Friday, April 7, 2017

Genealogy Story – Princeton

I have mentioned in several prior blogs the institutions of Harvard and Yale and the role my ancestors, especially the Pierpont family, played in their early years. For reference, those blogs were:

To recap, both of these institutions were founded as institutions for the training of pastors, although their religious roots were later abandoned and their purposes expanded.

There was also one other interesting parallel. In 1636 Harvard was originally called “New College” or “the college at New Towne” before Newtowne was renamed as Cambridge in 1638 and the institution was renamed as Harvard in 1639 after an early benefactor. Similarly, the city where Yale was founded in 1701 was named New Haven and the institution was called the Collegiate School of Connecticut before it was renamed as Yale in 1718 after another early benefactor.

This blog is not about either of these institutions, but the third of the religious-rooted universities in America. In the blog on New England Religious Roots, I noted that “Some members of the New Haven Colony, seeking to establish a new theocracy elsewhere, went on to establish Newark, New Jersey.” And in continuing this pursuit, the name of the place where this took place was another “New” place (Newtowne, New Haven, New Jersey), and the original name of the institution was another somewhat generic name, The College of New Jersey.

The College of New Jersey was founded in 1746 (Harvard was the first in 1636, Yale in 1701 after a gap of 65 years, and another gap of 45 years until this institution). It was located in Elizabeth(Elizabethtown) for one year, then Newark for nine years before moving to Princeton in 1756. It was not renamed as Princeton for 150 years until 1896 when it attained university status. (Note that there were other institutions established in North America by then, but they were not institutions established primarily for religious training like these three. For a full list, see https://www.topuniversities.com/blog/10-oldest-universities-us where Harvard, Yale and Princeton are first, third, and seventh.)

The religious practices of the early colonists had evolved over the years. Where the founders of Harvard had been definitely Puritan, by the time Yale was founded the founding pastors were all of Congregational churches. And by 1746, the founders of Princeton were what was known as “New Light Presbyterians.” The primary founders were pastors Jonathan Dickinson, Aaron Burr, Sr., and Jonathan Edwards.

All three of these men had been educated at Yale. But in the early 1740s there was a controversy over unorthodox piety fostered by the Great Awakening which led to internal differences in the Presbyterian and Congregational churches. The rift affected the faculty and student body at Yale that was at the time an incubator for both Presbyterian and Congregational clergy. The above men, all being on the pro-Awakening side founded the College of New Jersey (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Burr_Sr.).

Dickenson (1688-1747), originally an ordained minister of the Congregational church in Elizabethtown but who had persuaded his congregation to join the Presbytery of Philadelphia, was elected the first president (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Dickinson_(New_Jersey). Classes of the initial student body of 8-10 members began in his parsonage, but he died suddenly only five months later.

Burr (1716-1757), who was also teaching at the college, then became the second president and the school moved to his home in Newark. During his time at Yale (he had been born in Connecticut as had Dickenson), he was personally acquainted with Jonathan Edwards and his wife Sarah [Pierpont]. Although he was unmarried when assuming the presidency of Princeton, just a few years later, in 1752, he married Esther Edwards, the daughter of Jonathan and Sarah. Meanwhile the student body had increased from 8-10 to 40-50 and the first commencement had been held. In 1756 he moved the school to its permanent home in Princeton and supervised the construction of Nassau Hall, the largest building in colonial New Jersey when it was completed. In 1755 he was relieved of his pastor duties to concentrate full-time on his work at Princeton. Only a year later he died prematurely with his death attributed to overwork. His widow died just seven months later, orphaning his two children (I have given information on them in the blog on James Pierpont Descendants above).

Following Burr’s death, the college called Burr’s father-in-law, Jonathan Edwards, to take over the presidency, despite Edwards being in declining health. He served as president for only six weeks, before passing away himself.

The next two presidents also had short terms of service, Samuel Davies served for only two years before dying at the age of 37 from pneumonia and Samuel Finley serving only five years before also dying in office.

I find the parallels between these institutions and their locations very intriguing. The Massachusetts Bay Colony was founded by Puritans in 1630 by individuals fleeing England due to repressive religious policies there. Shortly thereafter, they began what became Harvard to train Puritan pastors. The New Haven Colony was founded in 1638 by John Davenport and others who wanted to establish a “better theological community” with the government more closely linked to the church than the one in Massachusetts. Davenport also wanted to establish his own school, but it was not until 1701, under James Pierpont, that his dream was realized. And Newark was founded in 1666 by a group of Connecticut Puritans from the New Haven Colony who wanted to avoid losing political power to others not of their own church.

Besides the Pierpont family involvement (James, educated at Harvard, founder of Yale, married granddaughter of Davenport, father-in-law of Jonathan Edwards and grandfather-in-law of Aaron Burr, Sr.), there was one other family connected with all three institutions. Abraham Pierson was a congregational minister in Boston, later founded a church in Branford CT in the New Haven Colony where his son later became one of the founders of Yale and its first president (and where his daughter married the son of John Davenport), then moved to NJ in 1666 and founded Newark to once again pursue his vision of theocracy. The history of Newark (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Newark,_New_Jersey) notes that Newark was under total control of the Puritan Church for over 70 years until an Episcopalian church was built in 1746, the same year that the College of New Jersey was founded.

I hope that this blog – which at least for now will complete my series on the early institutions of the period – helps you see history in a new light.




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