Rutgers, the Dutch Reformed Church, & Langdon-Rockstein Connections

 

 Kirkpatrick Chapel  New Brunswick  New Jersey

 

In the fall of 1959, several of my classmates from the Riverside High School [Riverside, New Jersey] Class of 1959 and I entered Rutgers College in New Brunswick [NJ]. Three of us started out residing on the same floor in Freylinghuysen Hall, one of three newish, high-rise dorms 'on the banks of the Old Raritan' that also included Hardenbergh Hall and [then] Livingston Hall, now renamed as Campbell Hall.. 

 

The following semester I moved across the street into Hegeman Hall, part of a quad, consisting of Hegeman, Wessels, Leupp, and Pell Halls known collectively as the Bishop quadrangle on what was part of the Old Queens College campus..  

 

When I started at Rutgers I didn't know that it had been founded by members of the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC). I hadn't even ever heard of the DRC before I matriculated!  Well, many years later, when I became deeply involved in our family history, I found so many Dutch surnames in my family tree that I thought to see if we were related to any of the people for whom the quad was named. 

 

Remarkably, I found that not only were we related to one, but that we were related to many of the people for whom buildings on the College Avenue Old Queens Campus were named. Also, Henry Rutgers, the benefactor after whom the school was named, is my 4th cousin seven times removed (4c 7x). 

 

Starting near the top of the map above and going down the campus, more or less, here are the buildings and name connections below.

 

Simeon De Witt [4c 6x] Building, one of the School of Communications & Information's buildings.

 

Alexander Library named for Archibald Stevens Alexander [half 9c 2x] 

 

Brower Commons was the Rutgers dining hall, recently replaced by the Atrium, was named for Charles H. Brower  [half 9c 3x].

Clothier Hall was named for my 12c 1x, Robert Clarkson Clothier, the fourteenth President of Rutgers. He was the nephew of Isaac Hallowell Clothier [11c 2x] one of the founding partners of the Strawbridge and Clothier Department stores.

 

Mettler Hall was named for John Wyckoff Mettler [7c 2x] the founder and president of Interwoven Stocking Company of Somerset County, New Jersey, and member of Rutgers Board of Trustees.

Bishop House was built for James Bishop [3c 6x], a prominent businessman and Congressman.

Hegeman Hall is after John Rogers Hegeman, sr. [6c 4x] who had been the President of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company from 1891 until his retirement.. 

 

Wessels Hall, is named after Wessel Wessels [5c 5x.] Leupp, however, was not not related, but Pell, was named for John Henry Pell husband of Mary Bogert Wessels [6c 4x] whose father was Wessel Wessels. She donated the funds for both her father's and husband's namesake buildings. 

 

Demarest Hall was named after William Henry Steel Demarest [6c 3x] who was the first Rutgers alum to become President of Rutgers and who as president, established New Jersey College for Women (now Douglass College) in 1918. 

 

Freylinghuysen Hall was named for the Freylinghuysen family and I have four notable cousins among them with intimate connections to the history of Rutgers College.. 

 

Voorhees Hall was named for Ralph Garret Voorhees [6c 5x]. 

 

Hardenbergh Hall named after Jacob Rutsen Hardenbergh [4c 7x] who was the first president of Rutgers College..

 

Brett Hall  was named in honor of Philip Milledoler Brett  (husband of Margaret Abbie Strong [7c 2x]). Brett was the captain of the football team that played Princeton University in 1892 in which he was apocryphally credited with saying: "I'd die to win this game." Which gave rise to the song "Nobody Ever Died for Dear Old Rutgers" in the Broadway musical "High Button Shoes."

Van Nest Hall, where I had all my classics courses, was named in honor of Abraham Van Nest [3c 7x].

 

Gardner A. Sage Library  was named for Gardner Avery Sage [7c 5x], an active member of the DRC who donated the library building and other properties to the seminary.

 

Murray Hall  is named in honor of the mathematician David Murray [7c 4x],who greatly influenced Rutgers' development in mathematics and sciences and who later was an advisor to Meiji era Japan.

Van Nest Hall, where I had several classes has been renovated and repurposed, was named after Abraham Van Nest [3c 7x] who was the President of Greenwich Savings Bank and who served as a Rutgers trustee for forty years.

