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May 10, 1775 he bought 99 acres of land on Dry Run branch of Tuscarora Creek from Thomas McCoy, which was sold by his widow and children on October 26, 1807 to Matthew Ransome. He also owned land on Marsh Creek, York Co., Pennsylvania; if inherited, that was likely his birthplace which is otherwise unknown, as is his relationship to the Vances on the Opequon. His will dated December 12, 1791 names his wife, Elizabeth, two sons and four daughters, of whom Sarah married George Harlan, and a slave, Alice (he once owned slave, Rose, bought in 1789) His farm and home were well stocked, 5 horses, 4 hogs, 28 sheep, 13 cattle, 141 books, etc. besides the books retained by the family. Six sets of books were bought at the sale by Rev. Moses Hoge for 6 pounds; 113 books brought 65 pounds. Alice was appraised at 40.
He was a man who had received a liberal education, but was rather indolent in his studies in after life. His manner of preaching was not of the first order of eloquence, nor was his discourse always arranged in the systematic order.
But when he addressed the throne of grace in prayer few men were more able and impressive. He had a natural vein of wit and satire, which at times he was in the habit of indulging too freely in conversation, and which frequently made him enemies, when it might otherwise have been avoided.
From The History of Chillicothe Presbytery from its Organization in 1799 to 1889 by the Rev. R.C. Galbraith, Jr., D.D. and A History and Biographical Cycloaedia of Butler Co., Ohio.
He was one of the charter members of the self-organized Presbytery of Suffolk, Long Island, New York in 1747.
She was accurate in the use of language, both spoken and written. She wrote and hand like copper-plate, and was thorough in everyting she studied. She read all the good and useful books which were accessible to her. She had an excellent memory and a lively imagination, and with a wide reading, whe early acquired the art of writing most interesting letters.
From her parents and grandparents, she inherited that marked sympathy for the colored race which was an eminent characteristic of her entire life. At all times and on all occasions, she stood up for the colored people. In her young and mature womanhood, when there were no public schools in her county--or none worth the name--she taught subscription schools both in West Union and Manchester. In West Union, the venerable David Dunbar, now of Manchester [1900] was one of her pupils, and in Manchester, Mrs. David Dunbar and Mr.s D.B. Hempstead, of Hanging Rock, were among her pupils. She never excluded a pupil because his or her parents or friends were unable to pay tuition. She sought out the poor and invited them to attend her school. She accepted colored pupils as well as whites.
Her teaching the colored people aroused bitter feeling in the community, but she was such an excellent teacher that it did not decrease the number of her white pupils, and her control of her pupils was so perfect that the bringing of the colored pupils into the school did not affect the government of her school. The progress made by her pupils was rapid and her teaching so thorough that the presence of the colored pupils did not drive the white ones away. There were many threats of violence to her school, but she was not alarmed. On more than one occasion, friends of hers, dreading the attempt to forcibly break up her school, took their rifles and went to her schoolhouse to defend her. Some of these men were rough characters, and hard drinkers, and some of them were pro-slavery, but they were determined her school should not be disturbed. They regarded her as a fanatic in her views, but as they regarded her as an efficient teacher, they did not propose that her work should be interfered with.
She was always a volunteer in houses where there was sickness. At the age of twenty-six, she went to General Darlington's and nursed the mother of Mrs. Rev. E.P. Pratt through a spell of sickness. Mrs. Urmston was then a young married woman, just come to Ohio from Connecticut.
On June 8, 1835, she was teacing near "The Beeches," in Adams County. The next day she learned of the death of Dr. William M. Vorhis of cholera, at Cincinnati, and it became her painful duty to inform her cousin (his wife) of the fact. At first, she told her that Dr. Vorhis had been very sick in Cincinnati. As cholera was prevalent there, the wife at once divined the truth, and swooned away. She went from one swoon into another, and Miss Williamson, in order to terminate her swoons, went out and brought in her two little girls, one seven and the other three years of age, and, leading one by each hand, asked her if there were not two good reasons for her to live and to work for.
Her love for children was a distinguishing trait of her character. She won their affections entirely, and thus ruled them without any apparent effort.
