying-gronnd. 
 
 From a perusal of the minutes of the Board, it would seem 
 that from the accession of Dr. Witherspoon to the presidency 
 until the present time the attention of both President and Trus- 
 tees had been directed almost exclusively to the property of 
 the College, and to the increase of its resources ; "but this was 
 far from being the case. We do not, indeed, find any detailed 
 reports of the course of instruction, yet occasionally in these 
 minutes we get a glimpse of what the President and Tutors 
 were doing, and of the encouragement which they received 
 from the Trustees ; and we are assured from the success attend- 
 ing their teachings, and from the eminence attained by many of 
 their pupils, both in the Church and in the State, that the in- 
 struction was most ably and efficiently conducted. 
 
 Among the minutes of the Board at this date, September, 
 1772, is the following : 
 
 " Teaching Hebrew being considered by the Board of great importance, especially 
 to those who intend to study Divinity, Mr. Devens, one of the present Tutors in 
 the College, is appointed to instruct those in Hebrew who offer themselves for that 
 purpose. And although the Board do not enjoin it upon all, as a part of College 
 study necessary for a degree, yet they direct the President earnestly to recommend 
 the knowledge of Hebrew, and to take such methods as he judges most convenient 
 to engage the students to learn as far as necessary." 
 
 The passage of this resolution at this time probably led Dr. 
 Green to think that the introduction of Hebrew as a College 
 study was due to Dr. Witherspoon. 
 
 Candidates for the first degree in the Arts were required to 
 submit their speeches to the President for correction and ap- 
 proval at least four weeks before the Commencement; and it 
 was resolved the next year that any candidate who should 
 neglect to comply with this order should be denied his degree. 
 
 Mr. Devens, a Tutor, having resigned on account of ill health, 
 Mr. James Grier was chosen to supply his place. 
 
 The custom, which continues to the present time, was now
 
 DR. WITHERSPOON' S ADMINISTRATION. 317 
 
 introduced of appointing a committee of the Trustees to attend 
 the final examinations of the students for their degrees. 
 
 With one exception, the Senior class of 1773 was the largest 
 class graduated at this College during the presidency of Dr. 
 Witherspoon. It contained twenty-nine members, three of 
 whom became Governors of their respective States, and three 
 others Presidents of three different colleges. The Governors 
 were Henry Lee, of Virginia, Morgan Lewis, of New York, 
 and Aaron Ogden, of New Jersey. The college Presidents 
 were James Dunlap, of Jefferson College, Pennsylvania, John 
 McKnight, of Dickinson College, Pennsylvania, and John Blair 
 Smith, of Hampden Sidney College, Virginia, and afterwards 
 of Union College, New York. The Commencement this year 
 (1773) was honored by the presence of his Excellency Governor 
 Franklin. 
 
 A committee, consisting of Dr. Witherspoon, Mr. Spencer, and 
 Mr. Boudinot, was appointed to procure a public dinner at the 
 next Commencement, and to give invitations to such strangers 
 attending the exercises of that day as they may judge proper. 
 The dinner was provided, and the expense was ^11.15. The 
 bill was ordered to be paid, but at the same time it was " ordered, 
 that there be for the future no public dinner at the expense of 
 the Board." The dinner here spoken of appears to have been 
 the first and for some time the only public dinner at the expense 
 of the Board. 
 
 Mr. S. S. Smith resigns his office of Tutor, and Mr. Richard 
 Devens, for a time a colleague, and who had resigned on 
 account of ill health, was now reappointed, but he continued 
 in office only until the ensuing spring. 
 
 The Clerk was directed to collect all the by-laws and regu- 
 lations which had been made from time to time and to lay them 
 before the Board. 
 
 It appears from a minute of this date, September, 1773, that 
 a legacy had been left to the College by Mr. James King, of 
 Delaware; but what was the sum given, or the purpose of the 
 bequest, does not appear from the minutes of the Board. 
 
 The tuition-fees were increased to five pounds a year. 
 
 A meeting of the Board was held on the ipth of April, 1774,
 
 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 at which Governor Franklin, President Witherspoon, and twelve 
 other Trustees were present. 
 
 Among the minutes of this meeting is the following : 
 
 " And whereas it has been represented, and upon inquiry it hath appeared to 
 this Board, that Samuel Leake, a member of the present Senior class, was not long 
 since singularly active in encouraging and promoting some unwarrantable and riot- 
 ous proceedings among the students, particularly in publickly burning the effigies 
 of his Excellency Governor Hutchinson, and also insulting an honourable member 
 of this Board for endeavouring in a very becoming manner to prevent the said riot- 
 ous proceedings ; and the Board being also informed that the said Samuel Leake, 
 notwithstanding his conduct, hath been appointed by the Faculty to the honour of 
 the Salutatory Oration at the ensuing Commencement, this Board doth highly dis- 
 approve of his designation to that honour, and do hereby vacate that choice, and 
 direct the President of the College to appoint another Orator in his room." 
 
 This order of the Board was as severe a censure of the Fac- 
 ulty as of Mr. Leake, who appears to have been the first scholar 
 in his class, and who, on the score of merit as a scholar, was 
 entitled to the position assigned him by the Faculty ; and if 
 permitted to take any part in the Commencement exercises, 
 there does not appear to be any sufficient reason why he should 
 not have the place of Salutatory orator. Although the Presi- 
 dent, Dr. Witherspoon, and the other members of the Faculty 
 could not approve of the conduct of Mr. Leake and of his com- 
 panions on the occasion here referred to, yet it is not improba- 
 ble they looked with a more indulgent eye upon the offences of 
 these young men than did a majority of the Board, and that the 
 Faculty sympathized, to some extent at least, with their pupils 
 in their disapproval of sundry obnoxious acts of the Governor 
 of Massachusetts, and of the support he gave to those meas- 
 ures of the British Ministry which eventually drove the Colo- 
 nies into rebellion and to establish a government for themselves 
 free and altogether independent of the English Crown. Two 
 years later the very men who severely condemned young Leake 
 were as rebellious against British rule as he ever was, and two 
 more earnest rebels were not to be found than the President of 
 the College and the Trustee to whom, it is believed, reference 
 is made in the minute cited above, and who was a resident of 
 Princeton. In fact, the Trustees were all of them rebels and 
 supporters of the Confederation.
 
 DR. WITHERSPOON'S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 After his graduation Mr. Leake received from Dr. Wither- 
 spoon a written certificate of his qualifications to teach Latin, 
 Greek, and Mathematics, to which was appended the follow- 
 ing: 
 
 " I must also add, that he gave particular attention to the 
 English language while here, and is probably better acquainted 
 with its structure, propriety, and force than most of his years 
 and standing in this country." 
 
 Mr. Leake became a distinguished lawyer and an eminent 
 Christian man, and he died at his residence in the city of Tren- 
 ton in the year 1820. 
 
 His son-in-law, the Rev. Elijah Slack, LL.D., was Vice-Presi- 
 dent of the College and Professor of Mathematics and Natural 
 Philosophy from 1812 to 1817. 
 
 In the summer following this action of the Board in reference 
 to Mr. Leake, John Adams, the second President of the United 
 States, visited Princeton, and of this visit President Adams has 
 left the following account. It is taken from his Life by his 
 grandson : 
 
 "August 27, 1774. About 12 o'clock we arrived at the tavern in Princeton 
 which holds out the sign of Hudibras, near Nassau Hall. The College is a stone 
 building about as large as that at New York. It stands upon rising ground, and so 
 commands a prospect of the country. After dinner Mr. Pigeon, a student, son of 
 Mr. Pigeon, of Watertown, to whom we brought a letter, took a walk with us, and 
 shewed us the seat of Mr. Stockton, a lawyer of this place and one of the Trustees 
 of the College ; as we returned we met Mr. Euston [Houston], professor of Mathe- 
 matics and Natural Philosophy, who kindly invited us to his chamber. We went. 
 The College is conveniently constructed : instead of entries across the building, the 
 entries are from end to end, and the chambers are on each side of the entries. 
 There are such entries one above another in every story ; each chamber has three 
 windows, two studies with one window in each, and one window between the 
 studies to enlighten the chamber. 
 
 "Mr. Euston [Houston] then shewed us the Library; it is not large, but has 
 some good books. He then led us into the Apparatus ; here we saw a most beauti- 
 ful machine,* an orr"ery or planetarium constructed by Mr. Rittenhouse, of Philadel- 
 phia. It exhibits almost every motion in the Astronomical world : the motions of 
 the sun and all the planets, with all their satellites, the eclipses of the moon, sun, 
 &c. He shewed us another orrery which exhibits the true inclination of the orbit 
 of each of the planets to the plane of the ecliptic. He then shewed us the electri- 
 
 * For a full description of this machine, see vol. i. of the " Transactions of the 
 American Philosophical Society."
 
 32O HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 cal apparatus, which is the most complete and elegant I have seen. He charged a 
 bottle and attempted an experiment, but the state of the air was not favorable. By 
 this time the bell rang for prayers : we went into the chapel ; the President soon 
 came in, and we attended. The scholars sung as badly as the Presbyterians in New 
 York. After prayers the President attended us to the balcony of the College, 
 where we had a prospect of an horizon of about eighty miles in diameter. We 
 went into the President's house and drank a glass of wine. He is as high a son of 
 liberty as any man in America." 
 
 The following important minute in reference to the finances of 
 the College was adopted : 
 
 " The Treasurer's accounts being called for, it appeared necessary that the state 
 of the College funds should be more carefully examined and adjusted than could 
 be done by the Board during the present session : they do therefore appoint Messrs. 
 [W.] P. Smith, Mr. Livingston, Mr. McWhorter, Mr. Boudinot, and Mr. Caldwell, 
 or any three of them, a committee to meet at Princeton, on the I5th of August next, 
 at 5 o'clock P.M., and as often afterwards as they may judge necessary, to examine, 
 adjust, and state the College funds, and draw up a plan for the conduct of the 
 Treasurer, with respect to the management of the fund in his hands, and report 
 the same to the next meeting of the Board. And for this purpose they have power 
 to call upon the Treasurer for his accounts, and for any bond and papers belonging 
 to the College in his hands. And the Treasurer is ordered in the mean time to 
 collect all the bonds, notes, securities or their vouchers, the property of the Trus- 
 tees, and to do all other things in his power that will enable the Committee to form 
 a just estimate of the College funds." 
 
 The committee went to work in earnest, and made a very la- 
 borious examination of all matters connected with the finances 
 of the College, and made their report in April, 1775, exhibiting 
 the state of the several accounts to September, 1774. Although 
 not chairman of the committee, Mr. Boudinot was the author 
 of the report, as may be inferred from what is said in a like re- 
 port made by him in 1793. (For further notice of these reports, 
 see Appendix.) 
 
 The records for the year 1776 are very brief. Wednesday, 
 the 25th of September, was the day for the annual Commence- 
 ment, and as ten of the Trustees, including the Governor of 
 the State and the President of the College, were assembled 
 on that occasion, and as the exercises for the day had been 
 assigned some time before, it is highly probable that these exer- 
 cises were attended to in the usual manner ; but, as there was not 
 a quorum of the Board present, the usual degrees could not be 
 conferred at this time. The Trustees who were present agreed
 
 DR. WITHERSPOON' S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 321 
 
 to recommend that the first degree in the Arts should be con- 
 ferred upon the candidates for this distinction at the next meet- 
 ing of the Board; and they directed their Clerk to summon the 
 Trustees to a meeting to be held on the third Wednesday of 
 the following November. 
 
 The following N. B. is appended to the minutes for 1776: 
 
 " The incursions of the Enemy into the State and the depredations of the armies 
 prevented this meeting : and indeed all regular business in the College for two or 
 three years." 
 
 This last remark shows what otherwise is apparent from an 
 inspection of the first volume of the minutes of the Board, viz., 
 that the minutes for this period were not entered at once in the 
 volume, but some few years after. 
 
 The next meeting of the Board was held at Cooper's Ferry, 
 New Jersey, on the banks of the Delaware, May 24, 1777, Gov- 
 ernor Livingston, Dr. Witherspoon, and eleven other Trustees 
 being present. The young gentlemen, twenty-seven in number, 
 who in September last, 1776, were not admitted to their first 
 degree in the Arts, for the want of a quorum of the Board, 
 now received that honor ; and it was resolved, " That they re- 
 ceive their diplomas as soon as the confusions of the war will 
 admit of it." 
 
 The following extracts are taken from the minutes of the 
 Board at this meeting : 
 
 " It was proposed for consideration, whether it will be expedient to collect the 
 students of the College and endeavor to proceed with their usual instruction. 
 After deliberation, Agreed, that if the enemy remove out of this State, Dr. Wither- 
 spoon is desired to call the students together at Princeton, and to proceed with their 
 education in the best manner he can, considering the state of public affairs. And 
 if more students can be collected than the Doctor can instruct himself, he is 
 directed to obtain such assistance as may be necessary. 
 
 " Dr. Witherspoon, Mr. Stockton, and Mr. Spencer were appointed a committee 
 to determine what repairs are necessary for the convenience of the students, and to 
 order them to be made. But they are directed to go no further than shall appear 
 requisite to save the building, and to accommodate those students who may be 
 collected." 
 
 " Dr. Witherspoon was desired to move the Congress to resolve that troops shall 
 not hereafter be quartered in the College." 
 
 The Trustees, receiving information of the decease of Jona- 
 than Sergeant, Esq., the Treasurer of the College, appointed a
 
 322 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 committee to settle with Mr. Sergeant's executors, and to take 
 charge of the College funds, and to put them into "the Conti- 
 nental loan office," unless a more advantageous investment could 
 be made. Mr. Sergeant had been Treasurer from September 
 26, 1750, and he had also been an active and efficient friend of 
 the College. He was a son-in-law of the Rev. Jonathan Dick- 
 inson, the first President. At this meeting, also, intelligence 
 was received of the decease of the Rev. William Tennent, of 
 Monmouth County, New Jersey, a Trustee named in the charter 
 given by Governor Belcher. As the preceding history shows, 
 Mr. Tennent was several times chosen President of the College 
 pro tempore, and discharged his duties to the entire satisfaction 
 of the Trustees and other friends of the institution. He was 
 an eminently good man, and an earnest and successful minister 
 of the gospel. The Rev. George Duffield was elected a Trustee 
 in his room. 
 
 The Clerk was directed to give Mr. Brainerd an order upbn 
 Dr. Ewing, one of the executors of the late Treasurer, for the 
 sum of thirty pounds, two years' interest of three hundred 
 pounds lodged in the hands of the Corporation, at the disposal 
 of the Synod of New York and Philadelphia, for the support of 
 an Indian mission, and by that body granted to Mr. Brainerd. 
 
 There were no Commencement exercises in 1777, but the 
 members of the Senior class, seven in number, were subse- 
 quently admitted to the first degree in the Arts, and were ac- 
 counted graduates for this year. In an address to the public 
 through the newspapers, Dr. Witherspoon states these degrees 
 were confirmed at the next meeting of the Board ; and no doubt 
 this was true, although the fact is not mentioned in the min- 
 utes of the meeting, which was held on the i6th of April, 1778.* 
 At this meeting Governor Livingston, Dr. Witherspoon, and 
 twelve other Trustees were present. Three new Trustees were 
 chosen. These were the Rev. Azel Roe, of Woodbridge, New 
 
 * In the minutes for September 25, 1782, the following occurs: "Resolved, 
 likewise, that John Noel, Samuel Vickers, and James Hanna, alumni of the College, 
 who on account of the confusions of the war have not received their degree of B. A. 
 at the regular time, be now admitted to it." And in September 28, 1790, an order 
 was passed for inserting in the catalogue for the year 1777 several names which 
 had been omitted in the printed catalogue.
 
 DR. WITHERSPOON^ S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 323 
 
 Jersey, John Bayard, Esq., of Philadelphia, and Dr. Nathaniel 
 Scudder, of New Jersey. 
 
 It was unanimously " Resolved, That application be made to 
 the Legislature of this State to confirm the Charter," to reduce 
 the number requisite for a quorum, and to make such other 
 alterations as the late revolution and the circumstances of the 
 country may render necessary. And a committee was ap- 
 pointed to make a draft of a charter as conformable as possible 
 to the existing one, excepting the alterations just indicated. 
 
 Mr. Joshua M. Wallace, Jr., was chosen Treasurer of the 
 College, but he never took upon himself the duties of the 
 office; and at the meeting of the Board, April 21, 1779, Wm. 
 Churchill Houston, Esq., was chosen Treasurer, and for some 
 years he discharged the duties of this office as well as those of 
 his Professorship. Some years after Mr. Wallace was chosen a 
 Trustee of the College. 
 
 It was " agreed to present a petition to the Council, and 
 another to the Assembly [of the State], requesting them to 
 enact a law to exempt the masters and students of the College 
 from military duty ; and Dr. Witherspoon was appointed to draw 
 up and to present these petitions on behalf of the Board." These 
 petitions were eventually granted by the Legislature. 
 
 It was also " Resolved, That an attempt shall be made to re- 
 vive the College studies, so long interrupted by the war;" and 
 Dr. Witherspoon was desired to publish in the New Jersey, Lan- 
 caster, and Fishkill papers that due attention will be given the 
 instruction of youth in the College after the loth of May next. 
 
 It was ordered, " That Mr. Halsey prepare a just statement 
 of the accounts of the last College Lottery, and lay them be- 
 fore the Board at their next meeting." 
 
 There is in the minutes of the Board no record of any 
 meeting of the Trustees at the regular time for the annual Com- 
 mencement, but from an account of the proceedings published 
 in the " New Jersey Gazette" of October 21, 1778, it appears that 
 the Commencement exercises took place at Princeton, on Wed- 
 nesday, the 3Oth of September, and that the first degree in the 
 Arts was conferred upon five members of the Senior class, 
 three of whom took part in the exercises. Orations were also
 
 524 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 pronounced by two of the candidates for the degree of Master 
 of Arts. 
 
 The next meeting of the Board was held at Princeton, on 
 Wednesday, the 2ist of April, 1779. The embarrassed condi- 
 tion of the finances very naturally demanded and received the 
 first attention of the Board, and measures were taken to secure 
 the moneys due to the College, and for the soliciting of pecuni- 
 ary aid in Pennsylvania and in New England. It was also found 
 necessary to make further repairs to the College edifice, which 
 had been much injured during the time it was occupied by the 
 troops; and the resolutions adopted respecting the extent to 
 which the repairs should be made show both the injury which 
 had been done to the building and the low state of the College 
 funds. The Trustees had petitioned Congress for a remuneration 
 of their losses, and they seem to have had some hope that their 
 claim would be allowed and paid. The sum actually received 
 was very small as compared with the damage done by the 
 American soldiery. 
 
 William Livingston, Esq., having been chosen Governor of 
 the State, and thereby the President of the Board, Jonathan 
 Bayard Smith, Esq., of Philadelphia, was chosen a Trustee in 
 his room. 
 
 The following minute shows that the Trustees were desirous 
 to deal liberally with the officers of the College : 
 
 " Agreed, That notwithstanding the interruption of the College exercises by the 
 war, their salaries shall be continued to Dr. Witherspoon and Professor Houston. 
 They are, however, to give as much attention to the instruction of such youth as may 
 be sent to the College as their circumstances and those of the place will admit, till 
 the building shall be repaired, and the state of public affairs will afford an oppor- 
 tunity to conduct the education in the College in a more complete manner." 
 
 In September of this year the Commencement took place as 
 usual, and six of the students were admitted to their first de- 
 gree in the Arts. They all became men of more or less note ; 
 the most distinguished of them being the Hon. Richard Stock- 
 ton, LL.D., of Princeton, New Jersey. 
 
 Dr. Moses Scott, of New Brunswick, appointed an agent 
 to make collections for the College in the State of Pennsyl- 
 vania, reported that he had collected, exclusive of his expenses,
 
 DR. WITHERSPOON' S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 325 
 
 the sum of four hundred and fifteen pounds, which he had paid 
 to Dr. Witherspoon. 
 
 The most important measure taken by the Board at this time, 
 September 29, 1779, was the appointment of the Rev. Samuel 
 S. Smith Professor of Moral Philosophy. This appointment 
 was made at the suggestion of Dr. Witherspoon ; and the 
 minute respecting it is evidence that the proposal was highly 
 acceptable to the Trustees. The Professor elect was then at the 
 head of an academy, subsequently chartered under the name 
 of Hampden Sidney College, Prince- Edward County, Virginia. 
 He came to Princeton, and began his duties here on the I2th 
 of December, 1779. 
 
 Dr. Witherspoon offered to relinquish one-half of his salary 
 of four hundred pounds a year, provided the Board would make 
 the proposed appointment, and would allow the tuition-money 
 of the students for the ensuing year to himself, Professor Hous- 
 ton, and the Professor to be elected ; this to be done with the 
 understanding that if they required the assistance of a Tutor in 
 the instruction of the students they were to pay him. 
 
 Before Professor Smith's arrival, notice was given in the 
 public papers by President Witherspoon and Professor Houston 
 that the vacation of the College would end on Monday, the 8th 
 of November, and that of the grammar-school on the 27th of 
 October. The latter part of the advertisement is as follows : 
 
 " As there is a universal complaint of the want of opportunities of educating 
 youth among us at present, it is proper to inform the public, that agreeably to former 
 advertisements, the instruction in this School and College has been regularly car- 
 ried on since the enemy left the State. The Grammar School is numerous and 
 flourishing, and the difficulties in the way of filling the College are now in a great 
 measure removed. The repairs of the building are in great forwardness, and will 
 go on without interruption, so that there will be comfortable accommodations for as 
 many as may probably attend this fall. Tho' the number of under-graduates or 
 proper College members did not exceed ten, yet one or other of the subscribers 
 was constantly upon the spot. Now another Professor is chosen, and a tutor en- 
 gaged, so that parents and guardians may depend upon the utmost care being taken 
 of the youth. Boarding may be had at the same price as formerly, making allow- 
 ance for the state of the currency. 
 
 " The French language is taught, and great attention paid to every branch of 
 English Education. 
 
 " Signed, JOHN WITHERSPOON, 
 
 Wn. CH. HOUSTON."
 
 526 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 The above is taken from the " New Jersey Gazette" of the 
 date of October 13, 1779, published at Trenton, New Jersey. 
 
 Four or five months after, viz., on the 24th of February, 1780, 
 Dr. Witherspoon prepared an address to the public, giving some 
 information respecting the College and the grammar-school, 
 which were, to use his own words, "beginning to recover from 
 the desolations they have suffered in consequence of the war, 
 as the scholars are 'collected from the most distant parts of the 
 continent, and even the West Indies." His main object, how- 
 ever, seems to have been to give some good advice to the 
 teachers and parents of youth who were preparing to enter 
 college. (" New Jersey Gazette" for March 15, 1780.) 
 
 At the Commencement held on Wednesday, the 27th of Sep- 
 tember, 1780, the Trustees had a meeting as usual on such 
 occasions, and conferred the first degree in the Arts upon six 
 candidates for this honor. At this and at the preceding Com- 
 mencement premiums were awarded to the successful compet- 
 itors for them in the matters of grammar, syntax, etc., of the 
 Latin and English languages. 
 
 Dr. Witherspoon reported to the Board " that the Legislature 
 have passed an act confirming the charter of the College, but 
 have not thought proper to lessen the quorum." 
 
 " The Rev. Robert Smith reported that himself and others had taken some pains 
 in Pennsylvania to make collections of money for the College ; and he delivered to 
 the Board two hundred and thirty-eight pounds ten shillings, which were collected in 
 the Forks of the Brandywine, and paid to Dr. Witherspoon." 
 
 " Dr. Witherspoon proposed, that if the Board would continue the salary of four 
 hundred pounds to himself and Professor Smith, with the tuition-money, they would 
 procure a sufficient number of tutors to carry on the instruction of the College with- 
 out any further expense to this Board." 
 
 " Resolved, That the Board do agree to the above proposal." 
 
 " Dr. Witherspoon was directed to state an account against the public for the rents 
 of the College while it was used by their agents as a barracks and hospital, and to 
 endeavor to recover the money as soon as possible." 
 
 " Mr. Halsey was desired to settle the accounts of the last College Lottery speedily ; 
 and in the first place to call in and pay out all debts due to or from the Lottery, par- 
 ticularly to discharge the debt due to Mr. Geddes, and then to lay the whole of the 
 accounts before Mr. Boudinot, who was empowered to settle with him on behalf of 
 the Board." 
 
 The Mr. Geddes here named had drawn a prize of several 
 hundred pounds in the last lottery, the payment of which was
 
 DR. WITHERSPOON'S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 327 
 
 deferred for some years, owing no doubt, in a great measure, to 
 the failure to raise funds at this time through the lottery. The 
 settlement of Mr. Geddes's claim gave the Board much trouble. 
 One happy result of this was, that no further effort was made 
 for thirty years to obtain authority to draw another lottery for 
 the benefit of the College, and, more happily still, the only other 
 endeavor to obtain permission to draw one was unsuccessful. 
 This last application for a lottery was made in 1813 or 1814, 
 and was denied ; but not from any scruple of conscience on the 
 part of the members of the Legislature, for while they refused 
 permission to the College of New Jersey they allowed the 
 Trustees of Queen's College, now Rutgers, to raise by lottery 
 for the resuscitation of that institution some twenty or thirty 
 thousand dollars. 
 
 The next meeting of the Board was held on the 3Oth of May, 
 1781, and in the mean time three of the Trustees had died. 
 These were the Hon. Richard Stockton, the Rev. Jeremiah 
 Halsey, and the Rev. John Brainerd ; and in their room the 
 Board elected his Excellency Joseph Reed, Esq., President of 
 the State of Pennsylvania, the Rev. Dr. Alexander McWhorter, 
 who had returned to Newark from the South, and the Rev. 
 James Boyd. 
 
 The Board continued their sessions to next day. " The Rev. 
 James Caldwell laid before the Board his account current with 
 the corporation, containing an account of the moneys received 
 and paid by him as one of the committee for managing the 
 treasury since May 26, 1777." This account was referred to 
 the committee for collecting and stating an account of the funds. 
 It is evident that Mr. Caldwell, who had taken an active part 
 in soliciting funds for the College, and who at this time was the 
 Clerk of the Board, had the principal share of the labor assigned 
 to the committee charged with the duties of the Treasurer. It 
 is also evident, from the arrangement made with the President 
 and the Professors of the College with respect to the tuition- 
 fees, that the income of the College from this source was al- 
 together inadequate to the support of the President and Pro- 
 fessors, their salaries amounting to six hundred pounds a 
 year. And two-thirds of this sum, if not the whole of the six
 
 328 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW J ERSE I. 
 
 hundred pounds, were payable in coin, and not in the currency 
 of that time, as appears from the following minute : 
 
 " In the agreement made with Dr. Witherspoon last September, the minutes do 
 not express in what kind of money he was to be paid ; it is therefore now agreed, 
 in the presence of Dr. Witherspoon, that he is to receive his salary in gold and silver, 
 and not in current paper money of a depreciated value, which he has voluntarily 
 agreed to receive his salary in for the two years preceding." 
 
 Hence, in view of the funds requisite to pay the salaries of 
 the officers of the College, to meet the incidental expenses, and 
 to make the extensive repairs which were necessary to render 
 the College edifice fit for the purposes of its erection, it must 
 be obvious that there was need of large pecuniary assistance 
 from the friends of the institution to meet all the yearly expenses 
 and sustain the high standing and character which the College 
 had attained as a place for the education of youth. Funds were 
 solicited and liberally given ; not for a permanent endowment, 
 but for the meeting of pressing wants and immediate liabili- 
 ties; and by means of these generous gifts the Trustees were 
 enabled to maintain a Faculty composed of able men and of 
 accomplished instructors equal to any in the land. 
 