The Daniel S. Schanck Observatory was built in 1865, largely funded by New York City businessman Daniel S, Schanck [husband of my 6c 4x Mary Ann Smock].

Geology Hall  was built with funds raised by Rutgers 8th president William Henry Campbell [husband of my 6c 5x, Catherine Elsie Schoonmaker] and designed by Henry Janeway Hardenbergh  [8c 3x].

A BRIEF OUTLINE OF RUTGERS EARLY HISTORY

 

Rutgers was founded by charter signed by Governor William Franklin, son of Benjamin Franklin, November 10, 1766. The college was to be called Queens College in honor of Charlotte of Mecklenburg, wife of King George III of England [7c 5x].  

 

A second charter was signed by Governor Franklin on March 20, 1770, in order to allow resident status for New York residents as well as New Jersey residents in order to make it easier to raise funds especially with affluent members of the Dutch Reformed Church in New York.

 

In May of 1771 the Board of Trustees selected New Brunswick, New Jersey, for the permanent site of the campus. Beginning in November of 1771 classes were first held in what was then the Red Lion Inn. Teaching a handful of students there was by Frederick Theodore Freylinghuysen [3c 7x], the eighteen year old grandson of Theodorus Jacobus Freylinghuysen (husband of my 1c 9x, Eva Terhune) and the stepson of Jacob Rutsen Hardenburg [4c 7x].

Queen’s College held its first commencement in October, 1774. Nineteen-year-old Matthew Leydt (QC1774) [4c 6x] was the entire graduating class.  

Distinguished alumni of the 1700's included James Schureman Queens College (QC '75) {who was the husband of  Eleanor Davidse Williamson [3c 7x]} who represented New Jersey in the Continental Congress and later the U.S. House and Simeon De Witt (QC1776) [4c 6x],  who was served George Washington as Geographer and Surveyor General of the Continental Army during the American Revolution and later served as Surveyor General of the State of New York for the fifty years from 1784 until his death. 

 

The first president of Queens College was Reverend Jacob Rutsen Hardenbergh. [4c 7x]

 

 The second President was  Reverend William Adolphus Linn husband of Helena Louw [6c 4x] who was selected after the death of President Hardenbergh.

 

The Reverend Ira Condict , husband of Sarah Perrine [5c 6x] was selected by the Trustees as president pro tempore. The college's third president, Condict, was instrumental in raising funds to support the building of the Queen's College Building, the school's first dedicated building, April 27, 1809

 

Notable alumni of the period 1800-1850 include William Augustus Newell (QC 36), White House Physician, New Jersey Governor [first of six Rutgers alumni to be governor of New Jersey], and father of the U.S. Coast Guard. 

 

The fourth President of Rutgers was Reverend John Henry Livingston , husband of Sarah Levy Livingston, [4c 6x] {yes, her surname was also Livingston, they were second cousins}.

 

In 1825 Queens College was renamed Rutgers College in honor of Colonel Henry Rutgers [4c 7x] . In March of 1825 Colonel Rutgers also donated a bell that still hangs in the cupola of the Old Queens building.

Former U/S. Congressman Abraham Bruyn Hasbrouck, husband of Helena Jansen [4c 7x] was named the sixth President of Rutgers and the first layman to serve as President.

Theodore Freylinghuysen [half 6c 4x], once U.S. Senator, one-time Whig Party Vice-Presidential nominee running with Henry Clay of Kentucky at the top of the ticket, and former President of New York University became the seventh President of Rutgers.

 

On April 21, 1847, the cornerstone of the second instructional building, Van Nest Hall was laid. The hall was named for Abraham Van Nest [3c 7x], a New York City merchant, president of Greenwich Bank, and devoted Rutgers trustee.The building was designed by Nicholas Wyckoff [half 7c 4x].

 

New Jersey Governor Foster McGowan Voorhees (RC '77)  [half 7c 2x ], was one of the distinguished alumni of the period 1850-1900.

In 1859, blaming declining enrollment, inadequate funding, and student and public apathy on an unruly faculty, President Theodore Frelinghuysen [half 6c 4x] fired every faculty member except George H. Cook, who would go on to have a major impact on the college.