The missionary spirit was a part of her life, born with her, and a heritage from several generations. When her brother, Thomas S. Williamson, went as a missionary to the Dakota Indians in 1835, she wanted to go with him, but felt that she must remain at home and care for her aged father, who survived until 1839, and died at the age of seventy-seven; but she did not get to go to her brother until 1843, when she had reached the age of forty. Her life, prior to this, had been a preparation for missionary work. For years she had been an active worker in Sunday Schools, prayer meetings and missionary societies. In her day school, she had made public religious worship a prominent feature.
When she reached Minnesota, she went to work directly and worked with great energy, and with an untiring industry greatly beyond her strength. She had an unusual familiarity with the Bible. She taught several hundred Indians to read the Word of God, and, the greater part of them to write well enough to write letters. She ministered to all the sick within her reach, and devoted a great deal of time to instructing Indian women in domestic duties. She led the women in prayer meetings, and spent much time conversing with the women as to their souls. The privations of the missionaries, at that time, were great. White bread was then as much of a luxury as cake would now be considered.
Lac-que-Parle, her first missionary home, was two hundred miles west of St. Paul. It was more than a year from the time she left Adams County before a single letter could reach her. She was out in the Indian village when the first mail reached there. She heard of its arrival, and was so eager for news from her old home that she ran to her brother's house as swiftly as a young girl. She saw no signs of the mail, and asked where it was. They told her it was in the stove-oven. The mail carrier had brought it through the ice, and it had to be thawed out. The mail contained over fifty letters for her, and the postage on them was over five dollars. This in 1844.
She moved to Kaposia, now South St. Paul, in 1846, and to Pajutazee, thirty-two miles below Lac-que-Parle, in 1852. The Dakotas called her "Dowan Dootanin," which means "Red Song Woman."
She gathered the young Indians together, and taught them, as opportunity offered. In the great outbreak of 1862, when it seemed as though the work of the missionaries had failed, she never lost hope or faith. In the Fall of 1894, when nearly two thousand converted Dakota Indians were gathered together, to plan for religious work among their people, she was the only survivor of the first missionaries.
In the Fall of 1881, she saw a poor Indian woman suffering with the cold. She took off her own warm skirt and gave it to the woman, and from this she took a cold and a spell of sickness followed, resulting in her total blindness.
After the Indian outbreak of 1862, the way never opened for her to resume her residence among the Dakotas, but she was given health and strength for nineteen years' more labor for the Master. Her home continued to be with her brother, at or near St. Peter, until his death in 1872, and in his old home two years longer. In that time she did much for the Indians who lived with her brother, toward their education. She kept up an extensive and helpful correspondence with native Christian workers.
As a Sunday School teacher, she labored with untiring patience for the conversion of her pupils, and to train them as Christian workers. She was active in female prayer meetings and missionary societies. She lost most of her patrimony in lending to those most needing money, instead of to those most certain to pay. Her friends, however, were liberal in their donations to her work, an dshe was able to relieve most of those under her observation in serious want.
Here is the story of a modest, unassuming heroine. Without husband, children, alone in the world, she did not repine, but made herself useful wherever she was, in teaching secular learing and religious truth, and in ministering to the sick and afflicted, the downtrodden and oppressed. She never sought to do any great or wonderful thing, but only to do good as the opportunity offered. It has been thirty-two years since she left Ohio, and most of her friends there are dead, but those living, who remmeber her, recall her with great love. So long as she can reflect on the record of her life, she cannot recall any opportunity slighted, any duty left undone.
She died March 24, 1895, at the home of her nephew, Rev. John P. Williamson, at Greenwood, South Dakota.
[From History of Adams County, Ohio, by Nelson
W. Evans and Emmons B. Stivers, 1900. Thanks to Jeff Williamson of
Rosemount, MN for providing the text.]
He prepared for college at home, went on horseback to Jefferson College, Cannonsburg, Pennsylvania, where he received the degree of A.B. in 1819. He read medicine with his brother-in-law, Dr. William B. Willson, of West Union, Ohio, and was for two years principal of an academy at Ripley, Ohio, where he prepared a large unumber of young men for college. He studied medicine in Philadelphia and New Haven, and received the degree of M.D. from Yale College, in 1824.