 At this time "a proposal was laid before the Board, signed by William C. Houston 
 and Samuel S. Smith, for conferring both the higher and the intermediate degrees 
 in Theology and Law, in some method similar to those practised by the Universities 
 in Europe, together with a draught of a plan for that purpose." 
 
 It was read, and the consideration of it deferred. At the 
 next meeting of the Board it was referred to a committee con- 
 sisting of Governor Livingston, Dr. Witherspoon, Mr. Boudinot, 
 and Mr. Spencer, to consider and report thereon. The com- 
 mittee appear to have made a favorable report, but what were 
 its peculiar features is not known, as the plan is not given in the 
 minutes of the Board.* 
 
 From the beginning, one of the Trustees had been chosen 
 Clerk of the Board whenever a vacancy occurred in that office. 
 
 * At the meeting held September 25, 1787, the Board adopted the following reso- 
 lution : " That no person be admitted to the degree of Doctor in Divinity or Doctor 
 of Laws unless with the consent of two-thirds of the members present." But this 
 resolution, as inconsistent with the charter, was repealed in 1794.
 
 DR. WITHERSPOON'S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 But at this meeting a motion was made to choose a Clerk who 
 should not be one of the Board ; " many inconveniences having 
 arisen from one of the members officiating in that department, 
 the same was agreed to, and the Rev. Samuel S. Smith was 
 unanimously chosen to that office." 
 
 The selecting of a member of the Faculty to discharge the 
 duties of Clerk to the Board was continued until the year 1823, 
 when the Trustees resolved to make another change, and they 
 chose one of their own number, then a resident of Princeton, 
 their Clerk. Since that time the Clerks of the Board have been 
 selected from the body of the Trustees. 
 
 It was resolved to petition the Legislature again for an alter- 
 ation in the charter, by which the number requisite for a quo- 
 rum should be lessened, and also to ask the General Assembly 
 " to prevent the quartering of troops in the College, which is 
 frequently practised." 
 
 " Mr. Boudinot having offered to the Board the draft of a 
 petition to that purpose, Ordered, That it be signed by the 
 President of the Board, and delivered into the hands of Dr. 
 Scudder to be presented to the Assembly." 
 
 Two years after, the following minute occurs : " The honor- 
 able Legislature of this State, in consequence of an application 
 made to them by the Board through Dr. N. Scudder, have been 
 pleased to pass a law enabling the Board to hold its sessions by 
 smaller quorums than formerly." This alteration in the charter 
 made nine members of the Board regularly convened a quorum, 
 provided the President of the Board, the President of the Col- 
 lege, or the eldest Trustee, were one of the nine. The act as 
 now passed was limited to five years ; but it was subsequently 
 re-enacted and made perpetual. 
 
 At the Commencement of 1781, six young gentlemen were 
 admitted to the degree of Bachelor of the Arts, five of whom 
 had pursued their studies at Princeton and had passed the 
 usual examinations. The sixth, who was from Virginia, had 
 completed his studies under the care of Professor Smith. The 
 Commencement this year took place on the 26th of September. 
 
 "The Committee of Repairs reported that they had not been 
 able to effect much in repairing the College, through a failure 
 VOL. i. 22
 
 230 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 of the remittances that were ordered at the last session of the 
 Board." Whereupon the following order was passed : 
 
 " Ordered, That every pupil who shall hereafter enter the College shall pay 
 entrance money of one guinea, which, together with the rents of the chambers, shall 
 be appropriated by the Treasurer as a fund to discharge the expense of such repairs 
 as shall be judged to be indispensably necessary in the College. And as these 
 moneys will arise too slowly to answer the demands of the workmen, President 
 Reed [of Pennsylvania] and Colonel Bayard are requested and authorized to borrow 
 the necessary sum on the credit of the said fund." 
 
 This they were unable to do, and so reported at the next 
 meeting of the Board. But they themselves generously ad- 
 vanced towards the repairs the sum of thirty-nine pounds, 
 which was repaid to them by credits on the College bills of 
 their sons. 
 
 " Dr. Witherspoon was requested to do his utmost to recover payment of the 
 account against the United States, given to Congress, pursuant to an order of the 
 Board, September 27, 1780, and was empowered to receive it in the name of the 
 Trustees, and to carry it to their credit in the account of salary." 
 
 Two days after the Commencement, viz., on the 28th of Sep- 
 tember, 1781, Dr. Witherspoon prepared a communication ad- 
 dressed to the public on the condition of the College and with 
 respect to the provision made for the teaching and boarding of 
 the students. It was published in the " New Jersey Gazette" 
 for October 10, 1781. 
 
 The following are the more important of the particulars 
 mentioned : 
 
 1. That a considerable part of the College is already re- 
 paired, and that the Trustees have given directions for the 
 completion of the repairs without delay ; and that, as formerly, 
 the under-graduates would be required to lodge in the Col- 
 lege building, unless exempted by special permission from the 
 President. 
 
 2. That board would be furnished by the Steward of the Col- 
 lege for the moderate sum of ten shillings a week, and that no 
 student would be permitted to board out of College without 
 express license from the President, or, in his absence, from the 
 senior Professor. 
 
 3. That every new scholar, at his first coming to College,
 
 DR. WITHERSPOON'S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 331 
 
 must pay one guinea entrance, and at the rate of six pounds 
 per annum tuition, and two pounds per annum for chamber 
 rent ; and that the charges for tuition and board must be paid 
 every six months in advance, and that punctuality in making 
 these advance payments would be rigidly insisted on. 
 
 The most particular and doubtless the most accurate account 
 of the condition of the College edifice at this time is one given 
 by the Rev. Dr. Ashbel Green, who was President of the Col- 
 lege from 1812 to 1822. It is contained in an address before 
 the Alumni Association in 1840, in which he says: 
 
 "I entered this College on the gth of May, 1782. . . . The College buildings 
 at that time consisted only of this edifice [Nassau Hall], the President's house, and 
 a dwelling for the Steward, originally constructed for a College kitchen, and then 
 used as such, although the family of the Steward had their residence in it. The 
 lower and upper stories of this edifice still remained in the ruined state in which 
 they had been left by the British and American armies, entirely uninhabited and 
 uninhabitable, except that on the lowest story [now the cellar] , at the east end, Dr. 
 Witherspoon had fitted up a room for his grammar-school, and opposite to it, on 
 the south side, another room was so far repaired as to be used for a dining-room, 
 and in the fourth story [now the third] the Cliosophic Society had repaired one of 
 the half-rooms in the north projection of the College, in which their meetings were 
 held. The Whig Society was not reorganized till the summer of my first session in 
 the College, and in its reorganization I had a leading part. In the two middle 
 entries [the present cellar being then the first or lowest story], rooms enough had 
 been repaired to accommodate all the students, whose whole number was, I believe, 
 little, and but a little turned of forty. Some of the rooms in these entries still lay 
 waste, and the whole building still exhibited the effects of General Washington's 
 artillery, who, in the battle of Princeton, caused it to be fired upon to drive out 
 British troops who had taken refuge in it." 
 
 The annual Commencement for 1782 was held on the 25th of 
 September of that year. Eleven candidates were admitted to 
 the first degree in the Arts. 
 
 At a meeting of the Board at this time, Mr. Isaac Snowden, 
 of Philadelphia, and the Rev. Jonathan Elmer, of Essex County, 
 New Jersey, were chosen Trustees, in the room of Dr. Nathaniel 
 Scudder and the Rev. James Caldwell, both deceased.* 
 
 * The deaths of these excellent men are remarkable for the manner of thea- oc- 
 currence. Both were killed instantly, Dr. Scudder by a musket-ball fired by one 
 of a refugee party, from whom the doctor and his associates were endeavoring to 
 rescue some of their friends, who by this party had been taken prisoners and carried
 
 332 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 " Dr. Witherspoon represented to the Board the pains he had taken to have the 
 accounts of the College against the United States given in to Congress, pursuant to 
 an order of the Board of September 27, 1780. Resolved, That Dr. Witherspoon 
 take that account into his own hands and endeavor to compound it with the States, 
 or otherwise turn it to the best advantage in his power and carry it to the credit of 
 the Trustees. 
 
 " Messrs. John Bayard, Elias Boudinot, and Jonathan B. Smith were appointed 
 to settle the old account between Dr. Witherspoon and the Trustees, previous to the 
 year 1775." 
 
 From an examination of the Treasurer's accounts, it appeared 
 that the bonds and the certificates of stock, with the interest 
 due on them, amounted to the sum of .341 1.0.3. The balance 
 in the hands of the Treasurer at this date was ^"13.18. 
 
 The following minutes are among the records of this meet- 
 ing : 
 
 " Ordered, That the Treasurer do pay to Dr. Witherspoon on account six hun- 
 dred pounds, including two hundred and seventeen pounds already paid to him 
 by a bond on Mr. Elias Woodruff" (Steward of the College). 
 
 This bond was returned to the Board, with their consent. 
 
 " Resolved, That the management of the College be continued in the hands of 
 Dr. Witherspoon, in the same manner as it has been ever since the confusions of 
 the war." 
 
 " Ordered, That the Treasurer do immediately write to every obligor in arrear 
 for interest on their respective bonds, that unless the interest is discharged without 
 delay their bonds will be put into suit without further notice, which he is to do 
 accordingly, the moneys arising therefrom to be applied to discharge the Presi- 
 dent's salary." 
 
 off from Colt's Neck, Monmouth County, New Jersey. His death occurred on the 
 1 6th of October, 1781. It was said of him, " Few men have fallen in this country 
 that were so useful, or so generally mourned for in death." His pastor, the Rev. 
 John Woodhull, a Trustee of the College, preached at his funeral a sermon from 
 the words, " And all Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah, and Jeremiah 
 lamented for him." 
 
 Mr. Caldwell was killed by a sentinel at Elizabethtown Point, to which place he 
 had gone to meet and to conduct to the town a sister of one of his parishioners, who 
 was expected from New York in a flag-sloop. As Mr. Caldwell was about to step 
 on board the sloop to return a small bundle which had been handed to him with 
 the request that he would take it to the town, his murderer ordered him to stop, 
 and upon his doing so the soldier presented his musket and shot him. He fell and 
 expired immediately. He was an earnest and active patriot, as well as an able and 
 devoted minister of the gospel. His wife was shot by a British soldier on the 8th 
 of June, 1 780. Both husband and wife were highly respected and greatly beloved. 
 Mr. CaldwelPs murderer was tried and executed.
 
 DR. WITHERSPOON'S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 333 
 
 These orders show the confidence reposed in Dr. Wither- 
 spoon, and also the low state of the College revenues. 
 
 " A letter from his Excellency John Dickinson, Esq., Governor of the Delaware 
 State, to the President of the College, to be communicated to the Trustees, was read, 
 enclosing a promissory note for ,100, and proposing that the interest of so much of 
 it as the Trustees may judge proper might annually, or as often as they approve, 
 be applied in procuring a gold or silver medal to be bestowed upon the student 
 who shall compose the best dissertation on some one of the following subjects, viz. : 
 
 " I. A zeal for religion clear of bigotry and enthusiasm. 
 
 " 2. A liberality of sentiment untainted by licentiousness. 
 
 " 3. A purity of manners free from censorial austerity. 
 
 " 4. What are the most proper measures to be adopted by a government for pro- 
 moting and establishing habits of piety and virtue among a people? 
 
 " 5. No one or more of the United States can ever derive so much happiness 
 from a dissolution of the Union as from its continuance. 
 
 " The direction of the whole, together with a power of changing the subjects, to 
 be vested in the Board. 
 
 " Resolved, That the Board do accept of the donation, and that a letter of thanks 
 be written to Governor Dickinson, in the name of the Trustees, and signed by the 
 President." 
 
 The following are the only other minutes in which mention 
 is made of the Dickinson medal for thirty-four years: 
 
 September 24, 1783. "According to the tenor of Governor Dickinson's dona- 
 tion last Fall, a partial meeting of the Trustees in the Spring appointed as the 
 subject to be written upon for his medal the fourth question proposed by him, 
 viz., ' What are the most proper measures to be adopted by a government for pro- 
 moting and establishing habits of piety and virtue among a people ?' One dis- 
 sertation only appearing before the Board, the President was directed to republish 
 the subject, and to invite the students to enter into this competition, and to bring 
 in their dissertations at the next examinations for degrees, or at the utmost against 
 the next Commencement; and the President and the Professor of Divinity and 
 Moral Philosophy were directed to provide a medal, with proper devices, to be 
 given on the occasion." 
 
 September 29 and 30, 1784. "The medal given by Dr. Dickinson, President 
 of the State of Pennsylvania, was adjudged to Mr. Joseph Clay, of the present 
 Senior class, for the best dissertation on the subject proposed by the Board at their 
 last stated meeting."* 
 
 " Ordered, That the subject to be proposed for the medal next year be the 
 second mentioned in the letter accompanying Dr. Dickinson's donation, viz., 'A 
 liberality of sentiment untainted by licentiousness." 
 
 * Mr. Clay was a native of Georgia. After leaving College he studied law, 
 and became an eminent jurist, and U. S. District Judge for his native State. In 
 1801 he became a Baptist preacher. Mr. Clay's dissertation was published with a 
 dedicatory preface to Governor Dickinson.
 
 334 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 September 28, 1785. "Whereas there was but one dissertation for Dr. Dickin- 
 son's medal produced, and that not in proper time to have the same examined and 
 a judgment formed upon it at present, Resolved, That it be referred to the Faculty 
 of the College for their decision ; and that all future dissertations for medals be 
 brought in to the Faculty at or before the last examination of the Senior class, 
 that a judgment may be formed upon the same in proper season, and the victor 
 be publicly announced on the day of commencement. 
 
 " Ordered, That the subject to be competed on for Dr. Dickinson's medal be the 
 third contained in his letter to the Board, viz., 'A purity of manners free from cen- 
 sorial austerity.' " 
 
 September 23 and 24, 1788. " Ordered, That the subject to be competed on for 
 Dr. Dickinson's medal be the following : ' No one or more of the United States 
 can ever derive so much happiness from a dissolution of the Union as from its 
 continuance.' " 
 
 September 29 and 30, 1789. -" On the subject of Dr. Dickinson's and Dr. 
 Minto's medals, Resolved, That the Faculty of the College be empowered to 
 examine the essays that have been produced, and decree the said medals accord- 
 ing to their judgment." 
 
 Dr. Minto's medal, of the value of five pounds, was for the 
 best essay or dissertation on either of the following topics : 
 
 1. The unlawfulness and impolicy of capital punishments, and the best method 
 of reforming criminals and making them useful to society. 
 
 2. The unlawfulness and impolicy of African slavery, and the best means of 
 abolishing it in the United States, and of promoting the happiness of free negroes. 
 
 The form of expression used in the last minute, viz., that of 
 September 30, 1789, indicates that there were some competi- 
 tors for the medals named, but how many is not said or known. 
 
 One thing is certain in regard to competitions for these 
 medals, that they ceased to take place, and most probably from 
 an unwillingness on the part of the students to engage in them, 
 and that the Trustees, finding this to be the case, ceased to pro- 
 pose any more topics for handling and for competition. These 
 competitions, it is evident, were not favorites with the students, 
 and it is by no means improbable that they came to an end with 
 the tacit if not with a formal consent of Governor Dickinson, 
 whose death did not take place until February, 1808, and the 
 last that we hear of any competitions for his medal was in Sep- 
 tember, 1789, more than eighteen years before his death. 
 
 According to the terms of Governor Dickinson's letter, it 
 was left to the discretion of the Trustees how much of the 
 interest of his promissory note for one hundred pounds should
 
 DR. WITHERSPOON'S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 335 
 
 be expended for a medal, and how often, his proposition being 
 this : " that the interest of so much of it as the Trustees may 
 judge proper might annually, or as often as they approve, be ap- 
 plied in procuring a gold or silver medal," etc. After a fair and 
 full trial for several years, the matter was dropped ; and there 
 is no evidence that Governor Dickinson ever expressed any 
 dissatisfaction with the action or non-action of the Board in 
 regard to it. 
 
 At the Commencement of 1783, fourteen candidates were 
 admitted to their first degree in the Arts. 
 
 This was a memorable occasion in the history of the College, 
 rendered so by the presence of General Washington, of the 
 National Congress, and of two foreign Ministers. Driven from 
 Philadelphia by a turbulent corps of soldiers, Congress had 
 assembled at Princeton, and they held their sessions in the 
 library-room of the College, which was in the front projection, 
 and on what is now the second or middle story of the build- 
 ing. This room has been divided into two by the passage-way 
 leading from the front door of the edifice to the large room 
 in the rear. This alteration was made upon the rebuilding of 
 Nassau Hall after the fire of March, 1855. 
 
 During the time that Congress held its sessions at Princeton, 
 Dr. Boudinot, a Trustee of the College, was the President of 
 that body. " As a compliment to the College, to their own 
 President, as well as to the President of the College, who had 
 recently been one of their own members, Congress determined 
 to adjourn and to attend the Commencement." 
 
 The Valedictory orator on this occasion was Ashbel Green, 
 the same who for many years was a Trustee of the College, 
 and for ten years its President. The exercises were held in the 
 First Presbyterian Church, then the only one in Princeton. At 
 th,e close of his Valedictory, Mr. Green made an address of 
 some length to General Washington. Speaking of this occur- 
 rence, in his account of Dr. Witherspoon's administration, Dr. 
 Green observes that his address to the General "was received 
 with manifest feeling; and next day he met me in the entry of 
 the College as he was going to a committee-room of Congress, 
 took me by the hand, walked with me a short time, flattered
 
 336 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 me a little, and desired me to present his best respects to my 
 classmates, and his best wishes for their success in life. There 
 had never been such an audience at a Commencement before, 
 and perhaps there never will be again. Dr. Witherspoon was 
 of course highly gratified." 
 
 The only business transacted by the Board on that day, after 
 the Commencement exercises, was the adoption of the following 
 minute : 
 
 " The Board being desirous to give some testimony of their high respect for the 
 character of his Excellency General Washington, who has so auspiciously con- 
 ducted the armies of America, 
 
 " Resolved, That the Rev. Drs. Witherspoon, Rodgers, and Johnes be a com- 
 mittee to wait upon his Excellency to request him to sit for his picture, to be taken 
 by Mr. Charles Wilson Peale, of Philadelphia. And that his portrait when finished 
 be placed in the Hall of the College, in the room of the picture of the late King 
 of Great Britain [George the Second], which was torn away by a ball from the 
 American artillery in the battle of Princeton." 
 
 On the following day " Dr. Witherspoon reported to the 
 Board that his Excellency General Washington had delivered 
 to him fifty guineas, which he begged the Trustees to accept 
 as a testimony of his respect for the College." The following 
 resolution was then passed : 
 
 " Resolved, That the Board accept it, and that the same committee who were 
 appointed to solicit his Excellency's picture do at the same time present to him 
 the thanks of the Board for this instance of his politeness and generosity." 
 
 As provided for in the above resolution, General Washing- 
 ton's portrait, in full length, was painted by Mr. Peale, and in 
 the background of the painting there is a representation of 
 the battle of Princeton, and a portrait of General Mercer, who 
 fell mortally wounded at this battle. General Mercer is repre- 
 sented as lying upon the ground, supported by an officer sup- 
 posed to be a surgeon, and standing by this officer there is 
 another bearing the American flag. It is said that General 
 Mercer had a brother who strongly resembled him in appear- 
 ance, and that Mr. Peale availed himself of this resemblance 
 in painting his picture of the general. The portrait was placed 
 in the old College Chapel. 
 
 From the position of the American army, of the College
 
 DR. WITHERSPOOWS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 337 
 
 building, and of the portrait of the King in the College Chapel, 
 it may readily have been that the portrait was destroyed by a 
 cannon-ball ; and from the above minute it appears that this 
 was the received tradition in regard to it. It is known that the 
 building was struck in different places by cannon-balls during 
 the affair at Princeton ; and one may have entered the chapel, 
 where the portrait of his Majesty was hanging, and destroyed 
 it. But, be this as it may, the portrait was destroyed, and the 
 frame, regilded, now contains a full-length portrait of General 
 Washington. The portrait of his Majesty was presented to the 
 College by Governor Belcher, to whom the College was in- 
 debted for its second charter and for his liberality and earnest 
 devotion to its interests. 
 
 Professor Houston, having engaged in the practice of the law, 
 resigned his offices of Treasurer and of Professor of Mathematics 
 and Natural Philosophy. The thanks of the Board were pre- 
 sented to him for his past services. Professor Smith was chosen 
 Treasurer in the room of Professor Houston. 
 
 " Dr. Witherspoon proposed to the Trustees that they ought now to take the pro- 
 vision of teachers upon themselves; the minute of September 29, I779> should be 
 revised, and that it should be entered upon record that his proposal in the first 
 part of the minute was intended to be permanent ; and that during the whole time 
 that Professor Smith shall continue in his office, one-half of his salary shall be paid 
 to said Professor; and that in the event of death or resignation, or in any other 
 way his ceasing to be in that office, the President's salary shall return to its former 
 channel. 
 
 " Resolved, That the Board do approve of this proposal and interpretation, 
 which they consider as an act of generosity towards this corporation ; and that Dr. 
 Smith do hereafter draw for that part of his salary according to the established 
 mode. 
 
 " The Board taking into their attention the provision necessary to be made for 
 Dr. Smith, and considering his situation as the immediate representative of the 
 College, and in the President's house exposed to more expense than usual in his 
 office, Resolved, That two hundred pounds per annum be allowed him additional 
 to the sum which he already draws out of the former salary of the President." 
 
 Dr. Witherspoon had removed from the President's house to 
 his own private residence, known under the name of Tusculum, 
 about a mile and a half from the College, and on a road run- 
 ning northward from the main street of the town, and directly 
 opposite the College.
 
 338 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 Mr. James Riddle, who had been Tutor in the College since 
 the war, resigned his office; and, the Trustees deeming it best 
 to employ two Tutors rather than one, Messrs. Ashbel Green 
 and Samuel Beach were elected to that office. 
 
 For reasons assigned in the minute on the subject, the students 
 were, by a resolution of the Board, prohibited from attending 
 any dancing-school. 
 
 Dr. Witherspoon gave in his account with the Trustees, which 
 was examined and approved, and from which it appeared that 
 the College was indebted to him in the sum of 88 1.13. 3. 
 
 The committee to examine the account were Messrs. William 
 Peartree Smith and John Bayard. 
 
 An extra meeting of the Board was held on the 22d of Octo- 
 ber, 1783. The principal object of the meeting was "to con- 
 sider and adopt measures for repairing the funds of the College, 
 which have been so greatly injured during the late war." 
 
 " It appearing that the necessities of the institution could not admit of any 
 further delay, and that the favorable dispositions of the people of Europe towards 
 America afforded a promising prospect of supplying them, by applying to their 
 generosity, Resolved, That a mission be sent thither as soon as possible for the 
 purpose of soliciting benefactions for the College." 
 
 Dr. Witherspoon and General Reed were requested to under- 
 take the mission, to which they were pleased to consent. 
 
 The following minute shows the low condition of the College 
 treasury at this time : 
 
 " It being necessary that the debt due from the corporation to Dr. Witherspoon 
 should be discharged, in order to enable him to undertake the voyage, and the 
 treasury not being in a condition to answer this demand immediately, Messrs. 
 Snowden and Bayard offered to advance to him, on the credit of the Board, any 
 moneys that might be necessary to equip him for his voyage. 
 
 " Resolved, That these gentlemen have the thanks of the Board, and their offer 
 be accepted, and that they be empowered to draw upon the commissioners in Europe 
 for the sum which they may advance ; and that, in all events, the treasury of the 
 College be answerable for that sum. 
 
 " Resolved, That all other expenses which may be incurred by the commissioners 
 in the execution of their mission be allowed to them out of the College treasury. 
 
 " General Reed was pleased to offer to the Board to serve them in England 
 without any expense to the corporation. Ordered, That the thanks of the Board be 
 presented to General Reed for this generous proposal." 
 
 The mission accomplished nothing. Dr. Witherspoon visited
 
 DR. WITHERSPOON 1 S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 339 
 
 Scotland, and obtained in all not more than what was just suf- 
 ficient to meet his expenses. It does not appear that General 
 Reed obtained anything for the College. The matter of sur- 
 prise is, that they and the other Trustees ever imagined that 
 there was ground for a reasonable hope that any funds could 
 be collected in Great Britain at that time for an American 
 College, and that College the one most distinguished for the 
 rebel character of its President and guardians. 
 
 The following extract from the commission given by the 
 Board to Dr. Witherspoon and General Reed shows in strong 
 language the depressed condition of the College finances : 
 
 "Whereas the College of New Jersey was founded by private liberality for the 
 promotion of religion and learning, and had by the blessing of Heaven arisen to an 
 eminent degree of reputation and usefulness before the late unhappy war; but 
 being occupied as barracks by the contending armies, its library and philosoph- 
 ical apparatus destroyed, the funds of the College for the support of professors and 
 masters, in consequence of the ravages and events of war, sunk and almost anni- 
 hilated, the very existence of this benevolent and useful institution is become doubt- 
 ful unless some certain and effectual relief can be obtained from the friends of 
 virtue and literature who have not been exposed to such dreadful calamities." 
 
 It was resolved to present a congratulatory address to his 
 
 Excellency Van Berkel, Ambassador from the States of 
 
 the United Netherlands to the United States of America ; and 
 by request Dr. Witherspoon prepared an address, which was 
 agreed to by the Board. His Excellency was present at the 
 recent Commencement. In the address reference was made to 
 the name of the principal edifice as derived from Holland. 
 
 In view of Dr. Smith's state of health, they deemed it im- 
 prudent for him to take charge of the College pulpit during the 
 absence of Dr. Witherspoon, and they therefore resolved to ask 
 supplies for the pulpit from the Presbyteries of New Brunswick 
 and of New York. 
 
 The following minute in regard to Governor Belcher's por- 
 trait was adopted at this meeting of the Board : 
 
 " The Trustees, being extremely sorry that the picture of his Excellency Governor 
 Belcher, which hung in the College Hall, has been destroyed during the late war, 
 appointed Mr. William P. Smith to endeavor to procure an original painting from 
 some of the remaining friends or relations of the family in New England, or if that 
 should be impracticable, then to procure the best copy that shall be in his power,
 
 340 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 that it may be placed where his picture formerly hung, as a testimony of the grati- 
 tude of the Board for the eminent services formerly rendered by his Excellency to 
 this institution." 
 
 Mr. Smith's efforts to obtain another portrait were not at- 
 tended with the desired success. At this time there is a por- 
 trait of the Governor, a copy of one in the picture-gallery of 
 the Athenaeum in Boston. The copy was made at the expense 
 of the late Professor George M. Giger, and by him presented 
 to the College. 
 
 The next Commencement of the College occurred on the 2Qth 
 of September, 1784. On this occasion the Trustees, as usual, 
 held a meeting. Twenty-seven candidates were admitted to the 
 first degree in the Arts. 
 
 " The Rev. Ezra Stiles, President of Yale College, and Doctor of Divinity in the 
 University of Edinburgh, was admitted ad eundem in this College, and the degree 
 of Doctor of Civil and Canon Laws [LL.D.] was conferred on the Rev. Doctor 
 Stiles, and on the Honorable Samuel Spencer, Esq., Chief Justice of the State of 
 North Carolina. 
 
