M. Woolsey Stryker

M. (Melancthon) Woolsey Stryker, D.D., Litt. D., LL.D., (7 January 1851 – 6 December 1929), an American clergyman, was Pastor of the Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago and President of Hamilton College in upstate New York from 1892-1917. He distanced Hamilton from the Presbyterian Church, moving it towards becoming a more secular institution.

Stryker was born in Vernon, Oneida County, New York to Rev. Isaac Pierson Stryker (1815–1899), a Presbyterian minister, and Alida Livingston Woolsey (1822–1859). Educated at the Rome Academy and Hamilton College, from which he graduated in 1872 and later received a D.D (1888), Stryker also attended Auburn Theological Seminary, graduating in 1876. He received honorary degrees from Lafayette College in 1889 and Wesleyan College in 1909.

On September 27, 1876, Rev. Stryker married Clara Elizabeth Goss (1856–1936). The couple's children included: Goss Livingston Stryker (1877–1971), Alida Livingston Stryker (1881–1951) (married Elihu Root, Jr., son of Hamilton alum and trustee Elihu Root), Robert McBurney Stryker (1883-1883), Lloyd Paul Stryker (1885–1955), Evelyn Stryker (1888–1976) and Elizabeth Woolsey Stryker (1896-?).

Rev. Stryker's first position was in Auburn, New York. In 1878 he took another position in Ithaca, and in 1883 he accepted a position in Holyoke, Massachusetts. In 1885 Rev. Stryker became pastor of the Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago.

He left that position to become the ninth President of his alma mater, Hamilton College in 1893, and served there until 1917. Rev. Styker was a popular speaker, and widely quoted in his day. As Hamilton's President, Stryker strongly defended the traditional approach to a liberal arts education, and preserved the teaching of the classics. He also became known for his individualism and disdain for mob choices, although he vehemently disapproved of President Theodore Roosevelt, whom he greatly resembled.

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