He settled in Ripley, Ohio and built up a large practice. He married Margaret Poage, daughter of the town proprietor, a lady of high Christian character, and most admirably adapted in all respects to be his helpmeet. Settled in a pleasant town, surrounded by warm frisnds, in the house he regarded the most pleasant in the place, he had every thing he could desire to make life happy. But he felt a voice within him, which, to his death, he never for one moment doubted was the voice of God calling him to leave all these comforts and endure hardships in bringing to Christ the wanderers of our Western wilderness. His wife was in full accord with him. In the spring of 1832, he placed himself under the care of the Chillicothe Presbytery. August 21, he left his pleasant home, removed with his family to Walnut Hills, and entered Lane Theological Seminary. In April, he was licensed to preach, and May 2, he left Cincinnati to make a tour of the West, and to select a suitable field of labor under the care of the ABCFM. He decided to begin work at Fort Snelling. Returning, he was ordained by the same Presbytery that licensed him, September 18.
Early in the spring of 1835, he started with his family, and reached Fort Snelling May 16. Here, June 11, he organized the first Presbyterian Church within the present limits of Minnesota--the first Presbyterian Church of Minneapolis. Finding other laborers at Fort Snelling and believing that more could be accomplished by a division of the forces, he purshed on to Lac-qui-Parle, two hundred miles farther west; this last journey then requiring over three weeks.
He worked with indefatigable zeal to acquire the Dakota language, and also the Canadian French, and was soon able to preach in both languages.
Practicing medicne to relieve their bodies, earnestly sympathizing with those in distress, undauntedly courageous in danger, he soon won the respect of the Indians, of the traders and of teh Government officers. He often made long journeys to visit the sick, and was unceasing in his labors to win the savages [not my word --ed.] to Christ. He entertained a great number of travelers and Government officials. He kept up his studies, and in his later years, he could translate from Latin, Greek or Hebrew, with the same facility with which he read English. He kept up with the progress of improvement in medicine. He made himself familiar with the botany of the region, thoroughly studied teh history of the Northwest, contribuitng many valuable papers to the Historical Society and teh magazines. He was untiring in his efforts to secure the Indians their rights, involving a large correspondence with Indian Commissioners, with leading Senators and Representatives, and made several trips to Washington. His thorough good sense and his reputation for absolute accuracy in the statement of facts, almost always secured him at least a respectful hearing.
His whole heart was in the work of winning souls to Christ. All his studies were subordinated to this end. In 1836, he organized a small native church at La-qui-Parle, the second Protestant church in the present State. He prepared a Dakota reader with the aid of the Ponds, and a part of the Bible with the aid of Mr. Henville.
By 1846, he and his helpers had built up a church of nearly fifty native members. It was his decided personal preference to remain, but he felt the call of duty in a request from the Kaposia band, and removed there, to where South St. Paul now is. This move probably hindered his work for the Indians, but it made him an influential factor in building up work among the whites. He preached the first Protestate sermon in the English language, and also in the French language, within the present limits of St. Paul, and secured for that place its first teacher, Miss Harriet Bishop, and its first minister of the Gospel, Rev. E.D. Usill, D.D.
The Indians having sold their land, he removed to Pajutazee, on the Minnesota, nearly thirty miles below Lac-qui-Parle, in 1852. Here he labored until 1862. On August 18, the terrible outbreak occurred at daybreak, thirty-eight miles nearer the white settlements. On Tuesday, the Doctor sent away his family except his wife and sister, who were unwilling to leave him, hoping that by remaining, he might check the spread of the outbreak. The Christian Indians rallied around him, but it became evident by night, that if they remained, they would be attacked by the hostiles, causing much bloodshed. Aided by Christian Indians, he escaped in the night, overtook his family, came near Fort Ridgely just after the second attack on it, and escaped safely to St. Peter.