 " Messrs. Wm. P. Smith and Robert Ogden, Esqrs., the Committee appointed to 
 examine and make report on Dr. Witherspoon's account of receipts and disburse- 
 ments in his mission to Europe on behalf of the College, reported that such was the 
 disposition of the people in Europe in general, and in Great Britain particularly, 
 that, notwithstanding the most faithful and prudent exertions, it was impossible to 
 effect anything of importance in that country for the benefit of the College ; and 
 that, after an examination of the credits and debits of his account, they found a 
 balance, in favor of the College, of only five pounds fourteen shillings." 
 
 These credits included the money advanced by Messrs. Snow- 
 den and Bayard to enable Dr. Witherspoon to go to Europe. 
 
 Dr. Witherspoon reported, " That when he left Europe, he and 
 General Reed devolved their trust on a number of gentlemen 
 in Britain, who engaged themselves, as far as should be in their 
 power, to accomplish the object of their mission, and to make 
 what collections they should be able on behalf of the College, 
 and to remit it to the order of the Board." Whereupon it was 
 resolved, " That Dr. Witherspoon be appointed to correspond 
 with those gentlemen relative to the subject of the trust de- 
 volved upon them, and to make report thereon, from time to 
 time, to this Board." It does not appear from the minutes that 
 any report was ever made.
 
 DR. WITHERSPOON'S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 341 
 
 The European mission proving to be a failure, the Trustees 
 next sought the aid of the Presbyteries composing the Synod 
 of New York and Philadelphia. The minute of this action is 
 as follows : 
 
 "The Board, observing with extreme affliction the unsuccessful result of the 
 European mission, determined to make one more application to the charity and 
 generosity of the people in America, for whose general use the institution was 
 founded, and to which it is still faithfully dedicated ; and in the first place to apply 
 to the several Presbyteries that compose the Synod of New York and Philadelphia, 
 entreating them to exert themselves with industry and zeal for the support of an in- 
 stitution so serviceable to the general interests of religion, which they have devoted 
 themselves to promote. And resolved, That a memorial on this head be addressed 
 to the Moderators of the several Presbyteries in the name of the Board, in the terms 
 following : 
 
 " The memorial of the Trustees of the College of New Jersey to the several 
 Presbyteries composing the Synod of New York and Philadelphia sheweth, That 
 among the ruinous consequences of the late war, in the depreciation of the con- 
 tinental money and destruction of the College buildings, the funds and revenues 
 under the care of your memorialists have been almost annihilated. That in order 
 to re-establish these, and to repair their buildings, and to carry on the designs of 
 the institution, application hath been lately made to obtain assistance from the 
 friends of literature in Europe ; but, unhappily, your memorialists have, from 
 sundry unexpected causes, failed in their foreign solicitations, and have not ob- 
 tained even so much as to defray the expenses of the undertaking. It is therefore 
 become absolutely necessary to make a general application to the friends of religion 
 and learning in this country who wish success to an institution of so much impor- 
 tance to our civil and religious interests. Your memorialists have in consequence 
 deemed it a proper measure to apply themselves to the respective Presbyteries 
 belonging to the Synod of New York and Philadelphia, wishing to impress them 
 with a lively persuasion of the necessity of a general exertion throughout all our 
 churches for the support of this College under its present state of depression. Your 
 memorialists must refer to your wisdom the methods most proper and prudent to 
 pursue in soliciting the aid of the people under your respective charges, and in 
 making such personal or public applications throughout your several churches and 
 districts as shall be judged best and likely to be most effectual. 
 
 " By order of the Board of Trustees. JOHN WITHERSPOON, President." 
 
 The writer has given this memorial in full, and has under- 
 scored the expression " throughout all our churches," that 
 the reader may see that the Trustees of 1784, as well as their 
 predecessors, recognized their close and intimate relations to 
 the Presbyterian Church of this country. May their successors 
 in office never forget it or disregard it ! 
 
 On the 2d of August there was a special meeting of the
 
 342 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 Board. " The principal object of the meeting was to consider 
 of and adopt measures for the augmentation of the funds of 
 the institution ; and for the reimbursement of those gentlemen 
 who advanced the necessary moneys to Dr. Witherspoon for 
 his arrears of salary, and for defraying the expenses of his mis- 
 sion to Europe on behalf of the College." 
 
 Several committees were appointed to solicit funds in New 
 Jersey and in Pennsylvania, and the Trustees residing in the 
 city of Philadelphia were empowered to vest such proportion 
 of the unfunded securities subscribed as they may think proper 
 in lands lying in Pennsylvania. Two contingent bequests of 
 one hundred pounds each, for the support of poor scholars at 
 the College, by Mr. William McConkey, of Monmouth, New 
 Jersey, were reported at this meeting. 
 
 Dr. Witherspoon was requested to prepare and present to 
 the Board at their next meeting a statement of the accounts 
 of the College from the time that his ledger was discontinued 
 to the time then present. He was also authorized to settle with 
 the executors of the late Rev. Mr. Caldwell, and to give them 
 a final discharge upon the receipt of the balance due to the 
 College. 
 
 A committee was appointed to direct and assist the Treasurer 
 in calling in all the outstanding debts of the Corporation, and 
 to vest them in public securities, funded on the excise or 
 other certain revenues in Pennsylvania. In case the money 
 due upon any of the bonds could not be recovered in time for 
 such investment, the committee were required to get a renewal 
 of such bonds, with sufficient securities. 
 
 The next Commencement was held on the 28th of Septem- 
 ber, 1785. Ten candidates were admitted to their first degree 
 in the Arts. The Rev. John Mason having tendered his resig- 
 nation, and the Honorable Joseph Reed and the Rev. Dr. 
 Elihu Spencer having departed this life since the last meeting 
 of the Board, John Beatty, Esq., the Rev. William Mackay 
 Tennent, and the Rev. Alexander Miller were chosen Trustees 
 of the College. 
 
 " Dr. Witherspoon delivered to the Board ninety-two dollars 
 in liquidated final settlement securities, a subscription to the
 
 DR. WITHERSPOON'S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 343 
 
 funds of the College, .received of Dr. Benjamin Rush, of Phila- 
 delphia." 
 
 Mr. Stephen Cook, of the island of Bermuda, was requested 
 to take one or more of the subscription papers prepared by 
 order of the Board, and to make application to the inhabitants 
 of that island for aid in behalf of the College. 
 
 In their pecuniary embarrassment the Trustees availed them- 
 selves of every possible chance of obtaining funds for the sup- 
 port of the College. Many of their efforts resulted in very 
 little or nothing ; but the result of the whole was that they 
 were enabled to carry on the instruction of the College with- 
 out any further interruption, although often in great straits for 
 funds. It was in view of existing difficulties that they adopted 
 the following minute : 
 
 " The Trustees pressed with the difficulties of supporting the necessary officers 
 of the College, and considering that the tuition and the rent of the institution have 
 not been raised in any proportion to the increased prices of other articles since the 
 war, Resolved, That two pounds per annum shall be levied upon each student in 
 addition to the present rates, under the title of rent." 
 
 Mr. Ashbel Green, at this time the senior Tutor in the 
 College, was chosen Professor of Mathematics and Natural 
 Philosophy, with a salary of one hundred and fifty pounds 
 per annum. 
 
 The following order was made : 
 
 " Ordered, That if any collections can be made by the friends of the College in 
 the Board, or elsewhere, for the education of poor and pious youths for the gospel 
 ministry, it shall be sacredly appropriated to that purpose alone ; the Board taking 
 from every young person so educated an obligation, that if he shall afterwards 
 enter into any other lucrative profession, he will refund to this corporation the 
 moneys expended in his instruction and provision." 
 
 This the writer regards as an unwise measure. If we can 
 suppose a young man disingenuous enough to avail himself of 
 aid from such a fund to enable him to obtain a liberal educa- 
 tion, he having no intention to enter the ministry, he will 
 readily devise ways and means to escape from any obligation, 
 written or oral, to repay the money so obtained. But if a poor 
 youth enter upon his studies with the intention of entering the
 
 244 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 ministry, and, on account of failure of health, or from a con- 
 viction that he was not called of God to the work of the min- 
 istry, should give himself to some other calling, he ought 
 not to be required to refund the money given to him. He 
 acted in good faith in receiving the proffered aid, and in giving 
 up his studies for the ministry he continues to act honestly, and 
 no such impediment should be put in the way of his following 
 the dictates of a good conscience by laying upon him, while 
 yet a poor youth, an obligation to refund the moneys thus far 
 advanced for his education. Should he engage in another pro- 
 fession, or in some profitable employment, he would, without 
 any such written obligation, refund, if in his power to do so, 
 with a due regard to higher obligations, what he received in 
 the way of help, as some educated at this College have done, 
 or expend in the assisting of others as much as they ever 
 received, and even more. 
 
 As a matter of fact, it is not known that any one who gave 
 a written obligation to refund ever did so. The practice of re- 
 quiring such an obligation was long since discontinued in this 
 College. 
 
 The following resolutions were adopted at a meeting of the 
 Board held on the I9th of April, 1786 : 
 
 " This College having suffered greatly by the public during the late war ; and 
 there being some probability that in the distribution of lands in the new States to 
 the westward Congress might be induced to make a liberal grant of lands to the 
 institution, 
 
 " Resolved, That the President, Dr. Rodgers, and Dr. Beatty be a committee to 
 present to Congress a petition to this effect, when they may think it most prudent 
 and convenient." 
 
 But no lands were given. 
 
 " Resolved, That the practice of wearing College habits, agreeably to the order 
 of the Board in the year 1768, be revived as soon as the Faculty of the College 
 shall judge it convenient, and at farthest after the next fall vacation. 
 
 " Ordered, That a complete catalogue of the graduates of this College be pre- 
 pared and published at the expense of the present Senior class; and in collectiug 
 and preparing the catalogue for the Press, Mr. Green was desired to render his 
 assistance to the class." 
 
 The next Commencement took place on the 2/th of Septem- 
 ber, 1786, and there was a large attendance on the part of the 
 Trustees.
 
 DR. WITHERSPOON'S ADMINISTRATION. 345 
 
 Twenty-five members of the Senior class were admitted to 
 the first degree in the Arts. 
 
 "A letter was received from the Rev. Mr. Woodhull enclosing three hundred and 
 sixty-six dollars and ten cents, . . . which sum was the subscription of General 
 Forman, John Burrows, and Tunis Vanderveer, Esqrs." 
 
 " Dr. Smith, the Treasurer of the College, requested leave to resign that office. 
 The Board accepted the resignation, and elected to the office Dr. Thomas Wiggins, 
 of Princeton." 
 
 " Mr. Gilbert T. Snowden [one of the Tutors] was appointed Librarian, and 
 overseer of College repairs, with a salary of five pounds per annum ; and [it was] 
 ordered, That each student pay five shillings at the beginning of each session for the 
 use of the Library. 
 
 " That a blank book should be provided, in which all donations to the Library 
 should be entered. 
 
 " And, That all moneys belonging to the institution shall be paid in the first in- 
 stance to the Treasurer, and that the Treasurer pay the salaries of the officers of the 
 College ; and that in all other cases he pay no moneys except to the express order 
 of the Board." 
 
 The most important action of the Board at this meeting was 
 the last, and it is embodied in the following minute : 
 
 " The Board of Trustees considering the situation of Dr. Smith with regard to 
 the institution, and the duties he is necessarily called to discharge, appointed him 
 to the office of Vice- President of the College." 
 
 The next meeting of the Board was held April 18, 1787. 
 
 " The Rev. John Woodhull, one of the Trustees, presented to the Board two 
 hundred and fourteen dollars and seventeen cents, in Pierce's final settlement 
 notes, received of Kenneth Hankinson, Esq., and the balance of one formerly re- 
 ceived in part from Tunis Vanderveer, Esq. Mr. Woodhull also reported that 
 he had obtained of Mr. Dirck Sutphin a bond of .100, on account of Mr. Wm. 
 McConkey, for the education of poor youth in the College. 
 
 " The thanks of the Board were presented to Mr. Woodhull for his diligence in 
 this matter." 
 
 From a report of the committee on the late Treasurer's 
 account, it appeared that there was due to him the sum of 
 ^"301.14.7. They reported also that the Treasurer elect, Dr. 
 Thomas Wiggins, declined the appointment on the terms pre- 
 scribed by the Board. Upon which the Board resolved to 
 proceed to another election. Richard Stockton, Esq., was 
 chosen : neither did he accept the office. 
 
 Professor Ashbel Green, the Professor of Mathematics and 
 Natural Philosophy, and Mr. Gilbert T. Snowden, a Tutor of 
 the College, having resigned their offices, it was resolved to 
 VOL. i. 23
 
 346 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 appoint two Tutors in their room. Mr. James McCoy was 
 chosen in the place of Mr. Green, and Mr. Samuel Finley 
 Snovvden in the room of Mr. Gilbert Tennent Snowden. But 
 neither of these gentlemen accepted the appointment, and in 
 their room Messrs. John W. Vancleve and James Henderson 
 Imlay were chosen Tutors by the Faculty, agreeably to an 
 authority given to them by the Board. 
 
 The Hon. William Patterson was chosen a Trustee, in the 
 place of Robert Ogden, Esq., deceased. 
 
 A committee of finance was appointed, and its duties pre- 
 scribed. 
 
 It was ordered, that the Faculty prepare and present to the 
 Board at their next meeting a system of laws for the internal 
 government of the institution. 
 
 The next Commencement of the College took place on Wed- 
 nesday, the 26th of September, 1787. The Board met on the 
 day preceding, and continued in session on Wednesday and 
 Thursday. 
 
 Dr. Rodgers, Dr. McWhorter, Mr. Smith, and Mr. Tennent 
 were appointed a committee to prepare some regulations by 
 which the Board may be directed in conferring the higher 
 degrees in Theology and Law. Although the proposal of Pro- 
 fessors Houston and Smith on this subject had met with favor 
 from the committee to whom it was referred, and in general 
 was acceptable to the Board, it appears from this and other 
 minutes that it did not fully meet the views of the Trustees. 
 
 The Rev. Dr. Johnes, a Trustee of the College, presented to 
 the Board in public securities the sum of $107.10 collected by 
 him for the education of poor and pious youth at the College. 
 The thanks of the Board were presented to Dr. Johnes for his 
 zeal in promoting the interests of the College. 
 
 "The Committee to prepare rules for the conferring the highest degrees reported 
 the following, which were adopted by the Board : 
 
 " I. No person shall be admitted to the degree of Doctor in Divinity or Doctor 
 of Laws unless with the consent of two-thirds of the members present of the Board. 
 
 " 2. That no person shall be admitted to either of these degrees unless his name 
 have been proposed to the Board at least one day before conferring the degree. 
 
 " 3. It is recommended, in all cases where gentlemen are to be proposed for 
 either of these degrees, their names be reported to the Faculty of the College at
 
 DR. WITHERSPOON'S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 347 
 
 least ten clays before the deliberations [of the Board], whose duty it shall be to 
 make all necessary enquiries concerning the merits of the candidates, and report 
 thereon to the Board." 
 
 The first of these rules was afterwards repealed, as incon- 
 sistent with the charter of the College. 
 
 The committee appointed at a previous meeting to petition 
 the Legislature to exempt the property of the College from 
 taxation, reported that the Legislature had not complied with 
 the request. 
 
 Walter Minto, LL.D., a distinguished mathematical scholar 
 and astronomer, was appointed Professor of Mathematics and 
 Natural Philosophy, and held this office until his decease, in 
 1796.* He was a native of Scotland, educated at Edinburgh, 
 and before his coming to America had made himself known to 
 the scientific world by his mathematical and astronomical pub- 
 lications. 
 
 The Rev. Manasseh Cutler, LL.D., of Connecticut, a man of 
 much note in his day, gives the following account of the Col- 
 lege at this time (1787) : " I then called upon Dr. Smith, Vice- 
 President of the College, to whom I also had letters. He is a 
 young gentleman, lives in an elegant style, and is the first 
 literary character in this State. He waited on me to the Col- 
 lege, introduced me to all the Tutors, and showed me the apart- 
 ments of the College. The building is of three stones, has 
 three cross entries, and a long one in the first story. The 
 chambers open into these entries and render the communica- 
 tion more convenient. The library is small. . . . The cabinet 
 and the philosophical apparatus are very indifferent. The only 
 article worthy of notice was the orrery made by Mr. Ritten- 
 house. This is an elegant machine, and much exceeds any that 
 has been made in Europe. ... I was much pleased with the 
 Hall and the stage erected for the exhibition. It is well formed 
 for plays, which are permitted here, and the dialogue speaking 
 principally cultivated. The Hall is ornamented with several 
 paintings, particularly the famous battle in the town," etc. The 
 remark concerning the permitting of plays on the College stage 
 
 * An interesting sketch of Dr. Minto is given in the " Princeton Magazine" for 
 1850, from the pen of the editor.
 
 348 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 is only in so far correct as dialogues may be classed under this 
 head. To a communication to the New Jersey Historical So- 
 ciety, by President Tuttle, of Wabash College, we are indebted 
 for the above extract from Dr. Cutler's "Journal." The same 
 gentleman communicated to the " Newark Daily Advertiser," 
 in a letter of the date of August 23, 1873, a description of some 
 pamphlets recently found by him in the course of his anti- 
 quarian researches, and among these pamphlets is one with 
 the following title-page : " The Military Glory of Great Britain, 
 an Entertainment given by the late candidates for Bachelor's 
 degrees, at the close of the Anniversary Commencement, in 
 Nassau Hall, New Jersey, September 29, 1762. Philadelphia: 
 printed by Wm. Bradford, MDCCLXII." Dr. Tuttle quaintly 
 remarks that " the careful reader of this poetical drama will be 
 convinced that Shakspeare and Ben Jonson are in no danger 
 from this competitor." But our object in referring to it in 
 connection with Dr. Cutler's remark respecting the College 
 stage is to show the wide range given to College exhibitions in 
 the earlier periods of the College history. 
 
 The Commencement for the year 1788 was held on Wednes- 
 day, the 24th of September. Dr. Timothy Johnes, a Trustee 
 named in Governor Belcher's charter of the College, resigned 
 his seat at the Board, and the Rev. Andrew Hunter, of Wood- 
 bury, New Jersey, was chosen in his place. The thanks of the 
 Board were tendered to Dr. Johnes " for his long and faithful 
 services." 
 
 There having been some relaxation permitted during and 
 since the war in the law requiring a residence of two years in 
 the College previous to receiving the first degree in the Arts, it 
 was " Ordered, That after the next session of the College the 
 law be strictly enforced." 
 
 Mr. Isaac Snowden, Jr., was chosen Treasurer of the College, 
 and took the oaths of office. 
 
 Mr. Imlay having resigned his position of Tutor, Mr. Van- 
 cleve and Mr. Samuel Harris were chosen Tutors by the Board, 
 and were qualified as required by the charter. 
 
 The following resolution was adopted in regard to the 
 Faculty :
 
 DR. WITHERSPOON'S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 349 
 
 " Whereas regular Professorships are now established in this institution, it is 
 therefore resolved and ordered, That the president and professors form the faculty, 
 and that the government of the College be vested in the said faculty, whose authority 
 shall extend to every part of the discipline, except the final expulsion of a student, 
 which shall not take place unless by the order of this board, or unless six trustees 
 shall have been convened for the purpose, and their consent obtained." 
 
 The Commencement for 1790 took place on Wednesday, the 
 28th of September. Fourteen candidates were admitted to their 
 first degree in the Arts. 
 
 " It was ordered, That the names of Mr. James Bayard, Thomas H. McCalla, 
 James Crawford, and James Brownfield, omitted to be inserted in the catalogue for 
 the year 1777, be now inserted in their proper place." 
 
 The Rev. Ashbel Green was chosen a Trustee, in the room of 
 the Rev. Dr. Duffield, deceased, and the Rev. James Armstrong, 
 in the room of the Rev. Alexander Miller, resigned. 
 
 Dr. McWhorter, from the committee appointed to settle with 
 Elisha Boudinot, Esq., executor of Mrs. Esther Richards, re- 
 ported that they had made a partial settlement of the legacy 
 left by that lady to the College, and that they had received from 
 Mr. Boudinot, in loan-office certificates, of the date of 1 778, three 
 thousand dollars, and of the date of 1779, three hundred dollars, 
 which he is directed to pay to the Treasurer. 
 
 The thanks of the Board were presented to Mr. Boudinot for 
 his care and attention to the interests of the College in ascer- 
 taining and securing the legacy left by Mrs. Richards to this 
 institution. Mr. Silas Wood was chosen a Tutor in the place 
 of Mr. Samuel Harris, deceased. 
 
 " It was ordered, That the Treasurer provide a folio book, in which shall be re- 
 corded the benefactions which have been, and may be, at different times, made to 
 this College, with the names of the benefactors." 
 
 Most of the philosophical apparatus belonging to the Col- 
 lege having been destroyed or carried off during the late war, 
 the Board " resolved to use their utmost endeavors to procure 
 such a sum of money as shall be adequate to supply the de- 
 ficiency." 
 
 The Commencement for 1791 took place on the 27th of Sep- 
 tember, and the Board met, according to adjournment, on the
 
 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 preceding day, Governor Patterson, President Witherspoon, and 
 eighteen other Trustees being present. Twenty-five candidates 
 were admitted to their first degree in the Arts. The degree of 
 LL.D. was conferred upon the Hon. Thomas Jefferson, Secre- 
 tary of State, and also upon the Hon. Alexander Hamilton, 
 Secretary of the Treasury. 
 
 A committee from the General Assembly of the Presbyterian 
 Church waited upon the Board to inquire into the state of the 
 fund for the education of pious youth, which was deposited in 
 the treasury of the College, the interest of this fund having been 
 placed at the disposal of the Synod of New York and Phila- 
 delphia, now the General Assembly. The Board, not being pre- 
 pared at once to give a definite answer to the committee from the 
 General* Assembly, appointed a committee of five members to 
 inquire into the condition of the fund, and to report to the Rev. 
 Nathaniel Irwin, the Chairman of the Assembly's committee. 
 The College committee consisted of Dr. Harris, Dr. Boudinot, 
 Jonathan B. Smith, Esq., Isaac Snowden, Esq., and Dr. Green, 
 all of the city of Philadelphia. Richard Stockton, Esq., was 
 chosen a Trustee, in the room of Governor Patterson, who, in 
 virtue of his office as Governor of the State, was the President 
 of the Board. 
 
 Mr. Isaac Snowden, Jr., having resigned the office of Treas- 
 urer, Mr. John Harrison, of Princeton, was chosen Treasurer of 
 the College. The Board resolved to renew their application to 
 Congress for a reimbursement of damages sustained by the 
 College during the war, and for rent while it was used for the 
 service of the United States ; and Dr. Boudinot, Dr. Green, and 
 Mr. Jonathan Bayard Smith were the committee to make the 
 application. 
 
 A committee was also appointed to make another revision of 
 the laws of the College. 
 
 The next meeting of the Board was held on Tuesday, the 
 25th of September, 1792, and on the following day the usual 
 Commencement exercises took place, and the first degree in the 
 Arts was conferred upon thirty-seven graduates. This is the 
 largest number ever graduated at this College up to this date, 
 and for several years after.
 
 DR. WITHERSPOON'S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 351 
 
 " The committee appointed at the meeting of the Board, in September last, to 
 examine into the whole stock of the College, and bring forward the accounts to 
 April, 1792," made a report through their chairman, Dr. Boudinot. "The report 
 was approved, and the same committee continued, and directed to endeavor to make 
 a final report at the next meeting of the Board." 
 
 " A copy of the Will of Mr. James Leslie, of New York, leaving a certain legacy 
 to the Direction of the Trustees of New Jersey College, for the education of poor 
 and pious youth with a view to the ministry of the gospel in the Presbyterian Church, 
 was produced to the Board. Ordered, That the same be recorded at large in the 
 book to be appropriated to record all Donations to this College." 
 
 On the 2Oth of August, 1793, there was a special meeting of 
 the Board to consider a proposal, or suggestion, from the Trus- 
 tees of Queen's College, New Brunswick, in reference to a union 
 of the two colleges. The minutes relative to this matter are the 
 following: 
 
 "A letter was laid before the Board from Archibald Mercer, Esq., in the follow- 
 ing terms : ' In the Board of Trustees of Queen's College in New Jersey, Resolved, 
 That a committee be appointed to confer with the trustees of the College of New 
 Jersey, or a committee of said trustees, on the subject of a federal union between 
 the Colleges. 
 
 ' ' Ordered, That the committee consist of General Frelinghuysen, Dr. Linn, A. 
 Mercer, A. Kirkpatrick, and James Schureman, Esqrs. 
 
 " ' JAMES SCHUREMAN, Clerk. 
 
 " ' SIR, I take the earliest opportunity to convey to you the above resolution of 
 Queen's College, being, with respect, 
 
 " ' Your obedient, humble servant, 
 
 "'ARCHIBALD MERCER, President P. T. 
 
 " ' To the Rev. Dr. WITHERSPOON, President of the Board of Trustees of the 
 College of New Jersey.' 
 
 " Resolved, That a committee of this Board be appointed to meet with the com- 
 mittee above appointed on the part of the trustees of Queen's College, or with the 
 Board of said Trustees, and confer with them on the subject of an union of the two 
 colleges, who shall lay the result of their conference before this Board at their next 
 meeting; and 
 
 "Resolved, That the committee consist of the following gentlemen: Dr. Wither- 
 spoon, Dr. Rodgers, Dr. Boudinot, Dr. Beatty, Colonel Bayard, and Mr. Woodhull. 
 
 " Ordered, That the President transmit a copy of the above resolution to the 
 President of the Board of Trustees of Queen's College." 
 
 At the next meeting of the Board, which occurred on 
 Wednesday, the 25th of September, the day of the annual 
 Commencement, the committee made their report, which was 
 as follows :
 
 352 HlSl^ORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 "NEW BRUNSWICK, September 10, 1793. 
 
 " The committees of the Trustees of the College of New Jersey and Queen's 
 College, appointed to confer upon the subject of a union between the two colleges, 
 met here this day, in pursuance of notice previously given for that purpose, viz. : 
 
 "From the College of New Jersey. The Rev. John Witherspoon, D.D., the 
 Rev. John Woodhull, Elias Boudinot, John Bayard, Esqrs. 
 
 " From Queen's College. Archibald Mercer, Frederick Frelinghuysen, James 
 Schureman, Andrew Kirkpatrick, Esqrs. 
 
 "The committees appointed Elias Boudinot, Esq., Chairman, Andrew Kirk- 
 patrick, Esq., Clerk, and then went into a free conference on the subject of the 
 proposed union : whereupon, 
 
 " Resolved, unanimously, That a perfect incorporating and consolidating union 
 between the two colleges will be the most proper and beneficial union, and will 
 tend to the promotion of learning. 
 
 " Resolved, unanimously, That in order to effect this union application be made 
 by both colleges to the legislature for a new charter; that the trustees to be named 
 in the new charter consist of twenty-eight in number. That is to say, the Governor 
 of the State for the time being, the President of the college for the time being, and 
 thirteen of the trustees of each of the said colleges, being inhabitants of New 
 Jersey, to be chosen and named by their respective boards. 
 
 " Resolved, unanimously, That no person not an inhabitant of the State of New 
 Jersey shall at any time be a trustee of the college so to be constituted. 
 
 " Resolved, unanimously, That an institution at New Brunswick be established 
 and supported by the bye-laws of the trustees of the said college, in which shall 
 be taught the learning preparatory to entering the first class in the college, and 
 that no other institution at Princeton shall be supported at the expense of the said 
 trustees in which the same things shall be taught. 
 
 " Resolved, unanimously, That the present officers of New Jersey College be the 
 officers of the college to be established on the foregoing principles. 
 
