Henry Rutgers

Henry Rutgers (October 7, 1745 – February 17, 1830)<ref name=RU-life>Template:Cite web</ref> was a United States Revolutionary War hero and philanthropist from New York City. Rutgers University was named after him, and he donated a bond which placed the college on sound financial footing. He also gave a bell that is still in use.

Early life

Rutgers was born in New York City, in the Province of New York which was then a part of British America. He was the son of New Netherland colonists Hendrick Rutgers and Catharine (née DePeyster) Rutgers.<ref name="Reynolds">Template:Cite book</ref>

His maternal grandparents were Johannes de Peyster, the 23rd Mayor of New York City, and Anna (née Bancker) de Peyster, the sister of Evert Bancker, the 3rd and 12th Mayor of Albany, New York.<ref name="BielinskiEvert">Template:Cite web</ref> His paternal grandparents were Harmanus Rutgers and Rachel (née Meyers) Rutgers, herself a granddaughter of Claes Martenszen van Rosenvelt, the first Roosevelt to arrive in America.<ref name="Reynolds"/> Through his father's sister, he was a first cousin of Samuel Provoost, the first Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New York.<ref name="Reynolds"/> He was a third cousin twice removed of both U.S. Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

In 1728 Harmanus Rutgers, Jr. purchased a farm near present-day East Broadway and Oliver Streets. Rutgers was a brewer and had a barn on Catherine Street to store the barley he grew. A lane that would later become Cherry Street ran along the southern border. His son Hendrick inherited the property and in 1754 built a new farmhouse farther to the north and nearer the East River. The Rutgers extended their holdings, purchasing water lots. Fill was added to the water on either side at the ends of the larger streets that ran perpendicular to the shore, forming slips or inlets where small boats could dock.<ref name=Meade>Meade, Elizabeth D., "Rutgers Slip", AKRF, Inc., May 2009</ref>

Career

Rutgers graduated from King's College (now Columbia University) in 1766.<ref name=RU-life /> Following his graduation, he promptly became an advocate for independence of the American colonies from Great Britain. He went on to serve as a captain of American forces at the Battle of White Plains, and later as a colonel for the New York militia. During the British occupation of New York, Rutgers withdrew to Albany. During his absence, the British used the family home as an army hospital.<ref name=Meade/>

Rutgers continued to play a role in the defense of the young nation after the Revolution, presiding over a meeting held June 24, 1812, to organize American forces in New York in anticipation of a British attack in the ensuing War of 1812.

Politics and public life

File:Old Queens, New Brunswick, NJ - cupola and brownstone.jpg

The bronze bell donated by Henry Rutgers hangs in the cupola of Old Queens

In 1783, Rutgers was elected to the New York State Assembly, where he served in the 7th New York State Legislature.<ref name="Hough1858">Template:Cite book</ref> He also served on the New York Board of Education Regents from 1802 to 1826. He was a presidential elector, chosen by the legislature, in 1808, 1816, and 1820.

Rutgers supported the American Colonization Society, arguing against abolitionists that free people of color should be removed from the United States rather than allowed to grow as a population.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He was himself a slaveowner, like many of his relatives.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Rutgers continued to expand his holdings, extending his water lots further out into the river. In his later years, Rutgers, a bachelor, devoted much of his fortune to philanthropy. As a landowner with considerable holdings on the island of Manhattan (especially in the vicinity of Chatham Square), he donated land for the use of schools, churches, and charities in the area. Both Henry Street and Rutgers Street in lower Manhattan are named for him, as well as the Rutgers Presbyterian Church<ref>[1] Template:Webarchive</ref> (formerly the Collegiate Presbyterian Church) which was also named for Rutgers who donated the parcel of land at the corner of Henry Street and Rutgers Street on which the original church was built in 1798.

In 1807, he helped purchase the site of what became Spring Street Presbyterian Church.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite journal</ref>

Rutgers' most lasting legacy, however, is due to his donations to Queen's College in New Brunswick, New Jersey, which at the time was suffering considerable financial difficulties and temporarily closed.<ref name="nyhistory">Template:Cite web</ref> The college had been founded as a seminary for the Reformed Church in America and appealed to Rutgers, a devout member of the church with a reputation for philanthropy, for aid. Rutgers donated a bond valued at $5000 to reopen the faltering school, and subsequently donated a bronze bell that was hung in the cupola of the Old Queens building which housed the college. In gratitude, and hoping the college would be remembered in Rutgers' will, the trustees renamed it Rutgers College on December 5, 1825. (Rutgers left nothing to the college upon his death. This gave rise to the term "the RU Screw" which students and alumni use to refer to things that go wrong for students.<ref>[url=https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rutgers-new-brunswick-6964]</ref>) The institution later became Rutgers University, then Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Death and legacy

File:Coat of Arms of Henry Rutgers.svg

Coat of Arms of Henry Rutgers

Rutgers died in 1830 in New York City, at the age of 84. His body was initially buried in the Reformed Church on Nassau Street (the same church in which he was baptized) in Manhattan. However, as cemeteries in Manhattan were redeveloped during the mid-1800s, Rutgers' body was re-interred several times (first moved in 1858 to the Middle Church in Lafayette Place, on the corner of Nassau Street and Cedar Street in Manhattan, and then, in 1865, interred in Green-Wood Cemetery). For many years, no one remembered where his body had been finally buried, although it was long believed that he was buried in a Dutch Reformed churchyard in Belleville, New Jersey. One road running alongside this New Jersey graveyard is now called Rutgers Street (signed as, but not technically part of, Route 7).

Misplaced by history for over 140 years, Rutgers' final grave was rediscovered in October 2007<ref>Source: contemporaneous personal correspondence with the Civil War research volunteers (including Mark & Stephanie Carey, two Rutgers alumni) who discovered Rutgers' re-interment record while searching for Civil War veteran and casualty burial records. They notified the Cemetery historian, who worked with Rutgers historians and the Veterans' Administration to ensure that Rutgers' burial place was properly marked and recorded.</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> by Civil War research volunteers sifting through burial records of the historical Green-Wood Cemetery. In 1865, Rutgers' body had been finally buried in an unmarked grave (he is interred in Lot 10776, Sec. 28, in an underground vault) within the Dutch Reformed Church's plot at Green-Wood Cemetery<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> in Brooklyn.

The Green-Wood Historic Fund and members of the Rutgers Community honored Rutgers' memory on Flag Day, June 14, 2008, by unveiling a bronze marker at his gravesite. Elsewhere in Green-Wood Cemetery lies the grave of Mabel Smith Douglass, founder and first dean of the New Jersey College for Women (renamed Douglass College in her honor). Douglass College is part of Rutgers University's New Brunswick campus.

External links

• Rutgers University
• Rutgers Presbyterian Church Template:Webarchive in New York City.
• From the papers of Henry Rutgers
• Template:Usurped
• Template:Find a Grave