Many were ready to cry that the mission work was a failure. All the other missionaries began to talk of leaving, but the Doctor and his son did not, for one moment yield to hesitation, but pushed their work with redoubled zeal. However much the Christian Indians might be abused by the excited whites, he knew that they had done all in their power to diminish the massacres, had aided hundreds in escaping, and had held the hostiles in check, diminishing by more than one half the size of the war. Had every Christian Indian now gone back to heathenism, the effect of the work in diminishing this blow, would have saved to our country at least fifty times the cost of the mission.
The Doctor lived to see more than one thousand communicants, members ofteh Presbyerian and Congregational Churches, the direct result of the mission of himself and his coadjutors. The Episcopalians, building on the foundation they had laid, gathered about as many more. In September, 1894, at a meeting of the Prebyterian and Congregational Dakotas, nearly two thousand were gathered together, earnestly planning for the spread of teh Redeemer's Kingdom in their tribe.
The Doctor never removed his family from St. Peter. He spent his sjmmers in missionary tours, his winters partly in correspondece with native pastors and other Dakota workers, and the various labors already alluded to, but chiefly in translating the Work of God. He was extremely anxious that the exact meaning of the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures should be rendered into idiomatic Dakota. To this ende, he spent almost as much time in revising the translation of Dr. Riggs, as in making his own. Dr. Riggs also revised his, and Rev. J.P. Williamson, son of Dr. Williamson also revised nearly all. As a result, very few languages have as good a translation of the Bible.
The Dakota Dictionary, regarded as the best of any Indian language and originally prepared by teh Messrs. Pond, owed very much to the painstaking scholarship of Dr. Williamson, though it bears the name of its editor, Dr. Riggs.
Mrs. Williamson died July 21, 1872. No couple were every happier in each other, or mutually more helpful. Still cheerful, he did not, after this time, show the overflowing spirit of calm regjoicing, which to his family had always seemed to characterize him, even in the most troublous times. He completed his translation of the Bible in 1878. There was other work he would have liked to do, but the strain of work without his loved companion to solace him had worn him out. His great work was done and June 24, 1879, fell asleep in Jesus, in his eightieth year. Four children survive him: Rev. John P. Williamson of Greenwood, South Dakota, since 1860, a missionary to the Dakotas; Andrew W. Williamson, Professor of Mathematics, Augustabns College, Rock Island, Illinois; Mrs. Martha Stout, Portland, Oregon, and Henry M. Williamson, editor of the Rural Northwest, Portland, Oregon. His daughter, Nancy Jane, was a missionary fromm 1869 to her death in 1878, performing a grand work. His granddaughter, Nancy Hunter, having lost her mother in infancy, was adopted and soon after his death began the same work, in which she is still engaged, the last three years as the wife of Rev. E. J. Lindsay, Poplar, Montana.
[From History of Adams County, Ohio, by Nelson W. Evans and Emmons B. Stivers, 1900. Thanks to Jeff Williamson of Rosemount, MN for providing the text.]
During the Revolutionary War, William entered the Revolutionary army and served under General Gatese in the hard campaign in the summer of 1780. His command saw very severe service and he has often related of forced marches in the great heat, when the soldiers were not allowed even to stop and drink at the roadside, and that often the soldiers were half starved.
Young Williamson was small for his age and not strong, and he and two hundred of his command were captured at the battle of Camden, South Carolina, August 10, 1780. During young Williamson's service, his mother would often stay up all night, and assisted by her servants, cook food for the soldiers, which his father would carry to them in his wagon the day following. When the war was over, Thomas Williamson, with his family, moved to the Spartansburg District, South Carolina. He purchased a cotton plantation there, on which the county seat was afterwards located. After this event, he sought a place a few miles distant from the courthouse, on which he lived until his death in 1813.
Young William Williamson, after the Revolutionary War, was sent to Hampden Sidney College in Virginia, where he received a liberal education and was graduated. He studied theology and was installed as pastor of the Fair Forest Presbyterian Church in April, 1793.
The Rev. William Williamson believed in the married state. His first wife was a Miss Catherine Buford, of Abbeville, South Carolina. By her, he had four daughters, Anne Newton, who married Dr. William B. Willson, in 1818; Mary married James Ellison; Elizabeth married Robinson Baird, and Esther married William Kierker.