 " Resolved, That the foregoing resolutions be submitted to the boards of trustees 
 of the said two colleges, by their respective committees, for their consideration. 
 
 " ELIAS BOUDINOT, Chairman." 
 
 The consideration of this report was postponed until the next 
 meeting of the Board. As there was a bare quorum present, 
 it was deemed inexpedient to decide so important a measure 
 as that presented in the report of the two committees, and for 
 this reason the consideration of it was deferred, and the Presi- 
 dent was authorized to call a meeting of the Board when in his 
 judgment circumstances would justify it. The small number in 
 attendance at this meeting was due to the general panic in the 
 community occasioned by the prevalence of the yellow fever in 
 Philadelphia. 
 
 Twenty-one members of the Senior class were admitted to 
 their first degree in the Arts.
 
 DR. WITHERSPOON'S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 353 
 
 Mr. John Abeel, one of the Tutors, having resigned his office, 
 the Faculty were authorized to appoint another in his room, if 
 they find it necessary. 
 
 The next meeting of the Board was held at Princeton, on the 
 1 3th of December, 1793. The first business, after reading the 
 minutes of the previous meeting, was the reading of the follow- 
 ing letter from Archibald Mercer, Esq.: 
 
 " MILLSTONE, November 20, 1793. 
 
 " SIR, The trustees of Queen's College met yesterday, and, I am sorry to inform 
 you, wholly rejected the report of the committees respecting the proposed union of 
 the Colleges. 
 
 " I have the honor to be, Sir, with the utmost respect, 
 " Your obliged humble servant, 
 
 " ARCHIBALD MERCER, P. P. T. 
 
 " To the Rev. Dr. JOHN WITHERSPOON, President of the Board of Trustees of 
 the College of New Jersey." 
 
 Thus ended this negotiation, and no further action was taken 
 in regard to it by the Trustees of the College of New Jersey. 
 The writer thinks it doubtful whether the Trustees of the 
 College of New Jersey would have given their consent to the 
 proposed union had they discussed the measure and taken a 
 vote on the proposed plan, one most extraordinary feature of 
 this plan being that which compels every trustee of the united 
 colleges to be an inhabitant of the State of New Jersey, inas- 
 much as some of the most valuable trustees of these institutions 
 were residents of New York and Philadelphia, and had been so 
 from the beginning. 
 
 It is known that Dr. Witherspoon, after accepting the office 
 of President of this College but before coming to this country, 
 made a visit to Holland in the interests of the College, but 
 what special objects he had in view are not clearly known. 
 But while in Holland he visited Utrecht, where the Rev. Dr. 
 John Livingston, then a student of theology, was pursuing 
 his professional studies, and they had an interview and a con- 
 versation in reference to the proper policy to be pursued in 
 America by the friends of true religion and sound learning, and 
 came to an understanding that they would favor the adoption 
 of a scheme according to which the Reformed Dutch Church 
 should establish a theological professorship of their own, but
 
 354 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 that for the academical education of their youth they should 
 avail themselves of the facilities afforded by the College at 
 Princeton. But this measure did not meet the views of the 
 larger party in the Reformed Dutch Church, which at the time 
 of Dr. Witherspoon's arrival in this country had taken meas- 
 ures for obtaining a charter for a college to be under the control 
 of members of their own Church, and in 1770 they succeeded 
 in obtaining from Governor Franklin and his Council such a 
 charter. (See Judge Bradley's Centennial Discourse at Rutgers 
 College in 1870.) 
 
 The friends of both institutions at this day can probably see 
 that it was better for the interests of religion and learning that 
 th.e negotiations for a union of the two colleges were unsuc- 
 cessful. Each college has done a great and good work for the 
 best interests of both the Church and the State, and it is hoped 
 they will continue to be generous rivals in this good work, and 
 be able to increase in usefulness as they advance in age, wealth, 
 and members. 
 
 Mr. William P. Smith having tendered his resignation as a 
 Trustee, it was accepted, and the thanks of the Board were 
 tendered to him for his long and faithful services. Mr. Smith 
 was a Trustee for forty-five years. 
 
 The Hon. William Patterson was chosen a Trustee in the 
 room of Mr. Smith, resigned, and the Rev. Jacob Van Arsdalen 
 and Joseph Bloomfield, Esq., were chosen in the place of the 
 Rev. Dr. Robert Smith and the Rev. Israel Read, deceased. 
 
 At the next meeting of the Board the Committee on Ac- 
 counts presented a brief account, and the Committee was 
 continued. 
 
 "A question having arisen, whether this corporation have a 
 right to appropriate the charity of Mr. Leslie to defray the 
 expense of the maintenance and clothing as well as of the 
 instruction of poor and pious youth for the gospel ministry, it 
 was determined by the corporation that they have this right."* 
 
 * A report was made to the Board, at this meeting, of the certificates deposited in 
 the office of James Ewing, Esq., Commissioner for New Jersey. The amounts of 
 these certificates were as follows :
 
 DR. WITHERSPOON'S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 355 
 
 Mr. Silas Wood having resigned the office of Tutor, Mr. 
 David English was elected a Tutor in his room. 
 
 The next meeting of the Board was held on the 23d and 24th 
 of September, 1794, and it was the last meeting ever attended 
 by Dr. Witherspoon, who died a few weeks after. 
 
 The Commencement exercises took place on the 24th. The 
 number of candidates admitted to the first degree in the Arts 
 was twenty-seven. 
 
 Dr. Rodgers made a report of the moneys in the hands of 
 Mr. Leslie's executors in New York, from which it appeared 
 that they had in their possession bank shares and bonds, and 
 cash to the value of ,711.15.1 New York currency.* There 
 were also two houses in the city of New York, value uncertain. 
 
 The Committee on Accounts was continued. 
 
 The Faculty of the College, finding their salaries insufficient 
 for the support of their families, in consequence of the great 
 increase in the prices of all the necessaries of life, which are 
 from twenty-five to ten per cent, higher than they were two or 
 three years ago, request the Board to devise some means of 
 augmenting their salaries in proportion to the augmentation 
 that has taken place in the price of grain. 
 
 MR. JAMES LESLIE'S LEGACY. 
 
 One certificate, six per cents $4,364.32 
 
 " " three per cents 2,273.41 
 
 " " deferred stock .... 4,039.76 
 
 ^10,677.49 
 
 MRS. RICHARDS'S LEGACY. 
 
 One certificate, six per cents. .... $1,119.15 
 " " three per cents. .... 1,291.60 
 
 " " deferred stock .... 559-57 
 
 $2,970.32 
 
 COLLEGE FUNDS. 
 
 One certificate, six per cents. .... $3,404.63 
 
 " " three per cents 1,643.47 
 
 " " deferred stock .... 402.31 
 
 * " Resolved, That the Rev. Dr. Rodgers be empowered to receive whatever 
 sums are in the hands of Mr. Leslie's executors in the city of New York."
 
 356 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 This the Faculty conceived might be done " without encroach- 
 ing on the College funds destined for other purposes, by in- 
 creasing the tuition, etc., of the students. This it is hoped will 
 appear neither unreasonable nor improper to the Trustees, as 
 they have found it both reasonable and necessary to raise the 
 price of board with the Steward fifty per cent, within a few 
 years." 
 
 The Trustees postponed the final decision of this subject to 
 the next meeting. 
 
 Dr. Rodgers was desired to request the executors of Mr. 
 Leslie, in New York, to invest the whole property coming to 
 the College in stock of the Bank of New York, and to transfer 
 the same to the Trustees of the College. 
 
 The Treasurer reported that he had received from seventy- 
 nine students, for tuition-fees and room-rent, one thousand one 
 hundred and seventy-five dollars; from which it appears that the 
 annual charge for tuition and rent of room to each student 
 was a little less than thirty dollars, being eleven pounds New 
 Jersey currency. 
 
 The Committee on Accounts made a report, and was con- 
 tinued, in order to bring up the accounts to the present date. 
 
 The foregoing detail shows the great difficulties with which 
 the College had to contend throughout the administration of 
 Dr. Witherspoon, and the strenuous efforts made to meet and 
 overcome them. These difficulties might all have been summed 
 up in a few words, a want of funds and a want of students ; both 
 of these wants being occasioned chiefly by the impoverished 
 condition of the country consequent upon the war of the Revo- 
 lution. At the time Dr. Witherspoon took charge of the Col- 
 lege it was much embarrassed for want of funds, and the ener- 
 getic measures adopted to supply this want gave good ground 
 to hope that this hindrance to the success and usefulness of the 
 institution would soon be removed. But shortly after began 
 the political troubles which ended in a change of government, 
 and which finally gave freedom and independence to the coun- 
 try, laying the foundation of its subsequent prosperity, but, as 
 their immediate result, producing for several years great finan- 
 cial embarrassment.
 
 DR. WITHERSPOON'S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 357 
 
 It is believed that no general statement of the affairs of the 
 institution can make so deep an impression, respecting the 
 trials and struggles to which the President, Trustees, and other 
 officers and friends of the College were subjected during this 
 period of its history, as a recital of their constant and untiring 
 efforts in its behalf; and this is our apology, if one be needed, 
 for dwelling so long upon these things. 
 
 But there is a brighter side to this picture of College affairs. 
 For notwithstanding all the impediments in the way, occasioned 
 by the dispersion of the students, the occupation and dilapida- 
 tion of the College building by both British and American 
 soldiery, the destruction of property and of funds, and the 
 injury done to the apparatus and the library, in as short a time 
 as possible the College was again opened for the reception of 
 students, and more ample provision than ever before was made 
 for the thorough instruction of the pupils in all those branches 
 which in that day claimed the attention of college youth. 
 
 Although the College exercises were for a time suspended, 
 yet every year there were some candidates for the first degree 
 in the Arts, whose names are given in the Triennial Catalogue 
 of the College; the smallest number being jive, in 1778, and 
 the largest thirty-seven, in 1792. And although the average 
 number of graduates did not exceed nineteen a year, there is 
 probably no period in the history of the institution during 
 which so large a proportion of the students, in after-life, rose 
 to distinction. This may be accounted for in part by the cir- 
 cumstances of the country, which called forth all the energies 
 of which these men were possessed, but still not a little may 
 be claimed for the training which they here received under 
 their able and patriotic teachers. 
 
 Of the four hundred and sixty-nine graduates of the College from 1769 to 1794, 
 one hundred and fourteen became ministers of the gospel, of whom seventy-five 
 were graduated from 1769 to 1776. After the war began, the candidates for the 
 ministry were much fewer in number in proportion to the whole than they were 
 before that event. Many of these ministers, who were trained under Dr. Wither- 
 spoon and his associates in the Faculty, became prominent and influential men in 
 the Church and in the community at large. Among them were the following-named 
 Presidents and Professors of Colleges in the Middle and Southern States. The 
 names are given in the order of their graduation. Of the class of
 
 358 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 1769. Samuel Stanhope Smith, Dr. Witherspoon's successor in the Presidency 
 of the College of New Jersey. 
 
 1772. Andrew Hutiter, Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy in the same 
 College. 
 
 1772. Samuel Eusebius McCorkle, Professor of Moral and Political Philosophy 
 in the University of North Carolina. 
 
 1772. John McMillan, Vice-President of Jefferson College, Pennsylvania, ar.cl 
 Professor of Theology in the same College. 
 
 1773. Thaddeus Dod, the Founder and President of Washington Academy, 
 afterwards Washington College, Pennsylvania. 
 
 1773. James Dunlap, President of Jefferson College, Pennsylvania. 
 1773. William Graham, Founder and President of Liberty Hall, afterwards 
 Washington College, Virginia. 
 
 1773. John McKnight, President of Dickinson College, Pennsylvania. 
 
 1773. John Blair Smith, President of Hampden Sidney College, Virginia, and 
 also of Union College, Schenectady, New York. 
 
 1774. Thomas Harris Maccaulle, President of Mount Sion College, South 
 Carolina. 
 
 1775. Samuel Doak, President of Washington College, Tennessee. 
 
 1783. Ashbel Green, President of the College of New Jersey. 
 
 1784. IraCondit, Vice-President of Queen's College, now Rutgers, New Jersey, 
 and Professor of Moral Philosophy in the same. 
 
 1787. Robert Finley, President of the University' of Georgia. 
 1787. Elijah D. Rattoone, President of Charleston College, South Carolina, 
 and a Presbyter of the Protestant Episcopal Church. 
 
 1789. Robert Helt Chapman, President of the University of North Carolina. 
 1791. Joseph Caldwell, President of the same University before Dr. Chapman. 
 
 1793. John Henry Hobart, Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church, New 
 York, and Professor of Pastoral Theology and Pulpit Eloquence in the Theo- 
 logical Seminary of the Episcopal Church. 
 
 1794. Henry Kollock, Professor of Theology in the College of New Jersey. 
 
 Some of those here named were eminent as preachers of the gospel as well as 
 teachers in the higher seminaries of learning. 
 
 To this list may be added the names of not a few others who were men of note 
 as able and successful pastors of churches, e.g. : 
 
 1769. Samuel Niles, at Abington, Massachusetts. 
 
 1769. Elihu Thayer, at Kingston, New Hampshire. 
 
 1770. Nathaniel Irwin, at Neshaminy, Pennsylvania. 
 
 1770. Nathan Perkins, at West Hartford, Connecticut. 
 
 1771. John Black, at Upper Mars Creek, York County, Pennsylvania. 
 
 1771. Samuel Spring, at Newburyport, Massachusetts. 
 
 1772. Joseph Eckley, at Boston, Massachusetts. 
 1772. James Grier, at Deep Run, Pennsylvania. 
 
 1772. William Linn, at New York City, Reformed Dutch Church. 
 
 1773. John Francis Armstrong, at Trenton, New Jersey ; a Trustee of the College. 
 1773. Ebenezer Bradford, at Rowley, Massachusetts.
 
 DR. WITHERSPOON'S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 359 
 
 1773. Lewis Feuilleteau Wilson, at Concord, North Carolina. 
 
 1774. Stephen Bloomer Balch, at Georgetown, District of Columbia. 
 
 1774. James Hall, at Fourth Creek, Concord, and Bethany, North Carolina. 
 
 1775. John Durburrow Blair, at Richmond, Virginia. 
 1775. Isaac Stockton Keith, at Charleston, South Carolina. 
 1775. James McCrie, at Steel Creek, North Carolina. 
 1775. John Springer, at Washington, Georgia. 
 
 1778. William Boyd, at Lamington, New Jersey; a Trustee of the College. 
 1781. Joseph Clark, at New Brunswick, New Jersey; a Trustee of the College. 
 
 1783. Gilbert Tennent Snowden, at Cranbury, New Jersey. 
 
 1784. Joseph Clay, at Savannah, Georgia; Baptist Church. 
 
 1787. John Nelson Abeel, at New York; Reformed Dutch Church. 
 
 1788. Aaron Condict, at Hanover, New Jersey. 
 
 1789. Thomas Pitt Irving, at Hagerstown, Maryland; Principal of the Academy 
 there, and Rector of the Episcopal Church. 
 
 1790. George Spafford Woodhull, at Princeton, and a Trustee of the College. 
 1793. Isaac Van Dorem, at Hopewell, New York; Reformed Dutch Church, 
 
 and afterwards Principal of the Newark Academy. 
 
 Of the graduates from 1769 to 1794 inclusive, six were members of the Conti- 
 nental Congress, twenty became Senators of the United States, and twenty-three 
 members of the House of Representatives. Of the class of 
 
 1769. John Beatty, Delegate to the Continental Congress, from New Jersey. 
 
 1769. John Henry, Delegate to the Continental Congress, from Maryland. 
 1771. Gunning Bedford, Delegate to the Continental Congress, from Delaware. 
 
 1771. James Madison, Delegate to the Continental Congress, from Virginia. 
 1773. Morgan Lewis, Delegate to the Continental Congress, from New York. 
 
 1773. Henry Lee, Delegate to the Continental Congress, from Virginia. 
 
 UNITED STATES SENATORS. 
 
 1770. Frederick Frelinghuysen, from New Jersey. 
 
 1772. Aaron Burr, from New York. 
 
 1773. Aaron Ogden, from New Jersey. 
 
 1774. John Ewing Calhoun, from South Carolina. 
 
 1774. Jonathan Mason, from Massachusetts. 
 
 1775. Isaac Tichenor, from Vermont. 
 
 1776. Jonathan Dayton, from New Jersey. 
 1776. John Rutherford, from New York. 
 
 1779. Richard Stockton, from New Jersey. 
 
 1780. Abraham R. Venable, from Virginia. 
 
 1781. William Branch Giles, from Virginia. 
 1781. Edward Livingston, from Louisiana. 
 
 1784. James Ashton Bayard, from Delaware. 
 
 1785. Robert Goodloe Harper, from Maryland. 
 
 1788. David Stone, from North Carolina. 
 
 1789. Mahlon Dickerson, from New Jersey. 
 
 1 790. John Taylor, from South Carolina.
 
 360 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 1791. Jacob Burnet, from Ohio. 
 
 1792. George M. Bibb, from Kentucky. 
 
 1794. George Washington Campbell, from Tennessee. 
 
 MEMBERS OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 
 1769. James Linn, from New Jersey. 
 1772. David Bard, from Pennsylvania. 
 
 1774. Win. Stevens Smith, from New York. 
 
 1775. John Andrew Scudder, from New Jersey. 
 
 1776. Nathaniel Alexander, from North Carolina. 
 1776. John W. Kittera, from Pennsylvania. 
 
 .. 1781. William Crawford, from Pennsylvania. 
 1782. Conrad Elmendorf, from New York. 
 1782. John A. Hanna, from Pennsylvania. 
 
 1784. Peter R. Livingston, from New York. 
 
 1785. James Wilken, from New York. 
 
 1786. John Henderson Imlay, from New Jersey. 
 
 1787. Evan Alexander, from North Carolina. 
 
 1788. Nathaniel W. Howell, from New York. 
 1788. Wm. Kirkpatrick, from New York. 
 
 1788. Nicholas Van Dyke, from Delaware. 
 
 1789. Isaac Pierson, from New Jersey. 
 1789. Ephraim King Wilson, from Maryland. 
 1789. Silas Wood, from New York. 
 
 1792. Wm. Chatwood, from New Jersey. 
 1792. Peter Early, from Georgia. 
 1792. George C. Maxwell, from New Jersey. 
 1794. Thomas M. Bayly, from Virginia. 
 1794. James M. Broome, from Delaware. 
 
 Of the above-named members of Congress, 
 
 James Madison was the fourth President of the United States. 
 
 Aaron Burr was the third Vice-President. 
 
 John Henry was Governor of Maryland. 
 
 Gunning Bedford was Governor of Delaware. 
 
 Henry Lee was Governor of Virginia. 
 
 Morgan Lewis was Governor of New York. 
 
 Aaron Ogden was Governor of New Jersey. 
 
 Isaac Tichenor was Governor of Vermont. 
 
 Nathaniel Alexander was Governor of North Carolina. 
 
 Wm. Branch Giles was Governor of Virginia. 
 
 David Stone was Governor of North Carolina. 
 
 Mahlon Dickerson was Governor of New Jersey. 
 
 John Taylor was Governor of South Carolina. 
 
 Peter Early was Governor of Georgia. 
 
 And to this list of Governors of several of the States may be added William 
 Richardson Davie, Governor of North Carolina, also Envoy, with Ellsworth, an 
 older graduate, to P'rance.
 
 DR. WITHERSPOON' S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 361 
 
 Of the graduates of this period, three became Judges of the Supreme Court of the 
 United States, viz. : of the class of 
 
 1774. Brockholst Livingston, of New York. 
 1788. Smith Thompson, of New York. 
 
 1790. William Johnson, of South Carolina. 
 
 Not a few others became distinguished, some for their culture of letters, some 
 for their medical skill and knowledge, others for their legal attainments and 
 as judges, some as army officers, and others still as active and useful citizens. 
 Of these, without undertaking to mention all, the following include the best- 
 known : 
 
 1770. James Witherspoon, of New Jersey, son of President Witherspoon, killed 
 at the battle of Germantown. 
 
 1771. Hugh Henry Brackenridge, of Pennsylvania, Judge of the Supreme Court. 
 1771. Charles McKnight, of New York, Surgeon-General of the United States 
 
 Army. 
 
 1771. Donald Campbell, of New York, Colonel in the United States Army. 
 
 1771. Philip Freneau, of New Jersey, Poet, and Writer on Politics. 
 
 1772. Win. Bradford, of Pennsylvania, Attorney-General of the United States. 
 
 1773. Hugh Hodge, of Pennsylvania, Physician, Surgeon in the United States 
 Army. 
 
 1774. John Noble Gumming, of New Jersey, General in the Army. 
 
 1775. Andrew Kirkpatrick, of New Jersey, Chief Justice. 
 
 1775. Charles Lee, of Virginia, Attorney-General of the United States. 
 1775. Spruce Macay, of North Carolina, Judge of the Superior Court. 
 
 1775. John R. B. Rodgers, M.D., of New York, Physician, and Professor in 
 Columbia College. 
 
 1776. John Pintard, of New York, chief founder of the New York Historical 
 Society. 
 
 1777. John Young Noel, of Georgia, Lawyer of much eminence. 
 
 1778. Jacob Morton, of New York, Justice of the City Court, etc. 
 
 1779. Andrew Bayard, of Pennsylvania, Trustee of the College. 
 1779. Matthew McCallister, of Georgia, Judge of the Superior Court. 
 1779. James Riddle, of Pennsylvania, Judge of the Supreme Court. 
 
 1779. Aaron Dickinson Woodruff, of New Jersey, Attorney-General. 
 
 1780. Ebenezer Stockton, of New Jersey, Physician, Assistant-Surgeon in the 
 United States Army. 
 
 1783. Nathaniel Lawrence, of New York, Attorney-General. 
 1783. Jacob Radcliff, of New York, Judge of the Supreme Court. 
 
 1783. George Whitefield Woodruff, of Georgia, Attorney-General. 
 
 1784. Gabriel Ford, of New Jersey, Judge of the Supreme Court. 
 
 1784. Samuel Bayard, of New Jersey, Trustee and Treasurer of the College. 
 
 1785. John Vernon Henry, of New York, Lawyer, Doctor of Laws. 
 
 1786. Charles Smith, of New Jersey, Physician, Trustee of Queen's College. 
 
 1788. John Wells, of New York, Lawyer, Doctor of Laws. 
 
 1789. David Hosack, of New York, Professor in the College of Physicians and 
 Surgeons, Doctor of Laws. 
 
 1791. Elias Van Artsdale, of New Jersey, Lawyer, Doctor of Laws. 
 VOL. I. 24
 
 362 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 1792. Charles Wilson Harris, of North Carolina, Professor in the University of 
 North Carolina, and afterwards an eminent lawyer. 
 
 1792. John C. Otto, of Pennsylvania, Vice-President of the College of Physi- 
 cians. 
 
 1793. John Neilson, of New York, Physician. 
 
 1794. John N. Simpson, of New Jersey, an efficient friend of popular educa- 
 tion and internal improvements. 
 
 Of the graduates named above as admitted to their first degree, from 1769 to 1780 
 inclusive, more than twenty were officers in the United States Army during the War 
 for Independence, and all of them young men. 
 
 Of the course of instruction in the year 1772, and of the government of the Col- 
 lege, Dr. Witherspoon, in an address to the inhabitants of Jamaica and other West 
 India islands, gives the following account: "The regular course of instruction is 
 in four classes, exactly after the manner and bearing the names of the classes in 
 the English Universities, Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, and Senior. In the first 
 year they read Latin and Greek, with Roman and Grecian antiquities, and Rhetoric. 
 In the second, continuing the study of the languages, they learn a complete system 
 of geography, with the use of the globes, the first principles of philosophy, and the 
 elements of mathematical knowledge. The third, though the languages are not 
 wholly omitted, is chiefly employed in mathematics and natural philosophy. And 
 the senior year is employed in reading the higher classics, proceeding in the mathe- 
 matics and natural philosophy, and going through a course of moral philosophy. 
 In addition to these, the President gives lectures to the juniors and seniors, which, 
 consequently, every student hears twice over in his course, first upon chronology 
 and history, and afterwards upon composition and criticism. He also taught the 
 French language last winter, and it will continue to be taught to those who desire 
 to learn it. 
 
 " During the whole course of their studies, the three younger classes, two every 
 evening formerly, and now three, because of their increased number, pronounce an 
 oration, on the stage erected for that purpose in the hall, immediafely after prayers ; 
 that they may learn, by early habit, presence of mind, and proper pronunciation and 
 gesture in public speaking. This excellent practice, which has been kept up 
 almost from the first foundation of the College, has had the most admirable effects. 
 The senior scholars, every five or six weeks, pronounce orations of their own com- 
 position, to which all persons of any note in the neighborhood are invited or 
 admitted. 
 
 " The College is now furnished with all the most important helps to instruction. 
 The library contains a very large collection of valuable books. The lessons of 
 astronomy are given upon the orrery lately invented by David Rittenhouse, Esq., 
 which is reckoned by the best judges the most excellent in its kind of any ever yet 
 produced ; and when what is commissioned and now upon its way is added to what 
 the College already possesses, the apparatus for mathematics and natural philosophy 
 will be equal if not superior to any on the continent. 
 
 ..." There is a fixed annual commencement on the last Wednesday of Sep- 
 tember, when, after a variety of public exercises, always attended by a vast con- 
 course of the politest company from different parts of this province and the cities 
 of New York and Philadelphia, the students whose senior year is expiring are
 
 DR. WITHERSPOON'S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 363 
 
 admitted to the degree of Bachelor of Arts ; the Bachelors of three years' standing 
 to the degrees of Masters; and such other higher degrees granted as are either reg- 
 ularly claimed or the Trustees think proper to bestow upon those who have distin- 
 guished themselves by their literary productions or their appearances in public life. 
 
 "On the day preceding the commencement last year [1771] there was (and it 
 will be continued hereafter) a public exhibition and voluntary competition for 
 prizes, open for every member of the College. These were first, second, and third 
 prizes on each of the following subjects: i. Reading the English language with 
 propriety and grace, and being able to answer all questions on its orthography and 
 grammar. 2. Reading the Latin and Greek languages in the same manner, with 
 particular attention to true quantity. 3. Speaking Latin. 4. Latin versions. 5. 
 Pronouncing English orations. The preference was determined by ballot, and all 
 present permitted to vote who were graduates of this or any other College. 
 
 " As to the government of the College, no correction by stripes is permitted. 
 Such as cannot be governed by reason and the principles of honor and shame are 
 reckoned unfit for a residence in a college. The collegiate censures are, I. Private 
 admonition by the president, professor, or tutor. 2. Before the Faculty. 3. Before 
 the whole class to which the offender belongs. 4. The last and highest, before all 
 the members of the College assembled in the hall. And, to preserve the weight 
 and dignity of these censures, it has been an established practice that the last or 
 highest censure, viz., public admonition, shall never be repeated upon the same 
 person. If it has bee'n thought necessary to inflict it upon any one, and if this does- 
 not preserve him from falling into such gross irregularities a second time, it is under- 
 stood that expulsion is immediately to follow. 
 
 " Through the narrowness of the funds the government and instruction has 
 hitherto been carried on by a president and three tutors. At the last commence- 
 ment the trustees chose a professor of mathematics ; and intend, as their funds are- 
 raised, to have a greater number of professorships, and carry their plan to as great 
 perfection as possible." 
 
 These extracts give a clear view of the course of instruction' 
 in 1772, and of the provision made for conducting it. It also' 
 exhibits the opinions then held as to the principles upon which 
 the government of youth in a college should proceed. Before 
 the close of Dr. Witherspoon's administration the Faculty was 
 enlarged, and consisted of the President, the Vice-President, 
 who was also Professor of Divinity and Moral Philosophy, 
 the Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, and two 
 Tutors. 
 
