Princeton University: Foundation and Early Teaching

Princeton University's predecessor was the College of New Jersey. In the mid-eighteenth century, disagreements among North American Presbyterians over revivalism and ministerial training prompted ministers and laypeople in related church networks to promote a new college. The first trustees listed in the 1746 charter included ministers Jonathan Dickinson, Aaron Burr Sr., John Pierson, and Ebenezer Pemberton Jr., alongside William Smith, Peter Van Brugh Livingston, and William Peartree Smith.

Training ministers was an important motive, but the college's purpose extended beyond theology. The charter listed classical languages, liberal arts, and sciences and provided opportunities for students of different denominations. Trustees could own property, receive gifts, appoint a president and teachers, regulate the institution, and confer degrees. Educational purposes and corporate governance entered the document together, giving the project an organizational form beyond private instruction.

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Acting New Jersey governor John Hamilton granted the first charter on October 22, 1746. Disputes over the sufficiency of his authority challenged the college's legal standing. Governor Jonathan Belcher issued a second charter on September 14, 1748, supplying a new institutional foundation for the existing college rather than creating an unrelated school two years later.

Differences appear in the parallel transcription reissued by the university archives in 2024: the first charter limited trustees to twelve, while the second expanded the number to twenty-three, incorporated the governor into governance, and adjusted procedures such as meeting quorums. The text used here is a reissue of Thomas Wertenbaker's edited transcription, not an image of the 1746 original. It retained educational aims while strengthening connections between trustees and colonial administration.

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Legal authorization still had to become actual teaching. An announcement reproduced in John Maclean's 1877 history stated that classes would begin in Elizabethtown in the fourth week of May 1747, with Dickinson as president. After his death that October, Burr took over teaching and students moved to his home town of Newark. In November 1748, Burr was formally elected president under the second charter.

Later approximate figures cannot replace a register of the initial students. Maclean notes a lack of reliable contemporary records for enrollment and curriculum under Dickinson. What he could name precisely were six graduates at the first commencement in 1748, not every entrant in 1747. Separating the start of classes, degree awards, and founding charter avoids compressing development into a single day when buildings and courses supposedly appeared complete.

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A permanent location depended on land and money. In 1750, trustees requested fundraising proposals from New Brunswick and Princeton; in 1752 they settled on Princeton's terms, and Nathaniel FitzRandolph supplied building land in 1753. Nassau Hall subsequently provided student lodging, a library, and common spaces, with a separate president's house. In autumn 1756, trustees arranged the students' move from Newark to Princeton.

Local gifts could not alone finance construction. Gilbert Tennent and Samuel Davies went to Britain and Ireland, gaining church and private support. Maclean records approximately £1,200 collected in London but notes that the overall accounts were lost, preventing a precise total for the entire campaign. Trustees' records in 1755 indicate sufficient proceeds to cover the college building and president's house. Overseas religious connections thus became a practical source of educational funds.

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Entrance rules formulated in 1748 required candidates to translate Virgil and Cicero, turn English into grammatical Latin, and translate the Greek Four Gospels into Latin or English. Once admitted, students had to copy and retain the college rules. The institution trained knowledge while regulating conduct, and classical-language requirements generally presupposed substantial preparatory education.

Joseph Shippen's letters reproduced by Maclean provide specific glimpses of study. In 1750, he mentioned Xenophon, Cicero, Hebrew, logic, and geography; in 1751, Lewis Evans's lectures in natural philosophy and electrical demonstrations; and in 1752, Burr's instruction of a few students in calculating eclipses. These dated cases show natural knowledge entering instruction, but do not make every activity a uniform compulsory course for all students.

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Religious toleration in the charters did not remove the college from a slaveholding society. An August 1758 newspaper advertisement records founding trustee William Peartree Smith offering a reward for Prince, a man he enslaved, describing his appearance in New York after leaving Elizabethtown and demanding capture in an enslaver's language. Another founding trustee, Pemberton, directed in his 1777 will that Jack, whom he enslaved, be freed. Both original documents directly establish personal ties between trustees and slavery.

These records do not automatically prove ownership of enslaved people by the college corporation, nor resolve the unknown parts of Prince's and Jack's lives. Early institutional history must recognize both educational growth and participants' social constraints. Charters, local gifts, and overseas fundraising established permanent facilities, while teachers and students gradually developed their academic routines, all within a society that did not offer equal opportunity to everyone.

References: [1] [3] [4]