His second wife was Mary Smith of North Carolina, by whom he had two children, the Rev. Thomas Smith Williamson, missionary to the Dakotahs and Jane Smith Williamson, who never married, but has always been known as Aunt Jane. He also had a third wife in his old age, Hannah Johnson, a widow.
The Rev. William Williamson had a brother, Thomas, sixteen years younger than himself. They were devotedly attached to each other and both espoused strong anti-slavery notions. Thomas became an accomplished physician.
William Williamson and his second wife regarded slavery as a great evil. While they owned slavees, they believed it wrong to sell them. Mrs. Williamson felt the condition of the slaves so strongly that she undertook to teach them to read. This, of course, came to the ears of her slaveholding neighbors and she was remonstrated with time and again to no purpose. Finally the patrol visited her and told her if she did not stop, she would be prosecuted under the stringent laws of South Carolina, forbidding slaves to be taught to read. Mrs. Williamson had high notions of right and wrong and was a Southern woman of great spirit. Her husband warmly sympathized with her and both thought they might do as they chose with their own property.
[This account from the History of Adams County, Ohio, by Nelson W. Evans and Emmons B. Stivers, 1900. I'm missing the page with the conclusion of the article. Thanks to descendant Jeff Williamson of Rosemount, MN for providing me with this information.]
Williamson was one of three close friends who migrated from South Carolina
to Ohio as a result of their strong feelings against slavery, the other
two being
Robert G. Wilson, the first
president of Ohio University at Athens and James
Gilliland. He left the Second Presbytery of South Carolina in 1805
and came to Ohio to free his twenty-seven slaves. He was was stated
supply of the churches at Cabin Creek (called Ebenezer Church), Manchester,
Eagle Creek (which moved into the village soon afterwards) and West Union
in Adams Co., Ohio.. He was called by the congregation of West Union,
Cabin Creek and Manchester, each for one third of his time, all lying within
the bounds of the Presbytery
of Washington/Chillicothe. In 1807, Mt. Pleasant, formerly known as
Kinnickinnick, presented a call for Mr. Williamson, but Mr. Williamson
was not present at the meeting and never did accept the call. He was well-known
as a very early abolitionist and formed part of a knot of anti-slavery
Presbyterian preachers who resided near Chillicothe,
Ohio. On account of failure of health, the Rev. William Williamson
resigned his pastoral charge of West Union and Cabin Creek in 1818, but
at their request was permitted to supply them at discretion. In 1819, Manchester
presented a call for half of his labor, as he had continued to preach there
after the relation between him and the other two congregations had been
dissolved. In 1829 the pastoral relation was dissolved between Mr. Williamson
and the Manchester congregation.
Dr. Wilson was characterized by a few eccentricities, but they were overlooked, or only excited a smile, in view of his sterling worth. He was of a tall and lank figure, and pallid, from a habit of blood-letting. His published works consisted of "Occasional Sermons," a "Hebrew Grammar without Points," "Lectures on the New Testament," an edition of Ridgley's "Body of Divinity, with Notes," treatises on church government, on whic subject he held some peculiar notions, etc.
Dr. Wilson's remains are buried in a spot selected by himself, in the graveyard of Neshaminy Church, near the tomb of the celebrated William Tennent, the founder of the "Log College." On his monument is the following inscription: JAMES P. WILSON, D.D. Born, February 21st, 1769. Died, December 9th, 1830 Placida hic pace quiesco, Jacobus P. Wilson, per annos bis septem composui lites, sacra exinde dogmata tractans. Quid sum et fui, jam noscis, viator. Quid, die suprema, vi debis. Brevi quid ipse futurus, nunc pectore versa. Natus, 1769. Obiit, 1830.
which means: Here I, James P. Wilson, rest in calm peace. During fourteen years I practiced law, thenceforward treating of sacred themes. Now, traveler, you know what I am and have been. What I am about to be, on the last day you will see. Now dwell, in your mind, on what you yourself will be in a short time.