 In the address from which the above extracts are taken, Dr. 
 Witherspoon does not mention to what extent religious instruc- 
 tion was given in the College ; but apparently assuming that this 
 matter was fully and properly attended to, he disavows for him- 
 self and his associates any intention or desire to proselyte the
 
 364 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 youth of denominations other than their own to the peculiar 
 and distinctive views of the Presbyterian Church; and in con- 
 clusion on this head he adds, " It has been and shall be our 
 care to use every means in our power to make them good 
 men and good scholars; and if this be the case, I shall hear 
 of their future character and usefulness with unfeigned satis- 
 faction, under every name by which a real Protestant can be 
 distinguished." 
 
 THE AMERICAN WHIG AND CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETIES. 
 
 A few years before Dr. Witherspoon's accession to the Presi- 
 dency, and certainly as early as the years 1765 and 1766, two 
 literary societies were organized in the College, under the 
 names of the " Well-Meaning" and " Plain-Dealing" Clubs. In 
 consequence of some difficulties arising between these two asso- 
 ciations, they were both required to suspend their meetings and 
 to disband their organizations. In the summer, however, of 
 1769, and doubtless with the consent of the College authorities, 
 the adherents of the Plain-Dealing Club revived their associa- 
 tion, under the name of the " American Whig Society ;" and in 
 June, 1770, the members of the Well-Meaning Club reorganized 
 their association, and took the name of the " Cliosophic So- 
 ciety." Tracing its origin back to the Well-Meaning, the Clio- 
 sophic Society held its hundredth anniversary in June, 1865. 
 Whereas the American Whig Society, not regarding itself as 
 strictly a continuation of the Plain-Dealing, celebrated its cen- 
 tennial anniversary in June, 1869. 
 
 As the histories of these Societies have been given to the 
 public by Professors Giger and Cameron, with that fulness and 
 general accuracy which preclude all occasion for saying any- 
 thing further in regard to them, the writer of this work deems it 
 unnecessary to add anything to what they have so well said re- 
 specting the Societies of which they were the chosen historians. 
 
 The following-named gentlemen were members of the Faculty during Dr. Wither- 
 spoon's administration, from 1768 to 1794. 
 
 John Witherspoon, D.D., LL.D., President, and, from 1769 to 1783, Professor 
 of Divinity. 
 
 John Blair, A.M., Professor of Divinity and Moral Philosophy from 1767 to 
 1769.'
 
 DR. WITHERSPOON'S ADMINISTRATION. 365 
 
 William Churchill Houston, A.M., Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philos- 
 ophy from 1771 to 1783. 
 
 Samuel Stanhope Smith, D.D., Professor of Moral Philosophy from 1779 to 1795 ; 
 Professor of Divinity and Moral Philosophy from 1783 to 1795; Vice-President 
 from 1786 to 1795. 
 
 Ashbel Green, A.M., Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy from 
 1785 to 1787. 
 
 Walter Minto, LL.D., Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy from 
 1787 to 1796. 
 
 James Thompson, A.M., Tutor from 1762 to 1770. 
 
 Joseph Periam, A.M., Tutor from 1765 to 1766, and from 1767 to 1769. 
 
 Jonathan Edwards, A.M., Tutor from 1766 to 1769. 
 
 Ebenezer Pemberton, A.M., Tutor from 1769 to 1769. 
 
 William Churchill Houston, A.M., Tutor from 1769 to 1771. 
 
 Tapping Reeve, A.M., Tutor from 1769 to 1770. 
 
 Richard Devens, A.M., Tutor from 1770 to April, 1773 ; and again from Septem- 
 ber, 1773, to 1774. 
 
 Samuel Stanhope Smith, A.M., Tutor from 1770 to 1773. 
 
 James Grier, A.M., Tutor from 1773 to 1774. 
 
 John Duffield, A.M., Tutor from 1773 to 1775. 
 
 Lewis Feuilleteau Wilson, A.M., Tutor from 1774 to 1775. 
 
 James Dunlap, A.M., Tutor from 1775 to 1777. 
 
 John Springer, A.M., Tutor from 1775 to 1777. 
 
 George Faitoute, A.M., Tutor from 1777 to 1777. 
 
 From 1777 to 1781 there were no Tutors. The few students in College during 
 this period were instructed solely by the President and Professors. 
 
 James Riddle, A.M., Tutor from 1781 to 1783. 
 
 Ashbel Green, A.B., Tutor from 1783 to 1785. 
 
 Samuel Beach, A.B., Tutor from 1783 to 1785. 
 
 Gilbert Tennent Snowden, A.M., Tutor from 1785 to 1787. 
 
 John W. Vancleve, A.M., Tutor from 1787 to 1791. 
 
 John Henderson Imlay, A.B., Tutor from 1787 to 1788. 
 
 Samuel Harris, A.B., Tutor from 1788 to 1789. 
 
 Silas Wood, A.M., Tutor from 1789 to 1794. 
 
 John Nelson Abeel, A.M., Tutor from 1791 to 1793. 
 
 Robert Finley, A.M., Tutor from 1793 to 1795. 
 
 Charles Snowden, A.M., Tutor from 1793 to 1793. 
 
 David English, A.M., Tutor from 1794 to 1796. 
 
 Most of the gentlemen named here as Tutors of the College became men of 
 much note in the Church or State ; and not a few of them attained to great dis- 
 tinction in their several professions. For further information respecting them the 
 reader is referred to the Triennial Catalogue of the College, and to the Rev. Dr. 
 Samuel Alexander's " Princeton College." 
 
 Of those gentlemen who were Trustees of the College at the time Dr. Wither- 
 spoon was inaugurated as President, only two were members of the Board at the 
 time of his death. These were Rev. Dr. John Rodgers, of New York City, pastor 
 of the First Presbyterian Church there, and Dr. William Shippen, founder of the 
 first medical school in Philadelphia.
 
 366 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 The following were chosen Trustees after Dr. Witherspoon's accession to the 
 Presidency : viz., in 
 
 1768. William Livingston, Esq.; from 1776, ex officio President of the Board, 
 being Governor of the State. 
 
 1769. Rev. John Blair, late Vice-President of the College. 
 
 1769. Rev. James Caldwell. 
 
 1770. Rev. Jeremiah Halsey. 
 1772. Rev. Dr. Robert Smith. 
 
 1772. Rev. Dr. Alexander McWhorter. 
 1772. Elias Boudinot, Esq. 
 
 1777. Rev. Dr. George Duffield. 
 
 1778. Rev. Azel Roe. 
 1778. Colonel John Bayard. 
 
 1778. Dr. Nathaniel Scudder. 
 
 1779. Rev. Dr. John Mason. 
 
 1779. Jonathan Bayard Smith, Esq. 
 
 1780. Rev. Dr. John Woodhull. 
 
 1781. Hon. Joseph Reed. 
 
 1781. Rev. James Boyd. 
 
 1782. Isaac Snowden. 
 1782. Rev. Jonathan Elmer. 
 1785. Dr. John Beatty. 
 
 1785. Rev. Wm. Mackay Tennent. 
 1785. Rev. Alexander Miller. 
 
 1787. William Paterson, Esq., to 1790, when he became ex officio President of 
 the Board, being the Governor of the State. 
 
 1788. Rev. Andrew Hunter. 
 1790. Rev. Ashbel Green. 
 
 1790. Rev. James Francis Armstrong. 
 
 1791. Richard Stockton, Esq. 
 
 1793. Hon. William Paterson, re-elected. 
 1793. Rev. Jacob Van Artsdale. 
 1793. Joseph Bloomneld, Esq. 
 
 Treasurers of the College during Dr. W 7 itherspoon's administration : 
 
 Jonathan Sergeant, Esq., Treasurer until 1777. 
 
 Upon his decease a committee was appointed to settle with Mr. Sergeant's execu- 
 tors and to take charge of the funds. 
 
 Wm. Churchill Houston, Esq., Treasurer from 1779 to 1783. 
 
 Rev. Samuel Stanhope Smith, Treasurer from 1783 to 1786. 
 
 Upon Dr. Smith's resignation, two gentlemen were chosen, one after the other, 
 but both declined to act. It is therefore probable that Dr. Smith continued to dis- 
 charge the duties of the Treasurer until the appointment of 
 
 Mr. Isaac Snowden, Jr., Treasurer from 1788 to 1791. 
 
 Mr. John Harrison, Treasurer from 1791 to 1794. 
 
 The following statements respecting the course of study and the College charges
 
 DR. WITHERSPOON'S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 367 
 
 are copied froru the advertisements annexed to the charter and the laws, in a pam- 
 phlet published in 1794, the last year of Dr. Witherspoon's presidency. 
 " The studies of the different classes are the following : 
 
 " Freshman, Greek Testament, Sallust, Lucian, Cicero, and Mair's Introduction 
 [to Latin Syntax]. 
 
 " Sophontore,\eno\ihon, Cicero, Homer, Horace, Roman Antiquities, Geography, 
 Arithmetic!:, English Grammar and Composition. 
 
 " Junior, Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry, Practical Geometry, Conic Sections, 
 Natural Philosophy, English Grammar and Composition. 
 
 " Senior, Natural and Moral Philosophy, Criticism, Chronology, Logick, and the 
 Classicks.* 
 
 " The ordinary expenses for each student are : 
 
 Entrance money . . . .4 dollars and 67 cents. 
 Tuition do. . . . . 8 " " per session. 
 
 Library do. .... 67 "" 
 
 Damage do. .... 67 " " 
 
 Room Rent 5 " " 33 " " 
 
 Board with the Steward . . . I " " 67 " per week." 
 
 At this time 1794 the Faculty was composed of the following-named persons : 
 John Witherspoon, D.D., President. 
 
 Samuel Stanhope Smith, D.D., Vice-President and Professor of Moral Philos- 
 ophy. 
 
 Walter Minto, LL.D., Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy. 
 
 Robert Finley, A.M., Tutor. 
 
 Silas Wood, A.M., Tutor. 
 
 All were, or became, eminent men. 
 
 * " Besides the authors above mentioned, the following are at present taught in 
 the College: Wettenhall's Greek Grammar; Ovid's Metamorphoses; Kennel's 
 Roman Antiquities; Guthrie's Geography; Lowth's English Grammar; Simpson's 
 Algebra; Bossut's Elements of Geometry, manuscript; Minto's Trigonometry, Prac- 
 tical Geometry, and Conic Sections, manuscript ; Sherwin's Logarithms; Moore's 
 Navigation; Helsham's Natural Philosophy; Nicholson's Natural Philosophy; 
 Witherspoon's Moral Philosophy, Criticism, and Chronology, manuscript; and 
 Duncan's Logic."
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 TO THE CHAPTER ON DR. WITHERSPOON'S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 THE most perplexing matter in the report made in April, 
 1775, respecting the condition of the College funds, was the 
 discrepancy between the statements of the committee and cer- 
 tain claims of the President. 
 
 Dr. Witherspoon had received sundry moneys for the Col- 
 lege, and had also incurred sundry expenses, for which he 
 claimed a credit. Some of these the committee thought 
 ought not to be allowed, as they had been incurred without 
 authority from the Board, and, in the judgment of the com- 
 mittee, unnecessarily. The President and committee also dif- 
 fered as to the right of the President to expend, at his discretion, 
 for the benefit of the College, the income from the fund given 
 by Wm. Phillips, Esq., and his brothers, of Boston ; and in set- 
 tling the account the committee refused to allow the President 
 the credits claimed by him for payments made from the interest 
 of this fund. But upon the President's producing the follow- 
 ing letter from Mr. Phillips, the Board yielded this point, and 
 the President continued to dispose of the avails of this trust for 
 College purposes. (The letter is taken from page 313 of the 
 first volume of the Minutes of the Board) : 
 
 " NORWICH, March 9, 1776. 
 
 " DEAR SIR, Your esteemed favor of the igth ult. I have before me, and I 
 thank you for your affectionate expressions of regard for me in my ejected state. I 
 have great cause for thankfulness that I am not imprisoned in Boston. 
 
 " I do not recollect the particular directions I gave as to the disposal of the in- 
 terest arising on the donation of my mother's [brothers'] and mine. You were the 
 cause of obtaining it, from the confidence we had in you, as well as the affection 
 for that Seminary. 
 
 " It is my desire, and doubt not of my mother's [brothers'] that you personally be- 
 stow the interest of the above donation till you hear further from us, as you have 
 the best opportunity of knowing the most proper objects; at the same time desire, 
 when anything offers, either to lay out the capital in any article, or dispose of the 
 368
 
 APPENDIX TO DR. WITHERSPOON'S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 369 
 
 interest in any other way that may appear to you more for the general good of the 
 College, you would advise me thereof." 
 
 The use of the word mother 's for brothers' is, no doubt, a cler- 
 ical error in copying the letter into the College records. 
 
 The minutes of the April meeting of 1/75, at which this 
 report of the committee was made in detail, are not on record, 
 but it appears from a statement of the report of 1793, men- 
 tioned above, that the report of 1775 was approved by the 
 Board, but that at a subsequent meeting of the Trustees, in 
 1778, they passed the account of Dr. Witherspoon upon the 
 examination and report of another committee, who, it is alleged 
 by Dr. Boudinot, had none of the former proceedings before 
 them. But this special committee had before them what the 
 first committee had not, viz., Mr. Phillips's letter, given above, 
 and also some of the papers referred to in Dr. Boudinot's re- 
 port of 1794, upon the strength of which the Doctor and the 
 committee could and did say, and that, too, after including all 
 accounts between the College and Dr. Witherspoon, as far back 
 as 1775, disregarding the settlement of 1778: 
 
 " Your committee, moreover, feel it to be a duty not to close this report without 
 declaring that, whereas it appears to have been apprehended that some inquiries 
 heretofore made by this committee were intended to implicate the character of 
 Dr. AVitherspoon, no such design was ever in the contemplation of the committee. 
 And they do now most cheerfully report, that these inquiries are answered to their 
 entire satisfaction, from papers furnished by the President himself, and in such a 
 manner as must convince every person who understands the subject that there 
 is no foundation whatever for any impeachment or suspicion of the President's 
 integrity." 
 
 A happy conclusion, and happily arrived at before the decease 
 of Dr. Witherspoon, who died within less than two months after 
 this report was made. 
 
 The first report disallowing Dr. Witherspoon's sundry claims, 
 and making him largely a debtor to the College, was made nine- 
 teen years before his decease, and was appended to a report made 
 seventeen years after the first one. More than a year after Dr. 
 Witherspoon's death, Dr. Boudinot presents yet another report 
 on the funds of the College, in which he takes occasion to say: 
 
 " Another sum is a donation from three brothers, the Messrs. Phillips, of Bos-
 
 370 PIISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 ton, amounting to about ^535. Seven per cent, interest has constantly been 
 credited to himself by the late Dr. Witherspoon for twenty years past, amounting 
 to ^"738.16, without regard to the interest received by this Board on this sum, or 
 any losses of the general fund during the war, by depreciation or otherwise, and 
 without any responsibility, as to the appropriation, to this Board. This sum was 
 refused to be allowed by the committee of 1774, which refusal was confirmed by 
 the Board, but afterwards rescinded and allowed to the Doctor, on his producing 
 a letter from the Donors, dated two years after the disallowance by said committee. 
 This fund has suffered so materially by this transaction, that some attention is due 
 to it from the Board." 
 
 At the time the Board received the money they recognized 
 in express terms the right of the donors to dispose of the in- 
 terest of this fund, and even the fund itself, at their pleasure 
 for the good of the College ; and the right to dispose of the 
 income from the funds, the Messrs. Phillips transferred to Dr. 
 Witherspoon until they should order otherwise. 
 
 The only further action of the Board in. this matter was the 
 adoption of the following resolution : " Resolved, That the 
 interest arising from the donation of the Messrs. Phillips, of 
 Boston, which has hitherto been submitted to the personal ap- 
 propriation of Dr. Witherspoon, the late President, agreeably to 
 the instruction of the donors ; and the principal of the donation 
 now falls into the general stock, subject to the appropriation 
 of the Board." The appropriation was not to the Doctor 
 personally, but made by him personally without instructions 
 from the Board. (On page 160 of the Minutes an extract from 
 the letter of the Messrs. Phillips was inserted at the request of 
 the President.) 
 
 Whether Dr. Witherspoon was indebted to the College or the 
 College to him at the settlement of September, 1774, reported 
 in April, 1775, turns very much upon the question whether his 
 assuming to pay ^"243. 1.4 of Mr. Baldwin's indebtedness to the 
 College, and also 11 5.6 for Mr. Woodruff (Stewards of the 
 College), are to be viewed as debts due by Dr. Witherspoon to 
 the College or to the persons named. In the latter case the 
 College was indebted to him. 
 
 The following passages from a notice to the public, of the date 
 of September 28, 1781, published in the " New Jersey Gazette" 
 of October 10, 1782, will serve to throw some light on these
 
 APPENDIX TO DR. WITHERSPOON' S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 371 
 
 assumptions of debt on the part of Dr. Witherspoon : " The 
 ' entrance money and the chamber rent must be paid to the 
 Treasurer, the tuition to the President, and the board to the 
 Steward, in advance for six months. This last circumstance of 
 paying in advance every six months will not be in any instance 
 dispensed with, as the Trustees have renewed or ratified tlie for- 
 mer law, that if complaint is made by the Treasurer or Steward 
 that any student has not made his advance for the current half- 
 year, the President must either dismiss him from College or be 
 himself answerable for the debt. 
 
 "With regard to enforcing punctuality in the payments, the 
 reader will easily perceive that the burden must be wholly on 
 the subscriber, who has already suffered so much by arrearages 
 and pledging himself for persons at a distance, that nobody need 
 expect a repetition of the same expensive and dangerous com- 
 plaisance." 
 
 Signed by DR. WITHERSPOON. 
 
 In money matters, as well as in all others, Dr. Witherspoon's 
 course was not only perfectly correct, as finally acknowledged 
 by the Committee on Accounts, but truly generous, especially 
 during the period when the currency of the country was greatly 
 depreciated. When, according to the understanding between 
 the Trustees and himself, he was entitled to receive his salary 
 in gold and silver, he, of his own accord, took it for two years 
 in the depreciated currency ; and in reference to his liberal and 
 generous conduct in consenting to relinquish a large part of 
 his salary that better provision might be made for the instruc- 
 tion of the students, the Trustees' expressed their views by the 
 adoption of the following resolution : " Resolved, That this 
 Board do approve of this proposal and interpretation [of a pre- 
 vious agreement], which they consider as an act of generosity 
 towards this corporation." 
 
 At this very time the Board was indebted to Dr. Witherspoon 
 in the sum of ^"881.13.3, as appears from the report of Messrs. 
 W. P. Smith and John Bayard, the committee appointed to ex- 
 amine the Doctor's accounts. 
 
 Upon the return of Messrs. Tennent and Davies from Great
 
 272 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 Britain, they deposited with the Trustees of the College the 
 sum of .357.4.6 sterling, given to them while they were yet 
 abroad, for the education of poor and pious youth at the Col- 
 lege of New Jersey, the beneficiaries, candidates for the min- 
 istry, to be designated by the Synod of New Jersey, and also 
 the allowances to them respectively. 
 
 After his return home, the Rev. Gilbert Tennent received 
 from a gentleman in Scotland two hundred pounds sterling, 
 regarded as equal to three hundred pounds proc. of New Jer- 
 sey, which sum the donor requested should be given to the 
 Trustees of the College, " in trust for one or other of the follow- 
 ing purposes, viz.: to the support of a pious and well-qualified 
 missionary in preaching the gospel among the Indians in North 
 America; or the supporting a pious and well-qualified school- 
 master in teaching the Indians the English language, and the 
 principles of natural and revealed religion ; or for maintaining 
 a pious and well-qualified Indian youth at the College of New 
 Jersey while prosecuting his studies there, in order to instruct- 
 ing his countrymen in the English language and the Christian 
 religion, or preaching the gospel to them ; or for maintaining 
 a pious and well-qualified youth of English or Scotch extract, 
 at that College, during his preparatory studies for teaching; or 
 preaching the gospel among the Indians, in case an Indian 
 youth of suitable qualifications cannot at some particular time 
 be obtained ; with the express limitation, that the Synod of 
 New York (by whatever name that body in time coming be 
 called) shall direct and determine to which of the uses before 
 mentioned the yearly interest of the aforesaid principal sum 
 shall be, from time to time, ' applied ; and which of the can- 
 didates for that particular use shall be preferred ; and how the 
 overplus above what may answer the particular use at any 
 time pitched on (if any such overplus be) shall be employed, as 
 in providing Bibles or other good books conducive to promote 
 the general design." 
 
 The Board accepted these trusts on the conditions prescribed. 
 Twenty years after, we find the following minutes, of the date of 
 September 27, 1775 : 
 
 " The committee appointed at the last meeting to give their
 
 APPENDIX TO DR. WITHERSPOOW S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 373 
 
 opinion upon the appropriation of the interest of the .300 
 lodged in our treasury by the Synod are not prepared to de- 
 liver a report. 
 
 " The Board, however, agreed that Mr. Brainerd should enjoy 
 that interest for the present year, according to the request of 
 the Synod, and the Clerk was directed to give Mr. Brainerd an 
 order to receive it. 
 
 " The Board, considering that they paid 6 per cent, interest 
 and ran all the risk of the principal for the $oo lodged with 
 them by [for] the Synod of New York, that they might apply 
 the interest of it to the education of pious youth, according to 
 the direction of the committee of the Synod appointed for that 
 purpose, Resolved, That they would not hereafter allow more 
 than 5 per cent, for that sum, and appointed Dr. Witherspoon, 
 Dr. Rodgers, Mr. Treat, Mr. Spencer, Mr. McWhorter, or a 
 majority of them, to be a committee to report this resolve to 
 the Synod of New York and Philadelphia. If the Synod should 
 not agree to the allowance -of 5 per cent., the committee were 
 instructed to deliver the money to that body, and were em- 
 powered to draw upon the Treasurer for the sum." 
 
 The Synod did agree to the proposed reduction in the rate 
 of interest, and the money remained in the College treasury. 
 During the Revolutionary War the funds of the College suffered 
 a depreciation in their value to the extent of sixty-six per cent. 
 of the entire capital ; and these trust funds were made to bear 
 their share of the loss. 
 
 It is somewhat remarkable that there should have arisen in 
 the mind of any one a doubt as to the right of the Synod to 
 direct to whom and for what purposes the interest accruing 
 from the"se particular funds should be paid, when the perso.ns 
 who deposited these funds in the College treasury did provide 
 in express terms for the Synod's control of the interest, and so 
 informed the Synod and the Board ; and for twenty years both 
 Synod and Board had acted upon this understanding, without 
 any doubt or scruple as to its correctness. 
 
 In the minute cited above, the fund for the education of poor 
 and pious youth is spoken of as " lodged by the Synod of New 
 York." It is not improbable that the word by was inadver-
 
 374 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 tently used for the word for, the substitution of which would 
 make the statement both precise and exact. With respect to 
 the other fund, it was stipulated by the giver himself that the 
 interest should be devoted to one or other of several pur- 
 poses as directed by the Synod, by whatever name that body 
 might be known in time to come ; and yet we find the Com- 
 mittee on Accounts in 1775 (the committee named above), in 
 their general report, questioning the extent of the Synod's 
 powers as to these funds, and holding that, in regard to the fund 
 for the education of poor and pious youth, the power of the 
 Synod extended no further than to the mere nominating of the 
 individuals to whom the income of this fund should be appro- 
 priated, and that this appropriation should be for their educa- 
 tion exclusively, that is, for the payment of their tuition-fees 
 only, and not at all for maintenance while engaged in pur- 
 suing their studies, and that the allowance made to each one 
 should be determined by the Trustees and not by the Synod. 
 It is rather extraordinary that the writer of the report, Dr. 
 Boudinot, should consider himself better qualified to judge 
 of the design of the donors than Messrs. Tennent and Davies, 
 who received these funds, who deposited them with the Trus- 
 tees, and who, in a letter to the Synod, from London, of the 
 date of October 25, 1754, say, " We do by virtue of said trust 
 [the intrusting the funds to their care for the purpose specified] 
 put the said sum into the hands of the Trustees of the College 
 of New Jersey, in trust, to be applied to the education of such 
 youth of the character above mentioned as shall be examined 
 and approved of by the Synod of New York, or by whatever 
 name that body of men may be hereafter called, and by them 
 recommended to the Trustees of said College, to be divided 
 among such youth in such proportion as the Synod shall think Jit." 
 (See Minutes of the Synod of New York, for October, 1755.) 
 The only tenable position taken by the writer of the report is 
 that the money ought to be drawn from the College treasury 
 by order of the Trustees, and not upon an order given by the 
 Committee of the Synod. A record of the depositing of this 
 fund is not to be found in the minutes of the Board ; yet in 
 the subsequent minutes there are repeated references to it.
 
 APPENDIX TO DR. WITHE RSPOON' S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 375 
 
 Of the other charitable fund of two hundred pounds ster- 
 ling, three hundred pounds proc., the College Committee on 
 Accounts say, " With respect to the .300 given with the de- 
 sign of educating scholars for Indian missionaries, the annual 
 interest of this money has been usually applied to the use of 
 the Rev. Mr. Brainerd, but upon what principle your committee 
 are unable to comprehend, as it appears to them to be acting 
 quite beyond the powers granted by the charter, and which, for 
 weighty reasons, the committee beg leave to recommend to the 
 full consideration of this corporation as a matter that greatly 
 concerns its Being as well as its Interests. Upon the whole, the 
 committee are clearly of the opinion that the income of these 
 moneys ought to be solely appropriated to the purpose of edu- 
 cating such young men as shall be directed by the Synod, or 
 other persons pointed out by the donor, and a particular account 
 be kept of such dispositions, so that it may at all times appear 
 that the trust has been duly performed." 
 
 This is a most extraordinary report, involving both the Board 
 and the Synod in the charge of violating the trust confided 
 to them conjointly, and that for twenty years ; and furnishing 
 upon the face of it complete evidence that the writer did not 
 understand or disregarded the terms of the trust as laid down 
 in the letter written by the donor himself, at the very time he 
 gave the money, and which was recorded in the minutes of the 
 Board for September, 1/56; the very first purpose mentioned for 
 which the interest of the trust might be expended being " the 
 support of a pious and well-qualified missionary, in preaching 
 the gospel among the Indians of North America." Was not 
 Mr. Brainerd just such a missionary? The report does not 
 state correctly the design of the trust when it omits all mention 
 of the fact just stated, and simply speaks of the educating of 
 scholars for Indian missionaries as the design of it. If the 
 design is to be inferred from the language of the donor, there 
 can be no question as to the propriety of paying the interest of 
 this fund to Mr. Brainerd while engaged in preaching to the 
 Indians and in maintaining a school among them. These are 
 the two objects first mentioned to which the income may, 
 at the discretion of the Synod, be given. The educating of
 
 376 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 youths for teachers of the Indians was a secondary object of the 
 trust ; at least it was mentioned after the other two ; and the 
 provision that they should be educated at the College of New 
 Jersey would seem at least to justify the Trustees in accepting 
 the trust, even if they were not clearly authorized by their 
 charter to hold funds for other than educational purposes under 
 their own direction. The report assumes and asserts that under 
 the charter the Board had no right to receive this fund for any 
 other than educational purposes, and that they should hold it 
 for the education of youths of a certain character to be desig- 
 nated by the Synod, and for nothing else. If in accepting the 
 trust the Trustees went beyond their just powers, it is certain 
 that they did not misconceive their duty under this special 
 trust, but had most faithfully fulfilled it. 
 
