Samuel Merrill Woodbridge
The Reverend Samuel Merrill Woodbridge, D.D., LL.D. was an American clergyman, theologian, author, and college professor. A graduate of New York University and the New Brunswick Theological Seminary, Woodbridge preached for sixteen years as a clergyman in the Reformed Church in America.
The Rev. Samuel Merrill Woodbridge, c. late 1860s
Woodbridge served the Second Reformed Church in New Brunswick, New Jersey, for five years from 1852 to 1857.
Emeritus professor Woodbridge (seated, center, with white beard and robes) with the seminary's faculty, circa 1904
An 1880 print of the New Brunswick Theological Seminary campus, where Woodbridge taught for 44 years
New Brunswick Theological Seminary
New Brunswick Theological Seminary is a Reformed Christian seminary with its main campus in New Brunswick, New Jersey. It was founded in 1784 and is one of the oldest seminaries in the United States. It is a seminary of the Reformed Church in America (RCA), a mainline Reformed Protestant denomination in Canada and the United States that follows the theological tradition and Christian practice of John Calvin. First established in New York City under the leadership of the Rev. John Henry Livingston, who instructed aspiring ministers in his home, the seminary established its presence in New Brunswick in 1810. Although a separate institution, the seminary's early development in New Brunswick was closely connected with that of Rutgers University before establishing its own campus in the city in 1856.
New Brunswick Theological Seminary
In the early 19th century, Old Queens (built 1809–1823) housed three institutions: the seminary, Rutgers College, and the college's grammar school.
Hertzog Hall (1856) was built when both the seminary and Rutgers College became too large to be accommodated in Old Queens.
The seminary's faculty in 1904, included (left to right) John Preston Searle, John Howard Raven, Samuel Merrill Woodbridge, William Henry Steele Demarest, John Hamilton Gillespie, and Ferdinand Schureman Schenck.