He was a man of great amiability and equanimity. Through his labors the churches at Maysville and Augusta were organized, and those of Smyrna and Flemingsburgh owed to him their preservation, when they were languishing without a pastor. His wife was Eliza Harris, aunt of Confederate Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston. He was the father of the Rev. Robert W. Wilson, who was long after this date, pastor of the church at Bloomingburgh and the father-in-law of Rev. and Judge Lorin Andrews who was missionary to the Sandwich Islands.
He was offered a professorship in South Carolina College, and was also invited to become Principal of an academy, in Augusta, Georgia, with very flattering pecuniary prospects in each case, but he declined these offers, and accepted a call to the pastorate of a small charge, then lately organized in Chillicothe, Ohio with a salary of only four hundred dollars. [Apparently the congregation had difficulties paying a minister. Rev. Wilson's installation was postponed several times because the congregation owed the previous minister, Rev. Speer substantial arrearages, $337, and the dispute was heavily arbitrated at the meetings of the Washington Presbytery.] Here he gave half his labors, for seven years, to Union Church, five miles from the town. He was honored with the degree of Doctor of Divinity, by the College of New Jersey, in 1818.
Dr. Wilson remained pastor of the church at Chillicothe nineteen years, greatly beloved by his people and fellow citizens, and signally blessed in his labors. In 1824 he resigned his charge, by advice of Presbyery, and accepted an invitation to the Presidency of the Ohio University, at Athens. Over this Institution he continued to preside, until 1839, when, on account of the increasing infirmities of age, he resigned the office and returned to Chillicothe. Not content to remain inactive, he here labored as a stated supply for Union Church for seven years. He died April 17th, 1851. Dr. Wilson, as a preacher, was solemn, instructive, impressive, and often affecting, in respect to both manner and matter. He excelled as a member of the judicatories of the Church.
He spent four preparatory years "in Latin, Greek, and mathematics" first, with Rev. Joseph Alexander of York District, S.C. later in an academy in Spartanburg, SC., taught by Mr. James Gilliland, Jr., and, finally in private studies for a year with his brother Robert in Abbeville, South Carolina. He then entered Washington College, now Washington and Lee University at Lexington, Virginia. During his senior year he taught in a private family but carried his full work and graduated with his class in 1803. His technological studies were pursued first under Dr. Baxter, President of the College, and after under Rev. Samuel Brown. He was licensed to preach in 1805 and did missionary work to some destitute churches on Jackson and Greenbriar Rivers.
He preached at Fair Forest South Carolina. That winter he was sent as a missionary to Fredericksburg, Virginia, and preached his first sermon there the first Sabbath in January, 1806. Meantime he had been invited to take charge of the Academy and Presbyterian Church in Raleigh, North Carolina, but receipt of the letter was delayed six months by his visit home and to Fair Forest. The invitation was renewed next spring but he then felt committed to Fredericksburg, where he soon established the first Presbyterian Church, though he found but three Presbyterians in the entire town when he first went there. For some years he taught a male academy six hours a day, for five days a week, in addition to preaching twice on Sunday and lecturing Wednesday evening. This proved too strenuous a program and he had to lighten his teaching load. When his church had grown strong enough to support him, he abandoned teaching and devoted himself entirely to his pastoral work. Several calls to other churches came and he was twice chosen President of Davidson College, North Carolina. In 1841 he was elected to the Professorship of Christian Theology in Union Seminary, Virginia, and resigned from the Fredericksburg church and assumed his new duties in September, 1841. In this work he continued till his death August 1, 1869, when in his eighty-seventh year. He was christened merely Samuel Wilson. When a young man he added another name and thereafter signed himself Samuel B. Wilson. The B. has been variously supposed to stand for Blain or Baxter - two of his teachers - but on the authority of Dr. Wilson's statement to his grandson, William Caruthers, the B. stood for Brown, in memory of Rev. Samuel Brown, in whose family Dr. Wilson lived for a time while studying theology under him. The degree of D.D. was conferred on him in 1837 by Princeton University.
He married Elizabeth Hanna, daughter of the elder Matthew Hanna of Lexington. Rev. James M. Wilson and Rev. Samuel Blain Owen Wilson were his sons, Rev. Thornton Samuel Wilson a grandson, a daughter also married a minister.