 Twenty-one years after this report on the finances of the Col- 
 lege was presented, the writer of it, in another report, made 
 April, 1796, makes use of the following language: "The chari- 
 table funds require the particular attention of the Board. The 
 first sum carried to this account consists of moneys collected 
 by Messrs. Tennent and Davies, in England, on a mission from 
 and at the expense of this Board. Yet these gentlemen have 
 thought proper of their own motion, without the consent of the 
 Board, and, as your committee conceives, any act of the donors, 
 by an instrument executed by them, to put the sum of 500 
 under the direction of another body no ways legally connected 
 with this corporation, and so inattentive has this Board been to 
 the circumstances of this case that in their minutes they have 
 deliberately recognized this sum as lodged with them by that 
 body of men, and agreed to allow them 5 per cent, interest for 
 it, without there being even a color of right for such a transac- 
 tion in the opinion of a majority of your committee. Since 
 then another body of men [the General Assembly], equally un- 
 connected in law with the corporation, have claimed the right 
 to dispose of this money, as representing those who first laid 
 claim to it, who now call upon this Board to account for the 
 net proceeds thereof." 
 
 " The next is that of the 200 sterling given by an un- 
 known person in Scotland, through Messrs. Tennent and Burr,
 
 APPENDIX TO DR. WITHERSPOOWS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 377 
 
 for divers particular uses, two only of which can be executed 
 by this Board, viz., that of educating an English or Scotch 
 youth, or an Indian youth, for the purpose of preaching the 
 gospel to the Indians, with the condition that the Synod of 
 New York and Philadelphia shall determine to which of the 
 purposes it shall be applied, and which candidate shall be pre- 
 ferred, the last of which only can be allowed to that Reverend 
 Body. Your committee cannot but observe that the interest 
 of this sum has been repeatedly paid to a purpose wholly 
 foreign to the duties of their trust limited in their charter, and 
 which cannot be justified by any of the powers contained 
 therein." 
 
 If Governor Belcher, who gave the charter in the name of the 
 King, and who had it drawn up under his own eye, and dictated 
 its terms, and who presided at the meeting of the Board at 
 which this special trust was thankfully received by the Board 
 and cheerfully accepted, saw no objection to its terms ; if such 
 an eminent lawyer as the Honorable William Smith, of New 
 York, who was also present when the trust was accepted, had 
 no scruples and intimated no doubt as to the right of the Board 
 to accept the trust with the conditions thereto annexed ; if Pres- 
 idents Burr, Davies, Finley, and Witherspoon, in succession, 
 and for a period of forty years, did not discover that the Trus- 
 tees, by giving effect to the wishes of the donor, were endanger- 
 ing the being as well as the interests of the College, it cannot 
 be regarded as a matter of surprise that the Rev. Dr. Ashbel 
 Green, a member of the committee, and President of the Col- 
 lege at a later period, entered his dissent from this part of the 
 report, which was evidently written in a captious and fault- 
 finding spirit. The imputation cast upon Messrs. Tennent and' 
 Davies was wholly gratuitous, and as uncalled-for as gratuitous. 
 They informed the Synod, and, no doubt, informed the Board, 
 in their report of the results of their mission, that the moneys 
 here in question had been intrusted to themselves personally 
 to aid a certain class of youth in obtaining an education, and 
 that they, in virtue of that trust, had put the moneys into the 
 hands of the Trustees of the College for the aid of such young 
 men as might be recommended by the Synod. Those who 
 VOL. i. 25
 
 378 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 forty years before employed Messrs. Tennent and Davies in 
 their laborious but eminently successful agency for the College 
 were well satisfied with their course, took no exception to their 
 conduct, and expressed their gratitude for their valuable and 
 unrequited services. 
 
 What was to hinder the Board from taking the school at 
 Brotherton, New Jersey, under their care, and employing Mr. 
 Brainerd to superintend it for them, if in no other way they 
 could accomplish the main object of the trust ? The charter 
 authorized the Board to establish a school anywhere in New 
 Jersey, as appears from the section relating to property. 
 
 If it were so, that under the charter the Trustees could not 
 fulfil all the terms of the trust, in the case of the two hundred 
 pounds received from Scotland, why did not the committee 
 recommend that the trust itself be surrendered to the Synod, 
 or to other parties, who could legally administer it, instead of 
 insisting that the Board should in future restrict the expend- 
 iture of the income therefrom to the education of a Scotch, 
 English, or Indian youth, or propose that application be made 
 to the Legislature for authority to administer this special trust 
 in the manner specified by the donor? 
 
 Influenced by the statements and reasoning of the report of 
 April, 1793, the Trustees decided that the Board, by the inten- 
 tion of the donors, was under no obligation to take any direction 
 or advice from the Synod of New York, or their successors, 
 in the disposal of the money obtained by Messrs. Tennent 
 and Davies in the Island of Great Britain ; and it was ordered, 
 " That a copy of the minute on this subject should be sent to 
 the Committee of the General Assembly appointed to designate 
 the beneficiaries, and to apportion to them their respective 
 allowances from the fund in question." 
 
 The General Assembly appointed a committee to confer with 
 the Trustees in regard to this decision, and the result was, that 
 the Board rescinded their resolution and restored matters to 
 their former footing. 
 
 Yielding to the representations of the Committee on Accounts, 
 made April, 1796, that the charter did not warrant their holding 
 any funds, in trust or otherwise, except for the purposes of edu-
 
 APPENDIX TO DR. WITHERSPOO*" 1 S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 379 
 
 cation, the Board resolved, that the interest arising from the 
 fund for the support of an Indian mission, etc., should be appro- 
 priated by the Board to the education of a youth to be desig- 
 nated by the General Assembly. And it does not appear that 
 the General Assembly, although informed of this resolution of 
 the Board, made any objection to it; influenced, probably, by 
 these two considerations: I, that the Indian mission at Brother- 
 ton, Burlington County, New Jersey, to the support of which 
 the interest of this fund had often been voted, had been given 
 up ; and, 2, that the original fund of two hundred pounds ster- 
 ling had been reduced to sixty-eight pounds sterling, or one 
 hundred and two pounds proc. of New Jersey. The fund for 
 the education of poor and pious youth, collected in Britain by 
 Messrs. Tennent and Davies, was reduced to one hundred and 
 fifty-two pounds six shillings and five pence proc., or , I o I . I o. 1 1 % 
 sterling. 
 
 These funds being so much diminished, the General Assembly 
 finally gave up all control of the interest, and permitted the 
 Trustees to dispense it at their discretion. 
 
 As it may be as well to present at one view all matters re- 
 lating to the finances of the College during Dr. Witherspoon's 
 administration, brief mention will here be made of the other 
 funds, with some comments on the report of the Committee of 
 Accounts respecting them. 
 
 In their report of April, 1775, this committee gave a statement 
 of the receipts from May, 1769, to September, 1774, and of this 
 account of particulars they observe, " Hence it will be seen 
 that since May, 1769, the Treasurer has received in donations 
 and subscriptions divers sums to the amount of ,7468.1.1, and 
 that he had received, prior to the present account, before May, 
 
 " Without these seasonable and providential aids your com- 
 mittee are of the opinion that this corporation must ere this 
 time have become totally bankrupt. For in 1769, before any 
 of these donations were received, the clear stock was (including 
 the charitable appropriations) about ;3OOO, of which about 
 ^1800 only was upon interest; and now the whole stock but 
 little exceeds ;6ooo. Hence it appears that since that time
 
 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 there hath been expended of what ought, or at least might, have 
 been capital, a sum not much short of .5000." 
 
 Here there is an unqualified censure, which is not warranted 
 by the facts of the case. The minutes of the Board furnish 
 evidence that the College was in pressing need of funds that 
 could be expended as soon as received, and that funds were 
 solicited and obtained with the expectation that a consider- 
 able portion of them would be expended in paying the debts 
 and some of the current expenses of the institution, and in 
 making the best possible provision for the instruction of the 
 students. 
 
 From the committee's own showing it appears that the entire 
 sum received during these jive years from interest of moneys 
 loaned, tuition-fees, rent of rooms, proceeds of lotteries, and 
 other sources, exclusive of bonds and donations, amounted to 
 only ^"4617.2.2, while the expenditures for salaries, for philo- 
 sophical and astronomical apparatus, for ordinary and extra 
 expenses (including those of agencies to solicit funds, for 
 lottery agencies, repairs of buildings, improvement of the 
 grounds, paying of debts contracted before September, 1769), 
 and appropriations from the trust funds, amounted to .8058.2.5, 
 showing that the expenses exceeded the ordinary income by 
 ^"3441.0.3,* which excess of the expenses was paid from the 
 donations given not so much for the endowment of the College 
 
 * As given by the committee, the expenditures and the receipts from September, 
 1769, to September, 1774, five years, are as follows : 
 
 EXPENDITURES. 
 1774, September 28. 
 
 To old debts discharged, including those due to Mr. Field (book- 
 seller of London) and Mr. Sergeant (the Treasurer) . . ^649. 5.8 
 " Philosophical apparatus . . . . . . . 416.13.4 
 
 " Orrery 284. 4.0 
 
 " Officers' salaries for four years ...... 3461. 4.1 
 
 " Omitted in the above ........ 730 
 
 " Extra and ordinary expenses, five years . . . . 2210. 2.0 
 
 " Charitable appropriations (from the trust funds) . . . 306.13.4 
 
 ^8058. 2.5
 
 APPENDIX TO DR. WITHERSPOOW S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 381 
 
 as for placing the institution in a condition in which it should 
 be fully able to accomplish the end for which it was established. 
 This was done; and had not the War of the Revolution come on 
 soon after, there is abundant reason to believe that the number 
 of the students would have greatly increased, and that the re- 
 sources of the institution would have been largely augmented. If 
 to this sum of 3441. 0.3 be added the .302.9.7 refused Dr. With- 
 erspoon by the committee, but finally allowed him by the Board, 
 the excess of the expenses above the ordinary receipts would be 
 .3743.9.10, which could be paid only from the donations, which, 
 according to the committee's report, amounted to the sum of 
 ^7468.1.1. But, taking the case as it is presented by the com- 
 mittee, the difference between the donations from May, 1769, 
 to September, 1774, .7468.1.1, and the excess of the expendi- 
 tures above the receipts, .3441.0.3, is the sum of .4027.0.10, 
 which added to the .3000, the stock in 1769, would make 
 the whole fund, in September, 1774, .7027.0.10. This sum, 
 diminished by the moneys reported to be in the hands of the 
 President and of the Treasurer respectively, and amounting to 
 ^"1230.5.7, leaves .5796.15.3, which, according to the commit- 
 tee's own statement, is very nearly the sum actually invested in 
 bonds and notes deemed to be good, and which, as estimated 
 by the committee, " but little exceeds ;6ooo." The difference 
 between .6000 and ^5796.15.3, viz., .203.4.9, is very much 
 short of the .5000 which the committee intimated had been 
 improperly expended. Had the Trustees undertaken to con- 
 duct the College upon the basis laid down in the report of the 
 
 RECEIPTS. 
 1774, September 28. 
 
 By interest, from September, 1769, accrued . .1829.15. 5 
 " Tuition, Chamber Rent, &c., from September, 
 
 1769, to this day 2449.11. 5 
 
 " Lottery, old account received . . . 108. 7.10 
 
 " Lottery account, cash received from Virginia, 
 
 being amount of Samuel Morris's bond . 170.13. o 
 " Cash received of Samuel Homer ... 27. 7.10 
 " do. received of Wm. P. Smith, Esq., Novem- 
 ber, 1770 31. 6. 8 
 
 4617-2-2 
 
 3441.0.3
 
 382 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 committee, they would never have had 7468.1.1 of donations 
 either to invest or to expend. In the report of April, 1796, it 
 is said that the donations since the year 1768, the time of Dr. 
 Witherspoon's accession, amounted " to the enormous sum of 
 22,061.19.5, a part of which was Continental money '." But how 
 much was Continental money the committee do not say in their 
 report, nor have we the accompanying statement of the various 
 donations which make up this large sum. What proportion 
 was paid in Continental money must be a matter of conjecture: 
 if one-third, then its value, 17 for .1, would give as the value 
 of this portion of the donations 433 ; if one-sixth, then their 
 value would have been .216.10; and if but one-twelfth, their 
 value would have been "108.5, according to the value of the 
 Continental money as given in their report on Mr. Leslie's 
 funds. Take it at one-sixth of the whole donations, then the 
 value of the donations when made would have been, in the 
 ordinary currency, 18,384, and this sum includes the 4529 
 received from the estate of Mr. Leslie and 1127 from the 
 estate of Mrs. Richards, making together 5006, leaving to be 
 accounted for 13,378 of donations. Of these not less than 
 3000 were invested, as has been made to appear from the 
 report made in April, 1775, and which from 1777 to 1779 depre- 
 ciated in value to 1000, being a loss of 2000, leaving 
 but 11,378. The College stock, in 1791, was estimated at 
 958.6, irrespective of the trust funds, and which may be fairly 
 regarded as donations invested, and worth, before the depre- 
 ciation in the currency, 2874.18, which, deducted from the 
 11,378, will leave of the donations 9503.2 for excess of ex- 
 penditures above the regular College receipts from 1775 to 1796, 
 the darkest financial period in the history of our nation, or 
 less than 500 a year from donations, to assist in supporting 
 a corps of teachers and meeting all the ordinary expenses of 
 the College, and the extra expenses incurred from injury to the 
 College buildings, from loss of library and apparatus, from loss 
 of funds from depreciation of stocks, from diminution in the 
 number of students, and from a partial or total failure of per- 
 sons indebted to the College. The College building was ren- 
 dered unfit for use by the soldiery of Britain and America, and
 
 APPENDIX TO DR. WITHERSPOON' S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 383 
 
 the demands to meet the current expenses were great; and 
 had not the friends of the College generously come forward 
 and contributed funds, not for investment, but to meet press- 
 ing demands, the College would have failed, or its Faculty 
 would have been reduced below what its own interests and 
 those of the community required. 
 
 That no mistakes were made by the College authorities of 
 that day in regard to financial matters, it is not the design of 
 these remarks to maintain, but it is their object to show that 
 there was more cause for approval than for censure, and that 
 it would have been ruinous to act upon the rule laid down by 
 the committee in regard to the expenditure of funds, in the 
 circumstances in which, during the whole of Dr. Witherspoon's 
 administration, the College was placed. 
 
 No words can express so strongly the hold which Dr. With- 
 erspoon and his associates had upon the confidence and good 
 will of the community at large, and more especially upon the 
 friends of religion and learning, as the fact that in their de- 
 pressed condition, after a long and arduous civil war, they 
 should have come forward with such great liberality to sustain 
 an institution requiring help to the extent that the College 
 of New Jersey did. 
 
 The living gave cheerfully, and the dying, with confidence, 
 made bequests to the trust funds of the College, to secure what 
 the friends of the College themselves had so much at heart, the 
 preparation of pious youth for the gospel ministry. 
 
 Not to speak now of smaller bequests, it was during the 
 administration of Dr. Witherspoon that Mrs. Esther Richards 
 made her bequest to the College for the purpose named of 
 nearly i 127, or $3000, and Mr. Leslie his of more than ^4500, 
 or $12,000, gifts still sacredly devoted to the purpose for which 
 they were given, and which have been of unspeakable service 
 to the College and to the Church, in the yearly training of a 
 number of pious youth at the College for the Church.
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 A MEMOIR OF THE REV. JOHN WITHERSPOON, D.D., LL.D., THE 
 SIXTH PRESIDENT OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 DR. WITHERSPOON was born in the parish of Yester, Scot- 
 land, on the 5th of February, 1722. His father, the Rev. James 
 Witherspoon, was the minister of the parish church, and he is 
 said to have been an uncommonly able and faithful preacher. 
 His mother, a devoted Christian woman, was a lineal descend- 
 ant of the great Scottish Reformer, John Knox ; and also of 
 his son-in-law, the famous John Welsh, minister of Ayr, whose 
 wife, Elizabeth, was the youngest daughter of John Knox, a 
 woman in every respect worthy of such relationships. Eliz- 
 abeth's mother, Margaret Stewart, was a daughter of Lord 
 Ochiltree; and " the family of Ochiltree was of the blood royal." 
 
 At the age of fourteen Dr. Witherspoon entered the Uni- 
 versity of Edinburgh, where he pursued his studies for seven 
 years. Upon being licensed to preach, he was invited to be an 
 assistant minister with his father, with the right of succession ; 
 but receiving from the Earl of Eglinton, with the hearty consent 
 of the people, a presentation to the parish church of Beith, in 
 the west of Scotland, he decided to settle at Beith, and there 
 he was ordained to the work of the ministry. After a few years 
 he was translated to Paisley, a large and flourishing town cele- 
 brated for its various manufactures; and here he remained until, 
 at the earnest request of the Trustees of the College of New 
 Jersey, he left Scotland to take charge of this institution, which 
 he did in the summer of 1768. 
 
 Dr. Witherspoon was the sixth President of the College. 
 
 During his residence at Paisley he was invited to Dublin, 
 Ireland, to take the charge of a large congregation in that city. 
 He was also called to the city of Rotterdam, in Holland, and to 
 384
 
 MEMOIR OF THE REV. JOHN W1THERSPOON. 385 
 
 Dundee, Scotland. All these calls he declined, being unwilling 
 to give up his important charge at Paisley, and to enter anew 
 upon the work of a parish minister and the formation of per- 
 sonal and family friendships. And when first invited to become 
 the head of the College of New Jersey, he thought it his duty 
 to decline the offer, especially in view of the fact that his 
 family were unwilling to leave their native land for the trials 
 and hardships of a new country. But, in the providence of God, 
 he was led to review his decision, and both he and his family 
 came to the conclusion that it would be their duty to go to 
 America, should the offer above mentioned be renewed.* 
 
 * After this sketch was begun and nearly finished, the writer received from his 
 friend the Rev. Dr. C. C. Beatty, of Steubenville, Ohio, copies of two or three letters 
 written by his grandfather, the Rev. Charles Beatty, during a visit to Scotland in 
 1767. As these letters have a special value in connection with the subject of this 
 memoir, the following extracts are here subjoined. The letters are addressed 
 to the Rev. R. Treat, of Abington, Pennsylvania. Both Mr. Beatty and Mr. Treat 
 were at this time Trustees of the College of New Jersey. 
 
 In his letter of the date of October 15, 1767, Mr. Beatty says, "On Saturday I 
 went to Paisley, sent for Dr. Witherspoon to my Inn, who in a very friendly man- 
 ner invited me to lodge at his house. At first I was reluctant, imagining that I 
 could not be agreeable to Mrs. Witherspoon no more than she would be to me, ac- 
 cording to the idea I had formed of her. However, upon his insisting upon it, I 
 consented ; and I must confess I was very agreeably disappointed, for instead of 
 finding a poor, peevish, reserved, discontented, &c., I found a well-looking, gen- 
 teel, open, friendly woman, which perhaps you will be surprised at. I preached 
 for the Dr. both parts of the day, and he lectured only ; he appears to me, as I be- 
 fore observed to you, to be a good speaker and preacher, tho' not a fine speaker. I 
 cannot think he is so old as you have heard, tho' I did not ask his age. I see 
 him make no use of spectacles, neither in public nor private. Mrs. Witherspoon, on 
 Monday before I came away, having an opportunity, made some modest apology 
 to me for her conduct when Mr. Stockton was there : she seemed to be much 
 concerned for it. She told me to this effect : that at that time, and for some time 
 before, she was in a weak state of health, and that in that situation things appeared 
 very gloomy to her, crossing the sea, and that her husband might soon die, and 
 she be left in a strange land, &c. I need say nothing to you now about choosing 
 a President for Jersey College, for before now you will be fixed either by a choice 
 in America or here. Dr. Witherspoon has had a call to a congregation in Dublin 
 this last summer, but he declined it.' In short, he told me that the call to the Col- 
 lege had been much on his mind, and that nothing had ever given him" The 
 words immediately following have become illegible, but the form of expression 
 indicates the great difficulty he had had in coming to a decision whether to accept 
 or decline the invitation to the College.
 
 2 86 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 Upon Dr. Witherspoon's refusal to accept the proffered ap- 
 pointment, the Trustees chose the Rev. Samuel Blair, a graduate 
 of the College, but at this time pastor of the South Church, 
 Boston, President, with the expectation that he would enter upon 
 the duties of the office in the autumn of 1768. Learning that 
 Dr. Witherspoon would probably accept the presidency of the 
 College should it again be tendered to him, with a promptness 
 that did him the highest honor Mr. Blair at once resigned his 
 claim to the office, that the Trustees might have it in their 
 power to elect Dr. Witherspoon a second time. This they did 
 on the Qth of December, 1767, and they did it unanimously. 
 
 Released by the Presbytery from his pastoral charge, he took 
 his final leave of the church at Paisley in the month of May, 
 1768, preaching a farewell discourse from the words in Acts 
 xx. 26, 27 : " Wherefore I take you to record this day, that I 
 am pure from the blood of all men. For I have not shunned to 
 declare unto you all the counsel of God." It appears from the 
 minutes of the Trustees, of the date of August 17, 1768, in an 
 order respecting the time when Dr. Witherspoon's salary should 
 begin, that his connection with the church at Paisley ended the 
 1 5th of May preceding. And as this was a Sabbath-day, it was 
 probably the day on which his farewell discourse was delivered. 
 The month, but not the day of the month, is prefixed to this 
 discourse in the posthumous edition of his works, printed and 
 published by W. W. Woodward, Philadelphia, in the year of 
 our Lord 1800. 
 
 It is said that a wealthy relative promised to make the Doctor 
 his heir if he would not go to America. 
 
 Under the date of October 29, 1767, Mr. Beatty adds, "I had the other day 
 letters from some of my friends in Edinburgh. One writes that there was a subtle 
 letter wrote over from Princeton, under a pretence to encourage Dr. Witherspoon 
 to accept the call of N. Jersey College ; but it was quite the reverse. Complaint is 
 also made that the Synod wants to take what was collected in Scotland out of the 
 hands of the corporation; and that the widows' fund will, &e., but I shall be able 
 to set that matter in another light." 
 
 Mr. Beatty had undertaken an agency, by the appointment of the Synod of New 
 York and Philadelphia, to collect moneys for the establishment of a fund for 
 the aid of ministers, their widows and families.
 
 MEMOIR OF THE REV. JOHN WITHERSPOON. 387 
 
 Dr. Witherspoon and his family sailed from Glasgow, and, 
 after a tedious voyage, arrived at Philadelphia on Saturday, 
 the 6th of August, 1768. In that city they were hospitably 
 entertained at the house of Mr. Andrew Hodge; and when in a 
 measure recovered from the fatigues of their passage, they left 
 Philadelphia for Princeton. Here they were received with every 
 demonstration of respect and kindness, and became for a time 
 the guests of Richard Stockton, Esq., the gentleman through 
 whom Dr. Witherspoon received the intelligence of his first 
 election to the presidency of the College, and who, being in 
 London at that time, went to Scotland to confer with Dr. Wither- 
 spoon on the subject of his removal to America. On the even- 
 ing of the Doctor's arrival in Princeton the College edifice was 
 illuminated; "and not only the whole village, but the adjacent 
 country, and even the Province at large, shared in the joy of the 
 occasion."* 
 
 The reception given him was very grateful to his feelings, 
 and he is said to have alluded to it in modest and becoming 
 terms in his first public discourse after his accession to the 
 presidency. 
 
 His inauguration took place on the i/th of August, 1768, and 
 on this occasion, or at the ensuing Commencement, on the 28th 
 of the next month, he delivered an address in Latin on " The 
 Union of Piety and Science." Although the College was in 
 much repute at home, and was favorably known in Great Britain 
 and Ireland, Dr. Witherspoon's administration of its affairs 
 added much to its reputation and usefulness. 
 
 It is said by President Green that " the method of instruction 
 by lecture had never been practised in this institution till it was 
 introduced by Dr. Witherspoon," and that " he delivered lectures 
 on four different subjects, namely, on Composition, Taste, and 
 Criticism, on Moral Philosophy, on Chronology and History, 
 and on Divinity." 
 
 His lectures .on these several subjects, with the exception of 
 those on Chronology and History, or the outlines of them, are 
 published in Woodward's edition of his works. 
 
 * Dr. Green's Address before the Alumni Association in 1840.
 
 388 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 We are inclined to doubt the accuracy of the statement that 
 Dr. Witherspoon was the first at this College to use the method 
 of teaching by lecture, as something very like it must have 
 been employed by President Edwards on the few occasions on 
 which he met the students.* And in his letter of October 19, 
 1757, to the Trustees, he expresses his willingness, in case he 
 should accept their offer, "to do the whole work of a Professor 
 of Divinity in public and private lectures" It may have been, 
 generally, and in some parts of the curriculum was the case, 
 that the topics or theses included in the recitation were dis- 
 cussed by the teacher at the close of that exercise rather than 
 apart from it. 
 
 In an account of the College published by order of the Trus- 
 tees in 1764, four years before Dr. Witherspoon's arrival in 
 this country, the author of the account, after mentioning the 
 methods of instruction pursued in the College, speaks of them 
 as offering " advantages which are seldom attainable in the 
 usual method of teaching by lecture." (See account of Presi- 
 dent Finley's administration, page 266.) 
 
 Dr. Green also attributes to Dr. Witherspoon the introduc- 
 tion of the study of the Hebrew and French languages into 
 the College course of instruction. This, so far as the Hebrew is 
 concerned, is unquestionably an error. In the account of the 
 College just referred to, it is expressly said that "the greater 
 number [of the students], especially such as are educating for 
 the service of the Church, are initiated into the Hebrew." And 
 in his letter mentioned above, President Edwards says, " It 
 would be out of my way to spend time in constant teaching of 
 the languages, unless it be the Hebrew tongue, which I should 
 be willing to improve myself in by instructing others ;" the 
 implication from which is that even in Mr. Burr's time the 
 Hebrew language was made a College study. And in the ac- 
 counts of the College published in 1764, it is said, "They now 
 
 * Since the above was written, the writer has learned that Mr. Lewis Evans, of 
 Philadelphia, was employed by President Burr in the summer of 1751 to deliver 
 twelve lectures on Natural Philosophy, and that these lectures were accompanied 
 with experiments in electricity.
 
 MEMOIR OF THE REV. JOHN WITHERSPOON. 389 
 
 revise the most improving parts of the Latin and Greek classics, 
 part of the Hebrew Bible, and all the arts," etc.* 
 
 Of Dr. Witherspoon 's labors as an officer of the College, and as 
 an instructor of youth, and also of his efforts to increase the funds 
 and the usefulness of the institution, full mention was made in 
 the account of his administration of its affairs from the summer of 
 1768 to the autumn of 1794. 
 
 In addition to his duties as President of the College, Dr. 
 Witherspoon discharged those of minister to the Princeton 
 church and congregation. Not that he was formally installed 
 as pastor of this church, but that, in conformity to the course 
 pursued by his predecessors, he preached regularly on the 
 Sabbath to the students of the College and to the inhabit- 
 ants of the village, who in these days were wont to worship 
 together. 
 