 

Theodore Frelinghuysen  [his first wife was Charlotte Mercer, [half 6c 4x], former U.S. Senator from New Jersey, U.S. vice presidential candidate in 1844, and former chancellor of New York University, was inaugurated as the seventh president of Rutgers. Enrollment grew under his watch, but the gains were short-lived as students left to fight in the Civil War. 

 

Theological Hall was built to house seminary work, marking, for the first time, the physical separation of the college from the church.

 

The eighth President of Rutgers College was William Henry Campbell, husband of Catharine Elsie Schoonmaker [5c 5x]. Campbell had been professor of Oriental languages in the Theological Seminary and professor of belles lettres in Rutgers College.

 

In May 1886 Robert H. Pruyn (RC1833, '36), husband of Jane Ann Lansing [6c 4x] and who had been appointed by President Lincoln, presented his credentials to serve as the second U.S. ambassador, or envoy, to Japan at a time when that country was just beginning to open up to the West. 

 

Alumnus George Henry Sharpe (RC1847, '50) [ 6c 5x] was tasked by Union Army Major General Joseph Hooker to "pull together an organization charged with getting information about the enemy." First called the Secret Service Department, his unit was later known as the Bureau of Military Information. Sharpe's Civil War creation was "an all-source intelligence organization," the Army's first. Sharpe's wife was Caroline Hasbrouck, a daughter of Rutgers' sixth president, Abraham Bruyn Hasbrouck.

 

In 1864 the Dutch Reformed Church severed its ties with Rutgers when the school became the land grant university of the State of New Jersey under the Morrill Land-Grant Acts .

In 1865 Francis Cuyler Van Dyck (RC1865), husband of Sara Van Nuis [3c 4x], who would later be appointed the college's first dean, enrolled in the Rutgers Scientific School as a graduate student in chemistry, the first graduate student at Rutgers. "At that time there were no formal courses for graduate students, and provision had not yet been made for 'earned' graduate degrees."

 

President Lincoln signed legislation establishing the National Academy of Sciences to advise the federal government on matters of science. Rutgers mathematician Theodore Strong [8c 5x] was named a charter member. The National Academy of Sciences: The First Hundred Years 1863–1963 describes Strong as "an excellent pure mathematician ... he was at work on a treatise on differential and integral calculus.

 

On December 17, 1867, President Andrew Johnson submitted to the House of Representatives George Henry Sharpe's (RC1847, '50) [6c 5x] investigative report on possible European connections to the Lincoln assassination. Sharpe was sent to Europe by Secretary of State William Seward "to ascertain, if possible, whether any citizens of the United States in that quarter, other than those who have heretofore been suspected and charged with the offense, were instigators of, or concerned in, the assassination of the late President Lincoln."

 

Geological Hall, a Gothic brownstone structure which houses the departments of geology, physics, and military science, was designed by Henry Janeway Hardenbergh [8c 3x], great-great-grandson of Rutgers' first president, Jacob Rutsen Hardenbergh . Today, on its second floor, is the Rutgers Geology Museum, nationally recognized for its outstanding collection of minerals, fossils, Indian relics, and modern shells. A 10,000-year-old mastodon has dominated the museum for over a century.

 

Mason Welch Gross [10c] served in World War II in the Army Intelligence Corps, and was assigned to a bomber group based in Italy. Gross earned the Bronze Star, and was later discharged as a Captain. He then became Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Assistant to the Dean of Arts and Science at Rutgers University in 1946. In 1947 he was promoted to assistant dean and associate professor, and in 1949 was appointed to the newly created position of provost to take over the duties of the ailing Robert Clarkson Clothier who took a leave of absence. Clothier resigned his office in 1951 and Gross continued as provost under the newly appointed Lewis Webster Jones. He was then given the additional title of vice president in 1958. Jones resigned the presidency in August 1958, and in February 1959, Gross was chosen as president. On May 6, 1959, he became the sixteenth president of Rutgers University. [From 1949 to 1950 he was a panelist on the television quiz show, Think Fast. He was also a judge for the show, Two for the Money from 1952 to 1955.] The Rutgers School for the Creative and Performing Arts at Rutgers was renamed as the Mason Gross School of the Arts in 1979 in his honor.