History of Princeton, (Mercer County) New Jersey United States of America

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Biographies:

Samuel Miller, clergyman, was born at Princeton, N.J., Jan. 23, 1816; son of the Rev. Samuel and Sarah (Sergeant) Miller. His uncle, Dr. Edward Miller (1760-1812) was, with Drs. Smith and Mitchell, founder of the Medical Repository, New York, 1797, and was professor of medicine in the College of Physicians and Surgeons, 1807. Samuel was graduated at the College of New Jersey, A.B., 1833, A.M., 1836; was tutor there, 1835-36; studied law, was admitted to the Philadelphia bar, and practised there until 1841, when he ended Princeton Theological seminary. He was graduated in 1844; was ordained evangelist by the presbytery of New Brunswick, Oct. 5, 1844; was stated supply at Mount Holly, N.J., 1845-50, and pastor there, 1850-73; also served as a stated supply at Columbus, 1845-65, and at Tuckerton and Bass River, N.J., 1858-62, and was pastor at Oceanic, 1880-83. He was principal of the West Jersey Collegiate institute at Mount Holly, 1845-57. He received the degree of D.D. from the College of New Jersey in 1864, and was a director of the Princeton Theological seminary, 1869-83. His brother, Elihu Spencer (1817-1879), was a well known lawyer, law editor and author in Philadelphia. Dr. Miller published a Report of the Presbyterian Church Case (1840), and Life and Writings of the Rev. Samuel Miller, his father (2 vols., 1869). He died at Mount Holly, N.J., Oct. 12, 1883.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

Paul Tulane, philanthropist, was born at Cherry Valley, near Princeton, N.J., May 10, 1801. His father emigrated from Tours, France, in 1792, to Santo Domingo, where he carried on a trade in lumber with France and the United States. His fortune was dissipated by the uprising of the Negroes and he escaped with his family and settled at Cherry Valley, where he cultivated a farm. Paul worked with his father and assisted the local grocer in his business. He made a three years' tour through the southwestern states as companion to a cousin from France, 1818-21, and in 1822 established himself as a merchant in New Orleans, La., where he rapidly acquired considerable wealth. In 1840 he went to France to visit his father, who persuaded him to invest his money in a free state, predicting that any slave state was liable to great loss in value by inevitable emancipation. He therefore made large investments in the neighborhood of Princeton, but continued his holdings and business in New Orleans, where he lived until 1873, when he removed to Princeton, having never married. He gave generously to charity in New Orleans, and the sufferers from the repeated plagues of yellow fever during his fifty-one years residence there were always objects of his bounty as were the soldiers and their widows and children in the civil war. In 1882 he gave all the real estate he owned in New Orleans to the Tulane education fund, and this benefaction resulted in the Tulane University of Louisiana, built upon the foundation of the University of Louisiana. In his deed of gift he designated its purpose to be: "for the promotion and encouragement of intellectual, moral and industrial education among the white young persons in the city of New Orleans?for the advancement of learning and letters, the arts and the sciences?to foster such a course of intellectual development as would be useful and of solid worth, and not merely ornamental and superficial." In 1894 a new site for the university was provided opposite the historic grounds of Audubon Park and a stately university building with its attendant halls, library, museum and dormitories, resulted from his donation of about $100,000. He died at Princeton, N.J., March 23, 1887.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