 In the year 1770 there was manifest among the students of 
 the College an unusual interest on the subject of religion, and 
 a like state of things occurred also in the winter and spring of 
 1772. The fruits of these religious awakenings were most 
 happy, as they gave to the Church not a few of her ablest min- 
 isters and elders, and to the State some of her best and most 
 influential citizens. As usual in such times, some were very 
 earnest friends to these religious revivals, and others were zeal- 
 ous opponents, deeming them evidence of the fanaticism of those 
 who favored them. That the friends were always discreet, or 
 that the opponents were always sincere and honest, is more than 
 could reasonably be looked for in youth under this condition of 
 things. Hence it should occasion no surprise that the more 
 ardent of the youth, on whichever side arrayed, should regard 
 the cautions given them by their wise and faithful President as 
 evidence that he was not fully in sympathy with those who 
 viewed these religious excitements as the work of the Holy 
 Spirit, and as evidence that God had heard their prayers and 
 had crowned with success their efforts for the conversion of not 
 a few of their fellow-students. And this was actually the case 
 
 * Recently the writer has learned from a letter of Mr. Joseph Shippen, a graduate 
 of 1753, that the Hebrew grammar was a study of the Freshman class in 1750.
 
 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 in the present instance, as appears from a letter of the date of 
 April 1 8, 1772, addressed to the Rev. Dr. Bellamy by one of 
 the students, Mr. E. Bradford, afterwards pastor of the Congre- 
 gational church of Rowley, Massachusetts, and from a state- 
 ment made by Colonel Aaron Burr, who was also a student at 
 that time, and published by his executor and biographer. 
 Messrs. Bradford and Burr were fair representatives, one of the 
 decided friends, and the other of the equally decided opponents, 
 of the revival. 
 
 The exact truth on this head may doubtless be gathered 
 from the following remarks by Dr. Ashbel Green, who was in- 
 timately acquainted with Dr. Witherspoon's opinions on this 
 and other subjects ; no man more so. These remarks are 
 copied from an address before the Alumni Association of 
 Nassau Hall, delivered in September, 1840, at the time of 
 the annual Commencement. 
 
 " It was, if I rightly remember, in the fourth year of Dr. Witherspoon's presi- 
 dency that a general revival of religion took place in the College. Several minis- 
 ters of the gospel, and several men in secular life, received in this revival those 
 impressions of religion which they carried with them through the remainder of 
 their lives. With several of these I had in early life an acquaintance. With one I 
 formed a most endeared friendship, and from him I received a number of particu- 
 lars, which of themselves would enable me to contradict what I have heard (for I 
 have not personally received), a statement made in the ' Life of Colonel Burr,' 
 that Dr. Witherspoon thought and spoke light of this revival, and that he was, in 
 fact, opposed to it. But in truth such a statement is so contrary to the known and 
 avowed sentiments of Dr. Witherspoon, and even to what he declared in his ' Lec- 
 tures on Theology' were his chief motives in coming to this country, that it cannot 
 be correct, and I feel bound to make this declaration on the present occasion. He 
 might, and I know he did, endeavor to correct some irregularities and imprudences, 
 which usually take place when youth are under the excitement of strong religious 
 feeling ; but that he rejoiced in the revival itself, instead of opposing it, there is 
 every reason to believe." 
 
 From the very beginning of the controversies which led to 
 the War of Independence and to the severance of the thirteen 
 united Colonies from their allegiance to the British Crown, Dr. 
 Witherspoon openly and boldly took the part of his adopted 
 country. And on the i/th of May, 1776, the day selected by 
 the National Congress to be observed as a day of fasting and 
 of prayer, he preached a sermon, the subject of which,
 
 MEMOIR OF THE REV. JOHN WITHERSPOON. 39 j 
 
 " the dominion of Providence over the passions of men," was founded upon the 
 words of the loth verse of the Ixxvi. Psalm : " Surely the wrath of man shall praise 
 thee : the remainder of wrath shall thou restrain." This discourse was subse- 
 quently published with a dedication to the Hon. John Hancock, Esq., President of 
 the Congress of the United States of America, and with an appendix containing 
 " an address to the natives of Scotland residing in America." 
 
 In handling his subject he went fully into a consideration of 
 the state of affairs in the American Colonies, and gave some 
 wholesome advice, in view of the arduous contest and the civil 
 strife which were already begun, and pointed out the result 
 which, in the ever overruling providence of God, might be 
 hoped for in this struggle for civil and religious liberty ; and he 
 took occasion to warn his hearers and readers of the importance 
 of being prepared for death, which could be only by repentance 
 towards God and by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ ; such faith 
 and repentance being intimately connected with a belief in the 
 natural depravity of man, from which sinful condition they 
 could be rescued only by the grace and power of God. 
 
 Several things in this discourse are in full accord with the 
 advice given in a pastoral letter written by Dr. Witherspoon 
 and issued by the Synod of New York and Philadelphia the 
 year before, viz., in May, 1775. This letter recommends to all 
 under the care of the Synod to avoiv their allegiance to the British 
 Crown; and this was assented to by the entire Synod, with the 
 exception of the Rev. Jeremiah Halsey, who was a year in ad- 
 vance of his brethren in refusing allegiance. During this year 
 a great change took place in the views and feelings of the whole 
 community. This change is clearly pointed out in the follow- 
 ing passage from Dr. Witherspoon's speech in Congress on the 
 conference proposed by Lord Howe: 
 
 " We were contending for the restoration of certain privileges under the govern- 
 ment of Great Britain, and we were praying for a reunion with her. But in the 
 beginning of July, with the universal approbation of all the States now united, we 
 renounced this connection, and declared ourselves free and independent." 
 
 The following short extracts will show why it was that Dr. 
 Witherspoon took such a deep interest in the contest between 
 the Colonies and the mother-country: 
 
 " You are all my witnesses that this is the first time of my introducing any 
 political subject into the pulpit. At this season, however, it is not only lawful but
 
 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 necessary : and I am willing to embrace the opportunity of declaring my opinion 
 without any hesitation, that the cause in which America is in arms is the cause of 
 justice, of liberty, and of human nature. So far as we have hitherto proceeded, I 
 am satisfied that the confederacy of the colonies has not been the effect of pride, 
 resentment, or sedition, but of a deep and general conviction that our civil and 
 religious liberties, and consequently, in a great measure, the temporal and eternal 
 happiness of us and our posterity, depend on the issue. . . . There is not a single 
 instance in history in which civil liberty was lost and religious liberty preserved 
 entire. If, therefore, we yield up our temporal property, we at the same time 
 deliver the conscience into bondage, 
 
 " You shall not, my brethren, hear from me in the pulpit what you have never 
 heard from me in conversation ; I mean railing at the King personally, or even his 
 ministers, and the parliament and people of Britain. ... I do not refuse submis- 
 sion to their unjust claims, because they are corrupt or profligate. ... I call this 
 claim unjust of making laws to bind us in all cases whatsoever, because they are 
 separate from us, independent of us, and have an interest in opposing us. ... 
 This is the true and proper hinge of the controversy between Great Britain and 
 America. This, however, is to be added, that such is their distance from us, that a 
 wise and prudential administration is as impossible as the claim of authority is 
 unjust. Such is and must be their ignorance of the state of things here, so much 
 time must elapse before an error can be seen and remedied, and so much injustice 
 and partiality must be expected from the acts and misrepresentations of interested 
 persons, that for these colonies to depend wholly upon the legislation of Great 
 Britain would be, like many other oppressive connections, injury to the master and 
 ruin to the slave." 
 
 The views of Dr. Witherspoon, given in the above extracts, 
 met the hearty approval of the friends of civil and religious 
 liberty in this country; and they doubtless present, distinctly 
 and fairly, the grounds of opposition to the absolute supremacy 
 of the British Government in all matters pertaining to the 
 Colonies. The colonists, for the most part, were especially 
 jealous of their religious freedom, and, for good reasons, were 
 apprehensive that if their secular affairs were once under the 
 absolute control of the British Government their religious 
 liberty would soon be lost, by the renewed efforts which would 
 be made to subject the people of this country to the jurisdic- 
 tion of the English hierarchy in all matters connected with the 
 education and religious instruction of the people. 
 
 This apprehension, perhaps more than any one thing else, 
 induced the friends of religion generally to act in concert with 
 those whose aim was simply a political one, the separation 
 and the independence of the Colonies.
 
 MEMOIR OF THE REV. JOHN WITHERSPOON. 
 
 It seems to have been assumed, both by the Government and 
 the Church 'of England, that wherever the Crown went it of 
 course carried Episcopacy with it. Upon no other principle can 
 we account for their persevering efforts to establish diocesan 
 Episcopacy in the Colonies generally. Of the attempts made 
 to establish the Episcopal Church as a branch of the English 
 Government in America, and the influence which these attempts 
 had in bringing on the War of the Revolution, a detailed and 
 very interesting account is given. in Dr. Hodge's " Constitutional 
 History of the Presbyterian Church," vol. ii. pages 448-497. 
 
 The sermon of which we speak was republished at Glasgow, 
 and it was accompanied with notes by an unfriendly hand. In 
 these notes Dr. Witherspoon was spoken of as " a traitor and a 
 rebel;'' and no doubt this Glasgow edition of the sermon had 
 much to do in defeating the Doctor's efforts to collect funds 
 for the College when, after the termination of the war, he went 
 to Scotland to solicit aid to repair the wastes which the institu- 
 tion had suffered from the protracted conflict. 
 
 It is rather surprising that a man of Dr. Witherspoon's repute 
 for wisdom and sound judgment should ever have consented 
 to engage in such an undertaking, especially at such a time. 
 
 The failure of his mission to England and Scotland was, how- 
 ever, attended with one happy result, viz., that the Trustees 
 were thereby made to know that, if the College was to be re- 
 stored to its former prosperity and usefulness, it must, under 
 God, be due to the efforts and liberality of its friends at home, 
 and more especially to the countenance and aid of the members 
 and judicatories of the Presbyterian Church ; and to them they 
 again made an earnest and successful appeal. 
 
 In May, 1776, Dr. Witherspoon was chosen a member of 
 the Convention which gave to New Jersey her republican 
 Constitution. 
 
 " It has always been understood," says Judge Elmer, in his valuable " History of 
 the First Constitution of New Jersey," " that the Rev. Dr. Witherspoon, President 
 of Princeton College, took an active part in preparing it;" and he adds, " This in- 
 strument bears quite as prominent marks of a clerical as of a legal origin, although 
 two eminent lawyers, Jonathan Dickinson Sergeant and John Cleves Symmes, 
 were members of the Committee. The Rev. Jacob Green, of Morris County, was 
 the Chairman." 
 VOL. I. 26
 
 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 On the 22d of June, Dr. Witherspoon was chosen by the 
 Convention, or Provincial Congress, a representative of New 
 Jersey in the Continental or General Congress. 
 
 On the 4th of July, 1776, he voted for the Declaration of In- 
 dependence, and his signature is affixed to the document con- 
 taining that declaration. The Articles of Confederation between 
 the States he signed in November, 1778, and in 1780 he left 
 Congress, but was induced to return to it the next year. 
 
 At the close of 1782, the exigencies of the country no longer 
 demanding of him a sacrifice of his own interests and those of 
 the College, he retired from all service in the National Councils, . 
 and gave himself up to the work of restoring the College to 
 its condition before the war. Of the character of the sacrifices 
 here referred to we may form some idea from the following 
 extract from a letter written by Dr. Witherspoon to a friend in 
 Scotland. The letter is of the date of March 20, 1780, and it 
 was penned at the Doctor's farm, near Princeton. 
 
 "... I have now left Congress, not being able to support the expense of 
 attending it, with the frequent journeys to Princeton, and being determined to 
 give particular attention to the revival of the College. Professor Houston, how- 
 ever, our Professor of Mathematics, is a delegate this year; but he tells me he will 
 certainly have to leave it next November. I mention this circumstance to confirm 
 what I believe I wrote you formerly, that the members of Congress in general not 
 only receive no profit from that office, but I believe five out of six of them, if not 
 more, are great losers in their private affairs. This cannot be otherwise, for none 
 of the delegates are allowed to have any lucrative office whatever either in their 
 own States or in the United States ; though their expenses should be fully borne, 
 their time is taken up and their private estates are neglected. . . . You know 
 that I was always fond of being a scientific farmer. ... I got a dreadful stroke 
 from the English when they were here, they having seized and mostly destroyed 
 my whole stock, and committed such ravages that we are not yet fully recovered 
 from it. 
 
 " As to public affairs, it seems to be yet undetermined whether we shall have 
 peace soon. Greatly do I and many others desire it; and yet were our condition 
 ten times worse than it is, nothing short of the clear independence of this country 
 would be accepted." 
 
 It is by no means improbable that had he fallen into the 
 hands of the English army in the early part of the war he 
 would have received the ordinary treatment of " a traitor and 
 rebel," if the following account of an attempt to burn him in 
 effigy be correct. It is taken from Frank Moore's " Diary,"
 
 MEMOIR OF THE REV. JOHN WITHE RSPOON. 395 
 
 of the date of July 30, 1776, and it is said to be given on the 
 authority of a soldier in Howe's army. 
 
 " Just before the thunder-storm last week the troops on Staten Island were pre- 
 paring figures of Generals Washington, Lee, and Putnam, and Dr. Witherspoon, for 
 burning in the night. The figures had all been erected on a pile of fagots, the 
 generals facing the doctor, and he represented as reading to them an address. All of 
 them, excepting General Washington, had been tarred and prepared for the feathers, 
 when the storm came on, and obliged the troops to find shelter. In the evening, 
 when the storm was over, a large body of the troops gathered around the figures, 
 which, being prepared, were set on fire amid the most terrible imprecations against 
 the rebels. One of the party seeing that Generals Putnam and Lee and Dr. With- 
 erspoon burnt furiously and were almost consumed, while General Washington was 
 still standing, with the tar burning off, ran away frightened, and was soon followed 
 by most of his companions. Next morning the figure was found as good as it ever 
 was ; a fact which caused a good deal of fear among the Hessian troops, most of 
 whom were superstitious, and it was not until some of the officers told them the 
 cause of its not burning that they appeared contented. The reason was that; having 
 no tar on it before the rain commenced, it became saturated with water, and the tar 
 only would burn." 
 
 This story, true or false, serves to show that in the opinion of 
 both friends and foes Dr. Witherspoon was one of the mobt 
 prominent in advocating the Revolution ; or, to use an expres- 
 sion of John Adams, the second President of the United States, 
 respecting him, he was " as high a son of liberty as any man in 
 America." 
 
 While yet a member of the Provincial Congress, Dr. Wither- 
 spoon came to be regarded " as profound a civilian as he was 
 known to be a philosopher and divine." He had clear and 
 decided views concerning all matters of public interest, and in 
 regard to several important measures his opinions were in 
 advance of those of the majority in the National Congress. 
 Particularly was this the case with respect to the emission of 
 unfunded paper, and the purchase of supplies for the army by 
 allowing a commission on the moneys expended, to both of 
 which measures he was much opposed. Some who in Con- 
 gress dissented from his views on these subjects afterwards 
 adopted them, and at their suggestion he published the speeches 
 in which he had given utterance to them. At this day, few 
 persons acquainted witli such matters will venture to question 
 the soundness of his positions. Demagogues who know better
 
 396 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 may, for party or personal considerations, advocate a different 
 course. 
 
 The Doctor was a leading member of different committees, 
 and occasionally he took part in the discussions that arose 
 in Congress ; but before speaking upon any important question 
 he was wont to commit his thoughts to writing; and then, 
 watching for a favorable opportunity, he introduced what he 
 had to say by first alluding to something said by a preceding 
 speaker, and thus he gave to his speeches the air of extempo- 
 raneous remarks, while they had all the- advantage of a logical 
 and compact arrangement. He knew that he was master of 
 his subject, and those who heard him knew that what he was 
 about to say was worth hearing. And yet, perhaps, there were 
 but few men in such an assembly as well qualified as he to take 
 part in an extemporaneous discussion. 
 
 He was a man of heroic spirit and of resolute purpose, and 
 in the darkest aspect of public affairs he never despaired of 
 the final triumph of the cause in which he had engaged, and 
 which he regarded as the cause of religion as well as that of 
 civil liberty. 
 
 His wisdom and foresight as a statesman are shown in a clear 
 and strong light by the ground he took in reference to the 
 original confederation of the States. 
 
 " He complained of the jealousy and ambition of the individual States, which 
 were not willing to entrust the general government with adequate power for the 
 common interest. He then pronounced inefficacy upon it. But he complained 
 and remonstrated in vain. He particularly remonstrated against the tardy, ineffi- 
 cient, and faithless manner of providing for public exigencies and debts by requi- 
 sition on the several States. He insisted on the propriety and necessity of the 
 government of the Union holding in its own hands the entire regulation of com- 
 merce, and the revenues that might be derived from that source. These, he con- 
 tended, would be adequate to all the wants of the United States." (See sketch of 
 his life in Dr. Rodgers's Funeral Sermon.) 
 
 The evils against which he protested so earnestly in the plan 
 of confederation between the States were happily corrected in 
 the Constitution of 1789, and he was permitted to see his views 
 on these points fully sustained by the adoption of this Federal 
 Constitution, established for the very purpose of effecting a 
 more perfect union of the States.
 
 MEMOIR OF THE REV. JOHN WITHERSPOON. 
 
 Although he became a statesman, he ceased not to be a minis- 
 ter of the gospel, but continued to preach as opportunity offered, 
 and to discharge all other duties which pertained to the sacred 
 office. But, great as were the services which he rendered the 
 country by his wise counsels in the National Congress, and in 
 the sessions of Presbytery and Synod, with respect to national 
 affairs, it admits of question whether his example on the whole 
 would not have been more salutary had he confined himself to 
 matters which properly belong to a minister of the gospel at the 
 head of a college. 
 
 The question, whether a minister of the gospel should take 
 part in the administration of civil affairs, and should be allowed 
 to hold offices of trust and power in the Commonwealth, is to 
 be determined by the minister himself, without hindrance from 
 any source, unless it be from the Church to whose service he 
 professes to devote himself. As a member of the civil com- 
 munity, in a republic at least, he is entitled to all the privileges 
 of a citizen; and we heartily sympathize with Dr. Witherspoon 
 in the rebuke which he administered to the Convention that 
 framed the Constitution of the State of Georgia, which body 
 proposed to deprive every minister of the gospel of the right 
 to have a seat in the Legislature. The Doctor's strictures are 
 contained in a letter to the publisher of a paper which had 
 given in its columns the new Constitution : they are a com- 
 ment upon the resolution, " No clergyman, of any denomination, 
 shall be a member of the General Assembly;" and he suggests 
 the following alterations: 
 
 " No clergyman, of any denomination, shall be capable of being elected a mem- 
 ber of the Senate or House of Representatives, because [here insert the grounds of 
 offensive disqualifications, which I have not been able to discover.] Provided 
 always, and it is the true intent and meaning of this part of the Constitution, that 
 if at any time he shall be completely deprived of the clerical character by those by 
 whom he was invested with it, as by deposition for cursing and swearing, drunk- 
 enness or uncleanness, he shall then be fully restored to all the privileges of a free 
 citizen ; his offence shall no more be remembered against him : but he may be 
 chosen either to the Senate or House of Representatives, and shall be treated with 
 all the respect due to his brethren, the other members of the Assembly." 
 
 Lest the reader may infer that Dr. Witherspoon was of the 
 opinion that in an ordinary state of public affairs it was expe-
 
 398 lU STORY OP THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 dient or desirable that ministers should be members of the 
 Legislature or take part in the affairs of state, it may be well 
 to cite, in addition to the above, another passage from the same 
 article : 
 
 " Perhaps it may be thought that they are excluded from civil authority that they 
 may be more fully and constantly employed in their spiritual functions. If this had 
 been the ground of it, how much more properly would it have appeared as an order 
 of an ecclesiastical body with respect to its own members. In that case I should not 
 only have forgiven, but approved and jtistified it ; but in the way in which it now 
 stands it is evidently a punishment, by loss of privilege, inflicted on those who go 
 into the office of the ministry, for which, perhaps, the gentlemen of Georgia may 
 have good reasons, though I have not been able to discover them." 
 
 It is by no means improbable that Dr. Witherspoon found, 
 from his own experience, that constant attention to civil affairs 
 for a term of years had no tendency to promote a minister's 
 usefulness, but, on the contrary, that it required increased watch- 
 fulness on his part to prevent a decline in personal piety and 
 in devotion to the work of his holy calling. 
 
 Before he was chosen President of the College he had at- 
 tained, both at home and abroad, a well-earned reputation as a 
 man of great talent, learning, and piety, and he was regarded 
 as the head of the orthodox party of the Church of Scotland, 
 and as their leader in the General Assembly of the Established 
 Kirk. His opponent at the head of the Moderates, as the 
 dominant party was styled, was the well-known historian, Dr. 
 William Robertson, Principal of the University of Edinburgh. 
 Although usually in a minority, Dr. Witherspoon on one occa- 
 sion carried, in the Assembly, an important measure against 
 his rival's opposition, upon which Dr. Robertson said to him, 
 in a pleasant manner, " You have your men better disciplined 
 than formerly." " Yes," replied Witherspoon ; " by urging your 
 politics too far you have compelled us to beat you with your 
 own weapons." (See Dr. Rodgers's Funeral Sermon.) 
 
 His translation from Beith to Paisley was earnestly opposed 
 by the Presbytery of Paisley, on account of his being the re- 
 puted author of the " Ecclesiastical Characteristics," a keen and 
 severe satire upon the Moderates in the Church of Scotland. 
 From the Presbytery the question of the transfer came to the 
 Synod of Glasgow and Ayr, and by the Synod the Presbytery
 
 MEMOIR OF THE REV. JOHN WITHERSPOON. 
 
 was instructed to receive the Doctor as a member of their body 
 and to instal him as pastor of the church at Paisley. His re- 
 moval from Beith to Paisley took place in January, 1757, and 
 in that or the next year he was chosen Moderator of the Synod. 
 In 1768 he left Paisley for America. Here he soon became the 
 leading man in the different Church courts of which he was a 
 member, and to the close of his life he was held in the highest 
 esteem by his brethren in the ministry. He was chairman of 
 the large committee appointed by the Synod of New Jersey and 
 Philadelphia, in 1785, 
 
 " to take into consideration the constitution of the Church of Scotland, and other 
 Protestant Churches, and, agreeably to the general principles of Presbyterian gov- 
 ernment, compile a system of general rules for the government of the Synod and 
 the several Presbyteries under their inspection, and the people in their communion, 
 and to make report of their proceedings herein at the next meeting of Synod." 
 
 He was also the chairman of another committee, appointed 
 at this same meeting, to confer with like committees from the 
 " Dutch Reformed Synod, and from the Associate Reformed 
 Synod, with respect to the measures that should be taken to 
 promote a friendly intercourse between the three Synods ; and 
 to devise a plan of some kind of union among them, whereby 
 they might be enabled to unite their interests and combine 
 their efforts for promoting the great cause of truth and vital 
 religion." 
 
 This action arose from a report made by a committee ap- 
 pointed, the year before, to meet one which it was expected 
 would be appointed by the Dutch Reformed Synod, to adjust 
 matters of difference existing between them, and to enter upon 
 an amicable correspondence on subjects of general utility and 
 friendship between the Churches. 
 
 The committees from the three Synods met, and they con- 
 ferred at large upon the matters intrusted to them, and made 
 an interesting report, which is given in the printed Minutes of 
 the Synod of New York and Philadelphia, pages 518-522. 
 
 At this same meeting of the Synod, in May, 1785, measures 
 were first taken for the division of the Synod into four separate 
 Synods, and for the' establishing of a General Synod, or Assem- 
 bly; and at a meeting held in May, 1788, all the requisite steps
 
 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 having been taken, the proposed division of the Synod was 
 consummated, and Dr. Witherspoon was appointed to open the 
 sessions of the first General Assembly with a sermon, on the 
 first Thursday in May, 1789, and to preside until a Moderator 
 be chosen. At the same time he was appointed chairman of a 
 committee to revise the chapter in the Directory respecting the 
 mode of inflicting Church censures, with instructions to lay the 
 revision before the General Assembly at their first meeting, to 
 be considered and finally enacted. The same committee was 
 also charged with 
 
 " the duty of revising that part of the draught for a directory for worship which 
 respects public prayer and prayers to be used on other occasions, and to prepare it 
 for printing with the Constitution." 
 
 These things show the active part he took in the organization 
 of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in this 
 country. He was a member of the Assembly in the years 
 1787, 1791, 1792, and again, but for the last time, in 1794, in 
 November of which year he departed this life. 
 
 Dr. Witherspoon was distinguished for the variety and accu- 
 racy of his knowledge : religion, ethics, politics, literature, sci- 
 ence, and matters pertaining to common life had all received 
 from him more or less attention ; and his published works afford 
 evidence of his familiarity with most of the subjects here 
 named. 
 
 Simplicity and plainness of style, strength and purity of 
 language, perspicuity of statement, and vigor of thought are 
 characteristics of all his writings. 
 
 His discourses from the pulpit are worthy of special notice, 
 on account of their numerous and most happy quotations from 
 Scripture, both for proof and for illustration. In the respect 
 just mentioned, Dr. Witherspoon's sermons are particularly de- 
 serving the attention of young ministers, who cannot fail to 
 add to the impressiveness of their discourses by following so 
 admirable an example. No language is better understood by 
 most hearers in Christian congregations than the language of 
 the Bible ; and an apposite citation of Scripture texts enforces 
 with wonderful power the lessons to be inculcated. 
 
 Dr. Witherspoon, as we learn from Dr. Green,
 
 MEMOIR OF THE REV. JOHN WITHERSPOON. 40! 
 
 " was wont to deliver his discourses from memory, and yet he never repeated 
 from memory any considerable portion of Scripture, however perfectly recollected, 
 but opened the Bible, and read it from the sacred text. His action in speaking 
 never exceeded a graceful motion of his right hand, and the inclination of his body 
 forward, when much in earnest. His greatest defect in public speaking was the 
 lowness of his voice when he began. For, although his voice was remarkably 
 articulate, the distant part of a large audience could not hear it distinctly for a few 
 sentences at first ; afterwards, if profound silence was observed, all that he said 
 was easily audible by every attentive hearer. He affirmed that the nature of his 
 voice required this gradual increase of its volume to prevent its failing altogether. 
 Yet, take his pulpit addresses as a whole, there was in them not only the recom- 
 mendation of good sense and powerful reasoning, but a gracefulness and earnestness, 
 a warmth of affection and solemnity of manner, especially toward and at their close, 
 such as were calculated to produce the best effects of sacred oratory. Accordingly, 
 his popularity as a preacher was great. The knowledge that he was -to conduct 
 a public service usually filled the largest churches in our cities and populous towns, 
 and he never failed to command the attention of his audience. . . . His public 
 prayers were admirable, plain in language, correct, methodical, abounding in a 
 choice selection of Scriptural phrases, and uttered with the appearance of deep 
 devotional feeling. When offered on special occasions their appropriateness was 
 singularly excellent. His manner of introducing and administering the Lord's 
 Supper surpassed any other performance of that sacred service which the writer 
 [Dr. Green] ever witnessed." (See " Sprague's Annals," vol. iii.) 
 
 There can be no better authority in regard to the matters 
 mentioned in this extract than that of its author, a favorite 
 pupil and, in later life, an intimate friend of Dr. Witherspoon ; 
 and there can be no room for doubt that we have here the 
 deliberate judgment of the community in general with respect 
 to Dr. Witherspoon's preaching; and yet it occasions us no 
 surprise that, at the time of the religious excitements which 
 occurred in the earlier part of his presidency, he should have 
 been regarded by some of his pupils as " a dull preacher," this 
 being the expression used by one of them, in a letter to the Rev. 
 Dr. Bellamy, to convey an idea of the opinion entertained of 
 Dr. Witherspoon's preaching by the writer of the letter and by 
 some of his fellow-students. It is not improbable, however, 
 that as their warmth of feeling subsided, and they were able to 
 look at matters more calmly, they formed a juster estimate of 
 their President as a preacher, instructive, earnest, and faithful. 
 
