Aaron Burr, Sr.

Aaron Burr, Sr. ( born January 4, 1716 in Fairfield, Connecticut, † September 24, 1757 in Princeton, New Jersey ) was an American Presbyterian minister. In 1746 he was one of the founders of the College of New Jersey, now Princeton University, and from 1748 until his death the president of this university. He was the father of Aaron Burr, Jr. (1756-1836), the third Vice President of the United States.

Life

Burr was educated at Yale College ( BA 1735) and prepared following in New Haven on the priests career before. In September 1736 he was ordained as a priest of the Presbyterian Church and appointed two months later, of the parish of Newark in New Jersey to the pastor. After a one-year probationary period, he was confirmed by the Presbytery of East Jersey in his office. At the time, Burr came under the influence of the Great Awakening, which in many places in America parishes in Chains ( " New Lights " ) and traditionalist skeptics ( " Old Lights ") of this revival movement split. Burr took as a priest as an intermediary position between these two positions. As a candidate acceptable to both factions of the First Church in New Haven, he was therefore appointed in 1742 to Copastor this is particularly important for the New England Protestantism, but deeply divided by the Great Awakening community, but did not accept the offer.

1746 Burr was one among other " New Lights ," one of the founders of the College of New Jersey in Elizabeth, in the Presbyterian priest young should be trained in the spirit of revivalism, and was one of the first eight curators. After the death of the first president of the College, Jonathan Dickinson, he taught from 1747 until now eight students of the college in his parish in Newark, until he was officially appointed a year later by the Trustees to the president. In 1752 he married Esther Edwards, daughter of Jonathan Edwards ', the most famous preacher of the Great Awakening. In 1755 he was dismissed from his pastorate to devote himself to teaching can. In 1756 he followed the move of the College on the still existing campus in Princeton, but died a year later.

From Burr's marriage to Esther Edwards had two children, Sally Burr (1755-1797; 1771 married Tapping Reeve ) and Aaron Burr, Jr. ( 1756-1836 ), which should be 1800 Vice President of the United States. After the early death of his parents, the two orphan grew up in the care of her uncle Timothy Edwards.

Works

At Burr's lifetime four of his sermons, a theological treatise and his Latin grammar were printed:

• The American Grammar: or, a complete Introduction to the English and Latin Languages ​​(1751 )
• A Discourse delivered at New -Ark, in New Jersey, January i, 1755. Being a Day set apart for Solemn Fasting and Prayer, on account of the late Encroachments of the French ( 1755)
• The Supreme Deity of our Lord Jesus Christ maintained. In a Letter to the Dedicator of Mr. Emlyn 's Inquiry into the Scripture Account of Jesus Christ. (1757 )
• A Servant of God dismissed from Labour to Rest A Funeral Sermon, Preached at the interment of his late Excellency Jonathan Belcher, Esq.; Governor of New Jersey, who died at Elizabeth -Town, August 31 1757th (1757 )