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 13th of February, N. S., the Trustees 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 advertisement 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

conducted the instruction and the government of the College was in full force until it was superseded by the one given by Governor Belcher in 1748.*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 candidates, 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 gentlemen to be associated with him as Trustees under the charter which he was then preparing, requested that the Commencement 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 expected, 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 therefore altered, and it passed the seal of the Province a second time on the 14th 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 9th of November of that year, when the expectant 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.

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 conjectures, 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 inducement to engage in this enterprise, but the catalogue of graduates 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,

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 character of this early friend of the College, and of the important services which he rendered to it, we hope to have an opportunity 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 Abigail, daughter of Samuel, and granddaughter of the Rev. Adam Blackman, or Blakeman, the first minister of Stratford, Connecticut, 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 ordained 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."

County, Connecticut, who the year before had formed a consociation 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. Hatfield, "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 profiting 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 Melyen, 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 Sergeant 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.