 DR. WITHERSPOON AS A TEACHER. 
 
 There can be no doubt as to Dr. Witherspoon's great ability
 
 402 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 as a teacher, in awakening the attention of his pupils to the 
 subjects handled by him, and in impressing upon their minds 
 the truths he sought to inculcate. The influence he exerted in 
 moulding the views and opinions of a large number of youth 
 who in after-life became leading men both in Church and in 
 State, without any direct or explicit testimony on this head, 
 would suffice to show that his reputation as a teacher rested 
 upon a firm basis. 
 
 Of the four hundred and sixty-nine graduates of the College 
 during Dr. Witherspoon's presidency, one hundred and fourteen 
 became ministers of the gospel; and of these ministers nineteen 
 became Presidents or Professors in different institutions in the 
 States of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North 
 Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee ; thirteen of 
 the nineteen being Presidents of the colleges with which they 
 were severally connected. Not less than twenty-seven others 
 became men of note and able and successful pastors of churches 
 in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, New York, New 
 Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South 
 Carolina, Georgia, and District of Columbia. 
 
 Of the three hundred and fifty-five graduates not ministers of 
 the gospel, a very large number became distinguished civilians, 
 and not a few efficient officers in the United States Army. 
 
 One was for eight years President of the United States. 
 
 One was for four years Vice-President. 
 
 Six were members of the Continental Congress. 
 
 Twenty were Senators of the United States. 
 
 Twenty-three were members of the United States House of 
 Representatives. 
 
 Thirteen were Governors of individual States, viz., the States 
 of Vermont, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Virginia, North 
 Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. 
 
 Three were Judges of the Supreme Court of the United 
 States. 
 
 Twenty or more were United States officers in the army of the 
 Revolution. 
 
 Thirty others, at least, became distinguished, some for their 
 culture of letters, some for their medical skill and knowledge,
 
 MEMOIR OF THE REV. JOHN WITHERSPOON. 403 
 
 others for their legal attainments and as judges and attorneys- 
 general, and others as active and useful citizens. 
 
 The names of the persons here referred to are given in our 
 history of Dr. Witherspoon's administration. 
 
 At the time Dr. Witherspoon entered upon the duties of his 
 office as President of the College, the speculations of Berkeley 
 were attracting the attention of the riper scholars among the 
 students, who were fascinated by the acuteness of their author 
 and by the novelty and boldness of his positions. But this did 
 not long continue, and the common-sense view of things which 
 was beginning to prevail in 'Scotland soon gained the ascend- 
 ency here, under the guidance of the new President, and on the 
 part of the students the doctrine of the idealists became a 
 matter for jest rather than for serious debate. As an instance, 
 " He has only swallowed a red-hot idea," was the sportive remark 
 of one of them respecting a fellow-student who had been too 
 eager to partake of some hasty-pudding. 
 
 In this connection should be stated what Dr. Ashbel Green, 
 in his " Life of Dr. Witherspoon," says respecting his mode 
 of treating the Ideal system of Berkeley, and of the origin of 
 the common-sense system of Metaphysics. " He first reasoned 
 against the [Berkeleyan] system, and then ridiculed it till he 
 drove it out of the College. The writer [Dr. Green] has heard 
 him say that, before Reid or any other author of their views 
 had published any theory on the Ideal system, he wrote 
 against it, and suggested the same trains of thought which they 
 adopted, and that he published this essay in a Scotch maga- 
 zine."* 
 
 It will readily be conceded, by those familiar with the history 
 of our country and also with that of our College, that of the 
 statesmen graduated here during the administration of Presi- 
 dent Witherspoon, James Madison, the fourth President of the 
 United States, was the ablest and most eminent; and few will 
 question the propriety of placing at the head of the teachers 
 
 * This passage is copied from President McCosh's admirable " History of the 
 Scottish Philosophy," and not directly from President Green's " Life of Wither- 
 spoon."
 
 404 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 and divines trained here during the same period Samuel Stan- 
 hope Smith, the immediate successor of Dr. Witherspoon in 
 the presidency of the College. This eloquent preacher and 
 elegant scholar, without a rival among his class-mates, was 
 one of those students who were carried away with the subtleties 
 of the Bishop of Cloyne. But under the more practical view 
 of things presented by Dr. Witherspoon in his lectures on 
 Moral Philosophy, he embraced the opinions of his new pre- 
 ceptor, and maintained them ever after. 
 
 Bishop Berkeley's great abilities no one can question, and he 
 was a man to be loved and honored for his noble qualities of 
 head and heart. 
 
 To point out the influence exercised by Dr. Witherspoon in 
 moulding the views and character of Mr. Madison, I shall em- 
 ploy the language of Mr. Madison's biographer, William C. 
 Rives, himself a statesman and a scholar: 
 
 "We have seen," says Mr. Rives, "how liberal and expansive a field of inquiry 
 was opened to the students by the additions which Witherspoon made to the pre- 
 vious curriculum of the College. The increased attention paid to the study of the 
 nature and constitution of the human mind, and the improvements which had been 
 lately introduced into this fundamental part of knowledge by the philosophical 
 inquiries of his own countrymen, constituted a marked and a most important feature 
 of Dr. Witherspoon's reforms. Mr. Madison formed a taste for these inquiries 
 which entered deeply, as we shall hereafter have occasion to remark, into the char- 
 acter and habits of his mind, and gave to his political writings in after-life a pro- 
 found and philosophical cast, which distinguished them eminently and favorably 
 from the productions of the ablest of his cotemporaries. 
 
 ********* 
 
 " It is a matter of natural and interesting inquiry to learn what were the personal 
 relations formed between that eminent man, who was at the head of this seat of 
 learning and patriotism, and the pupil, upon whom more than upon any other one 
 he seems to have impressed the distinctive characteristics of his own mind, for no 
 intelligent reader acquainted with their works can fail to remark how much the 
 same clearness of analytical reasoning, the same lucid order, the same precision 
 and comprehensiveness combined, the same persuasive majesty of truth and felici- 
 tous diction, shine forth in the productions, whether written or spoken, of both. 
 Such intellectual affinities, joined to moral worth, could not but form a strong 
 bond of friendship, and of mutual confidence, attachment, and respect, between 
 them. These sentiments are warmly manifested by the pupil in a letter written 
 from Princeton to his father the gth of October, 1771 : 'I should be glad if your 
 health and other circumstances should enable you to visit Dr. Witherspoon during 
 his stay in Virginia. I am persuaded you would be much pleased with him, and 
 that he would be very glad to see you.' "
 
 MEMOIR OF THE REV. JOHN W1THERSPOON. 405 
 
 Mr. Rives adds, " Dr. Witherspoon continued to feel a lively interest in the 
 studies and pursuits of his pupil after the formal connection of the latter with the 
 College was terminated. Young Madison, appreciating at its just value the aid of 
 so enlightened a guide and counsellor, and desiring to avail himself of the riches 
 of the College Library, determined after his graduation to pass one year more at 
 Princeton as a private student. The preceptor and pupil were destined to meet 
 again, after the lapse of nine years, in the supreme councils of the country, as 
 co-workers in the great cause of national independence and national union." 
 
 Mr. Bancroft also refers to Dr. Witherspoon's influence in 
 impressing upon Mr. Madison's mind the only true views on 
 the subject of religious liberty. Speaking of the declaration 
 of rights submitted to the Convention of Virginia in May, 
 1776, he remarks : 
 
 " Only one clause received a material amendment. Mason had written that all 
 should enjoy the fullest toleration in the exercise of religion. ... A young man, 
 then unknown to fame, of a bright hazel eye, inclined to gray, small in stature, 
 light in person, delicate in appearance, looking like a pallid, sickly scholar among 
 the robust men with whom he was associated, proposed a change. He was James 
 Madison, the son of an Orange County planter, bred in the school of the Presbyterian 
 dissenters under Witherspoon at Princeton* trained by his own studies, by medita- 
 tive rural life in the Old Dominion, and by an ingenuous indignation at the perse- 
 cution of the Baptists, by innate principles of right, to uphold the sanctity of 
 religious freedom. He objected to the word toleration, because it implied an estab- 
 lished religion, which endured dissent only as a condescension ; and as the earnest- 
 ness of his convictions overcame his modesty, he went on to demonstrate that ' all 
 men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion according to the dictates of 
 conscience.' His motion, which did but state with better dialectics the very pur- 
 pose which Mason wished to accomplish, obtained the suffrages of his colleagues. 
 This," adds Mr. Bancroft, " was the first achievement of the wisest civilian of 
 Virginia." 
 
 DR. WITHERSPOON'S WRITINGS. 
 
 Dr. Witherspoon's first publication appeared in the year 1753. 
 under the title of " Ecclesiastical Characteristics, or The Arena 
 of Church Polity," a keen satire, aimed at certain principles 
 and practices then prevailing in the Church of Scotland. So 
 great was the popularity of this work that no less than five 
 editions of it were issued within ten years from the time of its 
 first appearance. The name of the author was not given on 
 the title-page, but it was generally and correctly ascribed to 
 
 * The italics by the copyist.
 
 406 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 him ; and the manner in which it was received, by both friends 
 and foes, was an earnest of the position he was soon to occupy 
 in the councils of the Scottish Kirk. The work was favorably 
 spoken of by the Bishops of London and of Oxford, and it is 
 mentioned in President Davies's " Diary," during his visit to 
 England and Scotland in 1753-4,33 "a burlesque, the humor of 
 which is nothing inferior to Dean Swift's." At the close of the 
 introduction to this essay occurs the following: 
 
 " N. B. I shall make very little use of Scripture, because that is contrary to some 
 of the maxims themselves; as will be seen in the sequel." 
 
 This performance was defended in a later one under the title 
 of " A Serious Apology" for the Characteristics. 
 
 In 1756 he published his " Essay on Justification," which has 
 been repeatedly reprinted; and in the next year appeared his 
 " Serious Inquiry into the Nature and Effects of the Stage," 
 being an attempt to show that the contributing to the support 
 of a public theatre is inconsistent with the character of a Chris- 
 tian. What gave rise to the writing and the publication of this 
 treatise was the representation in the theatre at Edinburgh of a 
 tragedy written by a minister of the Church of Scotland. In 
 1784, Dr. Witherspoon published his " Practical Treatise on Re- 
 generation," and at the same time he republished several of his 
 other works. These were all issued from the London press, in 
 three volumes. 
 
 A sermon entitled " Seasonable Advice to Young Persons" 
 was preached by Dr. Witherspoon, on Sabbath, the 2 1st of 
 February, 1762, at the Laigh Church, Paisley, from the 1st 
 verse of the ist Psalm: " Blessed is the man that walketh not 
 in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sin- 
 ners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful." The sermon was 
 soon after published, and to it was prefixed " an authentic nar- 
 rative of a disorderly and riotous meeting, on the night before 
 the celebration of the Lord's Supper in that place, which gave 
 occasion to the discourse." 
 
 In this "authentic narrative" he makes mention of mock 
 preaching and praying, and use of the words employed in ad- 
 ministering the Eucharist, and he gives the names of sundry
 
 MEMOIR OF THE REV. JOHN W1THERSPOON. 407 
 
 young men engaged in these wicked and disgraceful acts. 
 The righteous indignation of the author of the sermon and of 
 " the authentic narrative" against the conduct of the persons 
 concerned is more to be commended than the judgment ex- 
 hibited by him in publishing their names, especially if it were 
 the aim of the author of the narrative to bring the guilty parties 
 to a sense of the sinfulness of their conduct, and to repentance for 
 it. At the close of the narrative, the Doctor suggested that one 
 of the party who considered himself aggrieved by the charge 
 made against him, and who was a young lawyer, a Writer to 
 the Signet, should prosecute one of his associates who had 
 given the information respecting his impious allusion to the 
 Lord's Supper, and get him punished in the manner he justly 
 deserved if the charge were false. Acting perhaps upon this 
 suggestion, the party chiefly implicated, or some other one of 
 the company, brought suit against the Doctor himself for defa- 
 mation of character. And although it is more than probable 
 that the charges against the whole company were substantially 
 true, yet, the evidence adduced failing, in the opinion of the 
 judges, to establish their guilt undeniably, the Doctor was sub- 
 jected to a fine and costs, which greatly embarrassed him, and 
 laid his friends under pecuniary obligations from which they 
 were not relieved at the time he left Scotland for America. 
 The gentleman who communicated some of these facts in a 
 letter to Dr. Green the letter in " Sprague's Annals," vol. 
 iii. gave it as his impression " that had it not been for the 
 friendly interference of those particularly interested in his wel- 
 fare, he would have been prevented at the time from leaving the 
 country." And had he been so prevented, who can conceive 
 the loss which would thereby have been sustained by the 
 College and by the country at large ? 
 
 The circumstances here detailed remind us of a like indis- 
 cretion on the part of President Edwards while pastor of the 
 church at Northampton, Massachusetts (of which mention was 
 made in our sketch of his life). And it is not a little remark- 
 able that the two most eminent men ever at the head of our 
 College should have involved themselves in great and ap- 
 parently needless troubles from a lack of discretion in dealing
 
 408 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 with sundry wayward young persons under their pastoral over- 
 sight by giving publicity to their faults and their names. But 
 these were isolated cases. On the part of neither was there 
 ever a repetition of the mistake; and throughout Dr. Wither- 
 spoon's administration of twenty-six years he was eminently 
 happy in directing the government and the discipline of the 
 College. 
 
 The edition of his works published in Philadelphia, in 1800, 
 by W. W. Woodward, printer, under the supervision of the 
 Rev. Dr. Ashbel Green, contains all of his writings ever given to 
 the public. Some of the pieces were not prepared for the press 
 by the author, and several of them are in an unfinished state. 
 His speeches and articles relative to the war and to various 
 political measures contain much valuable information respect- 
 ing the country at that period of its history, and the circum- 
 stances contributing to the first success of the Colonies in their 
 struggle for independence. One of these was the ignorance 
 of the British Government in regard to the opinions of the 
 people and their determination to maintain their liberty at all 
 hazards. In his article on " The Controversy about Independ- 
 ence" the following passage occurs : 
 
 " The conduct of the British Ministry during the whole of the contest, as hath 
 been often observed, has been such as to irritate the whole of this continent to the 
 highest degree and unite them together by the firm bond of necessity and common 
 interest. In this respect they have served us in the most essential manner. I am 
 firmly persuaded, that had the wisest heads in America met together to contrive 
 what measures the ministry should follow to strengthen the American opposition 
 and to defeat their own designs, they could not have fallen upon a plan so effectual 
 as that which has been steadily pursued. One instance I cannot help mentioning, 
 because it was both of more importance and less to be expected than any other. 
 When a majority of the New York Assembly, to their eternal infamy, attempted to 
 break the union of the colonies, by refusing to approve the proceedings of Congress 
 and applying to Parliament by separate petition, because they presumed to make 
 mention of the principal 'grievance of taxation, it was treated with ineffable con- 
 tempt. I desire that it may be observed that all those who are called the friends 
 of America in Parliament pleaded strongly for receiving the New York petition : 
 which plainly showed that neither one nor the other understood the state of affairs 
 in America. Had the ministry been prudent, or the opposition successful, we 
 had been ruined ; but with transport did every friend to American liberty hear 
 that these traitors to the common cause had met with the reception which they 
 deserved."
 
 MEMOIR OF THE REV. JOHN WITHERSPOON. 409 
 
 " Nothing is more manifest than that the people of Great Britain, and even the 
 king and the ministry, have been hitherto exceedingly ignorant of the state of 
 things in America. For this reason, their measures have been ridiculous in the 
 highest degree, and the issue disgraceful." 
 
 No one reading the above passage will question the Doctor's 
 ardent devotion to the cause of American liberty. 
 
 Of the four octavo volumes issued by Woodward, the first 
 tivo contain the funeral discourse, with a short sketch of Dr. 
 Witherspoon's life, by the Rev. Dr. John Rodgers, of New 
 York, preached at the request of the College, his essay on Jus- 
 tification, his treatise on Regeneration, and forty-seven sermons 
 on various subjects. The third contains " An Inquiry into the 
 Scripture Meaning of Charity," "A Letter respecting Play- 
 Actors," " Ecclesiastical Characteristics," " A Serious Apology 
 for the Ecclesiastical Characteristics," " The History of a Cor- 
 poration of Servants," a satire, " Lectures on Moral Philos- 
 ophy," " Lectures on Eloquence," " Letters on Education," 
 " Essay on Money," " Letters on Marriage," " Pastoral Letter," 
 prepared for the Synod of New York and Philadelphia at 
 their sessions in May, 1775, and a burlesque " Recantation of 
 Benjamin Towne, Printer and Publisher of the Pennsylvania 
 Evening Post, of Philadelphia." 
 
 The foiirtli volume is of a more miscellaneous character than 
 any of the others, and comprises his lectures on Divinity, his 
 defence before the Synod of Glasgow, a number of essays under 
 the title of " The Druid," a name, as he tells us in the first 
 number, suggested by the place of his residence; the last three 
 numbers being devoted to the notice and correction of American- 
 isms, cant phrases, etc., " Reflections on Public Affairs," " On 
 the Controversy about Independence," " Thoughts on American 
 Liberty," " Memorial and Manifesto of the United States," ad- 
 dressed to the mediating powers in the conferences for peace, 
 "The Georgia Constitution," "The Federal City," "Sundry 
 Speeches in Congress," " A Description of the State of New 
 Jersey," "An Address to the Inhabitants of Jamaica and other 
 West India Islands in Behalf of the College of New Jersey," and 
 a few other papers of more or less importance. 
 
 Of all his writings, the two most likely to be reprinted from 
 VOL. i. 27
 
 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 time to time are his " Essay on Justification" and his " Practical 
 Treatise on Regeneration," but his entire works are a valuable 
 addition to any library, private or public. His theology was 
 that of the Westminster divines, as set forth in the Confession 
 of Faith and in the Catechisms of the Presbyterian Churches 
 of Scotland and of the United States. We are informed by 
 the editor of this edition of his works that Dr. Witherspoon 
 did not intend his lectures on Moral Philosophy for publication, 
 and that he viewed them as nothing more than a syllabus or 
 compend upon which he might enlarge before a class. In this 
 manner they were used by Dr. Green himself during the ten 
 years that he was President of the College. The lectures, as 
 published, undoubtedly contain much valuable information re- 
 specting the various opinions entertained by preceding writers 
 on the subjects which he handles, and also just comments on 
 the views taken by them, rather than a precise and sharply- 
 defined exposition of his own views. 
 
 From a letter of his, of the date of March 20, 1780, to a 
 Glasgow friend and correspondent, it appears that his health 
 after his removal to America had been good, with the exception 
 of a succession of fits, thought by his physician to be of an 
 apoplectic kind. From these, however, he recovered, and at the 
 date of his letter he had much improved in health since these 
 comparatively recent attacks. It has been supposed that these 
 fits may in a measure be traced to a shock given to his nervous 
 system while he was yet a young minister residing at Beith, 
 in consequence of having been taken a prisoner by the High- 
 landers in the service of the Pretender after the battle of Falkirk, 
 January 17, 1746, and kept in close confinement by them for a 
 fortnight: he being at that time in a feeble state of health from 
 over- much study. Not apprehending any danger, he had gone 
 to be merely a spectator of the expected conflict. 
 
 A short time before writing the letter above mentioned, he 
 gave up his house at the College to his son-in-law, the Rev. 
 Dr. Smith, the Professor of Moral Philosophy, and retired to 
 his house and farm, about a mile, or a little more, from the Col- 
 lege. At this rural retreat, named by him Tusculum, he resided
 
 MEMOIR OF THE REV. JOHN WITHERSPOON. 
 
 fifteen years, devoting his leisure hours to the improvement of 
 his health and his farm. 
 
 His duties at the College, however, continued to demand 
 much of his time and attention ; nor did he remit in his devotion 
 to the affairs of the College even after he lost his sight, which 
 happened a few years before his decease. He employed gen- 
 erally one of the students to read to him and to act the part 
 of an amanuensis in conducting his correspondence. He also 
 continued to preach, having a sermon read to him, which with- 
 out any further aid he was able to pronounce on any given 
 occasion, the psalms and hymns and passages being repeated 
 from memory. 
 
 It is probable that his farming was not a success, and added 
 but little, if anything, to his income. And it is said that certain 
 speculations into which he was induced to enter for the pur- 
 chase of lands in the newly-formed State of Vermont involved 
 him in pecuniary embarrassments, which became a source of 
 trouble and anxiety. He was drawn into this adventure, as 
 appears from one of his letters, chiefly from a hope that he 
 would have it in his power to render a service to such of his 
 fellow-Scotchmen as might emigrate to America, by securing 
 for them an opportunity to buy good land, contiguous to the 
 best markets, upon the most favorable terms. For his share in 
 this undertaking he was sharply attacked in an article published 
 in a Scotch paper, and was charged with a want of proper re- 
 gard to the interests of his native country. Although he suc- 
 cessfully repelled the charge brought against him, it would have 
 been better had no occasion been furnished for the bringing of 
 it. Ministers had better remain poor than engage in money- 
 making schemes, failure in which is sure to bring more or less 
 reproach, and success no honor. 
 
 Dr. Witherspoon was noted for his social qualities. And 
 although he never forgot what was becoming a gentleman, 
 and especially a minister of the gospel, he made himself agree- 
 able to the young as well as to those of mature age, and his 
 company was eagerly sought by them, whether their object 
 was instruction or pleasure. He possessed a vein of abundant 
 humor, and his wit was of a special kind, of which some of his
 
 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 published works furnish ample proof, without any reference to 
 the traditions respecting it still prevalent. His sermons, it is 
 believed, show no trace of it. 
 
 Many other matters, which with great propriety might have 
 been introduced in the foregoing sketch, were given in the 
 account of Dr. Witherspoon's administration. These, if not 
 wholly passed without notice, have been but little dwelt upon 
 in this sketch of the Doctor's life. 
 
 The following remarks are copied from Dr. Rodgers's funeral 
 discourse: 
 
 " Accustomed to order and regularity in business from his youth, he persevered 
 in his attention to them through his whole life. And, I may add, there was nothing 
 in which his punctuality and exactness were more sacredly observed than in the devo- 
 tional exercises of the Christian life. Besides the daily devotions of the closet and 
 the family, it was his stated practice to observe the last day of every year, with his 
 family, as a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer ; and it was also his practice to set 
 apart days for secret fasting and prayer, as occasion suggested. Bodily infirmities 
 began at length to come upon him. For more than two years before his death 
 he was afflicted with loss of sight, which contributed to hasten the progress of his 
 other disorders. These he bore with a patience and even with a cheerfulness rarely 
 to be met with in the most eminent for wisdom and piety. Nor would his active 
 mind, and his desire of usefulness to the end, permit him, even in this situation, to 
 desist from the exercise of his ministry and his duties in the College, as far as his 
 health and strength would admit. He was frequently led into the pulpit, both at 
 home and abroad, during his blindness, and always acquitted himself with more 
 than his usual solemnity and animation. And we all recollect the propriety and 
 dignity with which he presided at the last Commencement. He was blest with 
 his reasoning powers to the very last. 
 
 " At length he sunk under the accumulated pressure of his infirmities, and on the 
 1 5th day of November, 1794, in the seventy-third year of his age, he retired to his 
 eternal rest, full of honor and full of days." 
 
 The more immediate cause of his death was the dropsy. 
 
 From the University of Aberdeen he received the degree of 
 Doctor in Divinity, and from Yale College the degree of Doctor 
 of Laws. 
 
 DR. WITHERSPOON'S FAMILY. 
 
 When Dr. Witherspoon came to this country, his family con- 
 sisted of himself, his wife, and five children, three sons and 
 two daughters. His wife was Elizabeth Montgomery, daugh- 
 ter of Robert Montgomery, of Craighouse, Ayrshire, Scotland. 
 His three sons entered the College of New Jersey, and became
 
 MEMOIR OF THE REV. JOHN WITHERSPOON. 
 
 graduates of this institution. James, the eldest son, was an aide 
 to General Nash in the War of the Revolution, and was killed 
 at the battle of Germantown, Pennsylvania. John, the second 
 son, was a physician, and settled in the parish of St. Stephen, 
 South Carolina. He died in 1795. The third and youngest 
 son, David, settled in New-Berne, North Carolina, where he 
 practised law. He married the widow of General Nash, and 
 he was the father of the Rev. Dr. John R. Witherspoon, the 
 Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church 
 in 1836. 
 
 The eldest daughter, Ann, became the wife of the Rev. Dr. 
 S. S. Smith, Dr. Witherspoon's successor in the office of Presi- 
 dent of the College ; and her sister, Frances, was married to Dr. 
 David'Ramsay, a physician and a historian of much note, whose 
 residence was in Charleston, South Carolina. Dr. Ramsay was 
 a member of the National Congress, and for one year he was 
 the President of that body. 
 
 Mrs. Witherspoon died in 1789, and about a year and a half 
 after her death Dr. Witherspoon married Mrs. Dill, the widow 
 of Dr. Dill, a physician of Philadelphia, and a step-daughter of 
 the Rev. William Marshall, a minister of the Associate Church. 
 By this marriage he had two daughters, of whom one died in 
 infancy; the other, Mary Ann, was married to the Rev. Dr. 
 James S. Woods, who for many years was the faithful and 
 honored pastor of the Presbyterian church at Lewistown, Penn- 
 sylvania. 
 
 EPITAPH. 
 
 By order of the Trustees of the College, a slab of marble, 
 with the following inscription, was placed on Dr. Witherspoon's 
 grave : 
 
 Reliquiae Mortales 
 
 Johannis Witherspoon, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 Collegii Neo-Ca;sariensis Pnesidis, plurimum venerandi, 
 
 sub hoc marmore 
 
 inhumantur. 
 
 Natus parochio Vesternensi Scotorum, 
 
 Nonis Februarii, MDCCXXII. V. S. 
 
 Literis humanioribus in Universitate Edinburgensi 
 
 imbutus. 
 Sacris ordinibus initiatus, Anno MDCCXLIII.
 
 414 HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 Munus pastorale 
 
 per viginti quinque annos perfunctus est, 
 
 primo apud Beith, deincle apud Paisley. 
 
 Prsese> designatus Aulae Nassovicse, Anno MDCCLXVII. 
 
 in Americam migravit, Anno MDCCLXVIII. 
 
 Idibus Sextilis. 
 
 Maxima expectatione Omnium, 
 
 Munus prsesidiale suscepit. 
 
 Vir eximia pietate ac virtute 
 
 Omnibus dotibus animi prseellens 
 
 doctrina, atque optimarum artium studiis, 
 
 penitus eruditus, 
 Concionator gravis, solemnis. 
 
 Orationes ejus sacrse 
 prseceptis et institutis vitse 
 
 prcestantissimis, 
 necnon expositionibtis sacrosanctse scripturse 
 
 dilucidis 
 sunt replete. 
 
 In sermone familiari comis, lepidus, blandus, 
 rerum ecclesise forensium 
 
 peritissimus. 
 
 Summa prudentia, 
 
 et in regenda, et instituenda juventute, 
 
 praeditus. 
 Existimationem collegii apud peregrines 
 
 auxit : 
 
 bonasque literas in eo multum provexit. 
 Inter lumina clarissima, et doctrinse et ecclesise, 
 
 diu luxit. 
 
 Tandem, veneratus, dilectus, lugendus omnibus, 
 
 animam efflavit, XVI. Kal. Decem. 
 
 Anno Salutis Mundi, MDCCXCIV. 
 
 aetatis suse LXXIII. 
 
 END OF VOL. I.
 
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