Henry Rutgers

Henry Rutgers
Image of Rutgers based on 1828 painting by Henry Inman
Member of the New York State Assembly from New York County
In office
July 1, 1783 – June 30, 1784
Personal details
Born October 7, 1745
New York City, Province of New York, British America
Died February 17, 1830(1830-02-17) (aged 84)
New York City, New York, U.S.
Nationality American
Relations Samuel Provoost (cousin)
Parents Hendrick Rutgers
Catharine DePeyster
Alma mater King's College
Occupation Revolutionary War hero, philanthropist
Signature

Henry Rutgers (October 7, 1745 – February 17, 1830)[1] 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 today.

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.[2]

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.[3] 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.[2] Through his father's sister, he was a first cousin of Samuel Provoost, the first Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New York.[2]

He graduated from King's College (now Columbia University) in 1766.[1]

Career

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. His home served as a barracks during the British occupation of New York in 1776.

Colonel Rutgers would continue 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

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

In 1783, Colonel Rutgers was elected to the New York State Assembly, where he served in the 7th New York State Legislature.[4] 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.

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 [5] (formerly the Collegiate Presbyterian Church) which was also named for Colonel 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.

Colonel 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.[6] The college had been founded as a seminary for the Reformed Church in America and appealed to Colonel 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 the Colonel's will, the trustees renamed it Rutgers College on December 5, 1825. (Colonel Rutgers left nothing to the college upon his death.) The institution later became "Rutgers University," then "Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey".[7]

Death and legacy

Henry Rutgers died in New York City, at the age of 84. Rutgers was initially buried in the Reformed Church on Nassau Street (the same church in which he was baptized). However, as cemeteries in Manhattan were redeveloped during the mid-1800s, the Colonel’s 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 laid to rest, 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, Henry Rutgers' final "final resting place" was rediscovered in October 2007[8][9] by Civil War research volunteers sifting through burial records of the historical Green-Wood Cemetery. In 1865, Rutgers' body had been finally laid to rest 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[10][11] in Brooklyn.

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

References

  1. 1 2 Piserchia, Susan M. "Edmund B. Shotwell: Manuscript Notes on the Life of Henry Rutgers, 1946-1962". Rutgers University. Retrieved 16 February 2013.
  2. 1 2 3 Reynolds, Cuyler (1911). Hudson-Mohawk Genealogical and Family Memoirs: A Record of Achievements of the People of the Hudson and Mohawk Valleys in New York State, Included Within the Present Counties of Albany, Rensselaer, Washington, Saratoga, Montgomery, Fulton, Schenectady, Columbia and Greene. Lewis Historical Publishing Company. Retrieved 5 December 2016.
  3. ↑ Bielinski, Stefan. "Evert Bancker". exhibitions.nysm.nysed.gov. Retrieved 5 December 2016.
  4. ↑ Hough, A.M. M.D., Franklin B. (1858). The New York Civil List: Containing the names and origin of the civil divisions, and the names and dates of election or appointment of the principal state and county officers from the Revolution to the present time. Albany: Weed, Parsons and Co. Publishers. Retrieved 15 February 2018.
  5. ↑ Archived August 20, 2006, at the Wayback Machine.
  6. ↑ "Henry Rutgers (1745-1830)". www.nyhistory.org. New-York Historical Society. Retrieved 15 February 2018.
  7. ↑ "Henry Rutgers [1745-1830]". New Netherland Institute. New Netherland Institute. Retrieved 16 February 2013.
  8. ↑ Source: contemporaneous personal correspondence with the Civil War research volunteers (including Mark & Stephanie Carey, two Rutgers alums) who found the Colonel's re-burial record while searching for Civil War veteran/casualty burial records. They notified the Cemetery historian, who worked with Rutgers historians & the Veterans' Administration to ensure that the Colonel's burial place was properly marked and recorded.
  9. ↑ Mosca, Alexandra Kathryn (2008). Green-Wood Cemetery. Arcadia Publishing. p. 114. ISBN 9781439642351. Rutgers died in 1830 and years later in 1865 his body was moved from a Manhattan churchyard to Green-Wood. For decades his grave marker did not bear his name. But in 2008, a stone with him name was placed.
  10. ↑ "Green-Wood Cemetery "The Arch" newsletter" (PDF). 2008. Retrieved November 6, 2016.
  11. ↑ Fowler, David J. "Benevolent Patriot: Henry Rutgers, 1745-1830". Retrieved November 6, 2016.
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