Samuel Merrill Woodbridge

The Reverend Samuel Merrill Woodbridge, D.D., LL.D. (April 5, 1819 – June 23, 1905) 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. After settling in New Brunswick, New Jersey, he taught for 44 years as professor of ecclesiastical history and church government at the New Brunswick Theological Seminary, and for seven years as professor of "metaphysics and philosophy of the human mind" at Rutgers College (now Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey) in New Brunswick. Woodbridge later led the New Brunswick seminary as Dean and President of the Faculty from 1883 to 1901. He was the author of three books and several published sermons and addresses covering various aspects of Christian faith, theology, church history and government.

Samuel Merrill Woodbridge was born April 5, 1819 in Greenfield, Massachusetts. He was the third of six children born to the Rev. Sylvester Woodbridge, D.D. (1790–1863) and Elizabeth Gould (died in 1851). According to a genealogical chart published in Munsey's Magazine in 1907, Woodbridge was in the eleventh generation of a family of clergymen dating back to the late 15th century. The earliest clergyman in this ancestral line, the Rev. John Woodbridge (born in 1493), was a follower of John Wycliffe.

Woodbridge attended New York University, receiving a Bachelor of Arts (A.B.) degree in 1838. As an undergraduate student, Woodbridge was a member of the university's secretive, all-male Eucleian Society and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He was awarded a Master of Arts (A.M.) from the New Brunswick Theological Seminary in 1841 and was installed as a minister by the Reformed Church's Classis of New York, a governing body overseeing churches within the region. At this time, his alma mater, New York University, promoted his bachelor's degree to a Master of Arts. After his graduation from seminary, he served as pastor at the South Reformed Dutch Church in South Brooklyn (1841–49), at the Second Reformed Church in Coxsackie, New York (1849–52), and at the Second Reformed Church in New Brunswick, New Jersey (1852–57).

...
Wikipedia