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:
·
New England Religious Roots - http://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2017/02/wolcott-history-new-england-religious.html
·
Harvard and Yale - http://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2017/03/genealogy-story-harvard-and-yale.html
·
James Pierpont Descendants - http://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2017/04/genealogy-story-james-pierpont.html
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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