From Beith, where he was first settled as pastor, he soon received a call to the large and flourishing town of Paisley, where he enjoyed great reputation, and labored with uncommon success. During his residence at Paisley, he was invited to Dublin, in Ireland, to take the charge of a large and respectable congregation. He was also invited to Rotterdam, in the United Provinces, and to the town of Dundee, in his own country, but he could not be induced to quit such a sphere of comfort and usefulness as Paisley offered him. He rejectd also, in the first instance, the invitation of the trustees of the College of New Jersey, in America. But, urged by all the friends whose judgment he most respected, and whose friendship he most valued, hoping, too, that his sacrifice might be more than repaid by his being made peculiarly useful in promoting the cause of Christ and the interests of leaning in the New World, and knowing that Jersey College had been consecrated from its foundation to those great objects to which he had devoted his life, he consented on a second application. And true it is, that after the election of Dr. Witherspoon to the presidency, learning received an dextension that was not known before in the American Seminaries. He introduced into their philosophy all the most liberal and modern improvements of Europ; he made the philosophical course embrace the general principles of policy and public law; he incorporated with it sound and rational metaphysics, equally remote from the doctrines of fatality and contingency, from the barrenness of the schools, and from the excessive refinements of those contradictory but equally absurd and impious classes of skeptics, who either wholly deny the existence of matter, or maintain that nothing but matter existes in the universe. The number of men of distinguished talents in the different professions who received the elements of their education under Dr. Witherspoon demonstrates how eminent his services were to the College of New Jersey.
Dr. Witherspoon continued directing the Institution of which he was president, with increasing success, till the commencement of the American War, but that calamitous event suspended his functions and dispersed the college. He then entered upon a new scene, and appeared in a new character. Still, however, he shone with his usual lustre. Knowing his distinguished abilities, the citizens of New Jersey elected him a delegate to the convention which formed their republican constitution. In this convention he appeared, to the astonishment of all the members of the legal profession, as profound a civilian as he confessedly was a philospher and divine. From the Revolutionary committees and conventions of the State, he ws sent, early in the year 1776, as a representative of the people of New Jersey, to the Congress of United America. He was seven years a membr of that body, which, in the face of innumberable difficulties and dangers, secured to Americans the establishment of their independence. Dr. Witherspoon was always firm amidst the most gloomy and formidable aspects of affairs, and always displayed the greatest presence of mind in the most embarrassing situations. His name is affixed to the Declaration of Independence.
Towards the close of his life, however, Dr. Witherspoon felt and gratified an inclination to retire from the political scene, on which he had long acted with uncommon dignity and usefulness. He withdrew, in a great measure, from the exercise of all the public functions that were not immediately connected with the duties of his sacred office. For more thatn two years before his death he suffered from the loss of his sight, which continuted to hasten the progress of his other disorders. These he bore with a patience and a cheerfulness rarely to be met with, even in those eminent for wisdom and piety. His activity of mind and anxiety to be useful would not permit him, even in this depression situation, to desist from the exercise of his ministry and his duties in the college. He was frequently led into the pulpit, both at home and abrouad, during his blindness, and he always acquitted himself, even then, in his usually accurate, impressive, and excellent manner. He had the happiness of enjoying the full use of his mental powers to the very last. He died, November 15, 1794, in the seventy-third year of his age. His writings, which are well known, were collected into four volumes, octavo, and of which a uniform edition was published at Philadelphia in 1803, and at Edinburgh, in 1804, in nine volumes, 12mo.
Many townspeople admired Woodhull for his gentlemanly manners, lively
conversation, and talent for “popular pulpit address.” His nervous temperament
hindered his ability to preach in his later years. He died on March 13,
1810. He was a member of the Presbytery
of Suffolk, Long Island, New York in 1789 which became the Presbytery
of Long Island. Upon division of the Presbytery of Long Island
in 1809, he was assigned to the Presbytery of New York, together with his
congregation.
From information by Robert Singleton on Newtown Church's
website at http://www.fpcn.org/history/pastors/woodhull.html