Horatio Phillips Van cleve, soldier, was born in Princeton, N.J., Nov. 23, 1809. He attended the College of New Jersey, 1826-27; was graduated from the U.S. Military academy, and brevetted 2d lieutenant, 51st U.S. infantry, July 1, 1831; served on frontier duty in Wisconsin, 1831-35, and was commissioned 2d lieutenant, Dec. 31, 1834, resigning, Sept. 11, 1836. He engaged in farming near Monroe, Mich., 1836-39; near Ann Arbor, 1842-54, and in Minnesota, 1856-61, meanwhile teaching school in Cincinnati, Ohio, 1840-41; serving as civil engineer for the state of Michigan, 1855, and as U.S. surveyor of public lands in Minnesota, 1856. He was commissioned colonel, 2d Minnesota volunteers, July 22, 1861, and participated in the battle of Logan's Cross Roads, Jan. 19, 1862, where his regiment pushed back the enemy. For his gallantry in this combat he was promoted brigadier-general of volunteers, March 21, 1862. He served in the Army of the Ohio, in the siege of Corinth, and in pursuit of Bragg's army, and commanded the 5th division, McCook's corps, at Perryville, Ky., Oct. 8, 1862. His division became the third under McCook at Stone's river, Dec. 31, 1862-Jan. 3, 1863. On the first day of the battle he made the initial movement, crossing the lower ford at 6 A.M., but was recalled to take a position on the turnpike facing toward the woods on the right, where his line could not open fire, since the soldiers of McCook's beaten regiments were flying in terror between them and the enemy, but later in the day he made a charge at close quarters upon the enemy and was in the thickest of the fight until most of the lost ground had been retaken. On the following day, Jan. 1, 1863, owing to a severe wound in his foot, General Van Cleve gave over the command of his division to Col. Samuel Beatty, but he was able to take part in the skirmishes at Ringgold and near Gordon's Mills, Ga., Sept. 11 and 13, 1863, and in the battle of Chickamauga, Sept. 19-20, where on the first day his division, attached to Maj.-Gen. Thomas L. Crittenden's corps, was repulsed by Stewart, and on the second day, while marching to the aid of Major-General Thomas, was suddenly thrown into disorder, and its further usefulness in that battle destroyed. He was in command of Murfreesboro, Tenn., Nov. 27, 1863-Aug. 21, 1865; was brevetted major-general, March 13, 1865; mustered out of the volunteer service on August 24, and by special act of congress restored to the regular army and retired. He was adjutant-general of Minnesota, 1866-70 and 1876-82. The honorary degree of A.M. was conferred upon him by the College of New Jersey in 1831. He died in Minneapolis, Minn., April 24, 1891.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

John Berrien Lindsley, educator, was born in Princeton, N.J., Oct. 24, 1822; son of the Rev. Philip and Margaret Elizabeth (Lawrence) Lindsley. He was graduated from the University of Nashville, A.B., 1839, A.M., 1841; was a private pupil of Dr. Gerard Troost, the scientist, studied medicine in the University of Louisville (Ky.), 1841-42, and was graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, M.D.. 1843, When he became a member of the Medical Society of the State of Tennessee. He studied natural science under Treest, Lea and Jay, 1845-50. He was ordained by the presbytery of Nashville in 1846 served as stated supply at Smyrna and Hermitage, Tenn., and for a year preached to the slaves in and about Nashville. He conducted a geological survey through the eastern and northern states in 1847. He was professor of chemistry at the University of Nashville, 1850-70; projector and dean of the medical faculty, 1850-73; became a member of the American Medical association in 1851; spent his vacations in 1852 and 1859 in the medical schools of France and Germany; was chancellor of the University of Nashville, 1855-70, and had charge of the Confederate hospitals of Nashville, 1861-62. He was married in 1857 to Sarah McGavock, granddaughter of Felix Grundy of Tennessee. In 1867 he suggested the plan of embracing within the university the Peabody Education fund in the creation of a state normal school and he was influential in erecting the principal college building, and gave a sum exceeding $10,000 for its construction. He organized the Montgomery Bell academy in 1867, and served as its principal until 1870, when he resigned to aid in founding the Tennessee College of Pharmacy, in which he was professor of materia medica, 1876-97. He was professor of chemistry and state medicine in the University of Tennessee, 1880-97. He was a member of the Nashville board of education, 1856-60; superintendent of city schools in 1866 and secretary of the state board of education, 1875-87. He served as health officer for Nashville, 1876-80; and was secretary and executive officer of the state board of health, 1877-79, and 1884-97. He was treasurer of the American Public Health association, 1879-97; a member of many learned societies in America and of the Royal Historical Society of London; a director of the National Prison association and a corresponding member of the National Prison association of France; a member of the American Tract society and the American Bible society. He gave his salary for twenty-three years to his assistants in the university and to the support of the Nashville Journal of Medicine and Surgery which he edited. He received the degree of D.D. from the College of New Jersey in 1858. He contributed to the Presbyterian Quarterly (1875-80), articles on "Cumberland Presbyterian History," and papers on prison reform and African colonization. He edited the second and third Reports of the Nashville Board of Health (1877-79), and The Second Quadrennial Report of the Tennessee State Board of Health (1880-84); and nine volumes of the State Board of Health Bulletin (1885-94). He also edited and published: The Military Annals of Tennessee, Confederate; Encyclop?dia of Tennessee History, and pamphlets which reached a circulation of several thousand copies each, including: Memorial of Prof. R. M. Porter, D.D. (1856); Prison Discipline and Penal Legislation (1874); Medical Colleges (1858); Our Ruin; its Cause and Cure (1868); Reconstruction (1868); American Colonization and Christian Missions (1878), and History of the Law School of Cumberland University (1876). He died in Nashville, Tenn., Dec. 7, 1897.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor