Excerpts about Nathaniel Fitzrandoph and his interment on the Princeton University campus,
from an
article on the Fitzrandolph Gate
in the online publication
A Princeton Companion, by Alexander Leitch, ©Princeton University Press (1978).
FitzRandolph was the son of one of the original seventeenth-century Quaker settlers of Princeton. More than any other citizen of Princeton, he was responsible for raising for the College the money and land the trustees required of the citizens of the place where it was to be located
FitzRandolph was buried in the family burial ground, which was located where Holder Hall now stands. Workmen excavating for the foundations of that dormitory in 1909 discovered thirty-two old, unmarked graves there.
At President Wilson's [[Woodrow Wilson was president of Princeton Universit before he became governor of New York and then president of the United States]]
direction, the contents of the graves were preserved in separate boxes and reinterred under the eastern arch of Holder Hall and a memorial tablet placed in the arch. President Wilson wrote the English and Dean West the Latin for the inscription:
NEAR THIS SPOT LIE THE REMAINS OF
NATHANIEL FITZRANDOLPH
THE GENEROUS GIVER OF THE LAND
UPON WHICH THE ORIGINAL BUILDINGS
OF THIS UNIVERSITY WERE ERECTED
In Agro Jacet Nostro Immo Suo
(In our ground he sleeps, nay, rather, in his own.)
In truth, Nathaniel Fitzrandoph was advocating for the creation of the first college in New Jersey at least ten years before it landed in Princeton.. The founders of the first incarnation of The College of New Jersey were theologians who were expelled or withdrew from Presbyterian Synod because of their support for the famous 18th centurry "Great Awakening". The initial charter was granted in 1646. Theologian Jonathan Dickinson (read more abnout him below) was named the college's first president, and the first classes were held in his parsonage in Elizabeth, New Jersey.
Jonathan Dickinson died in 1747, whereupon the college moved to Trenton. But the trustees were not happy with that location, and, largely because of Nathaniel Fitzrandlph's lobbying and his donation of 10 acres of cleared land for the campus. The college moved to Princeton in 1756 when Nassau Hall was completed. At the time, Nassau Hall and is the current University administration building.
I made a point of mentioning Johnathan Dickinson because of a remarkable personal connection among Nathaniel Fitzrandolph, Jonathan Dickinson and me. Y'see, In about 2015, I leaned the basics of Nathaniel Fitzrandolph's association with Princeton while researching my Fitzrandolph ancestral line. (I didn't know anything about Princeton's Fitzrandolph traditions until I casually asked a Princeton alum whether he had ever heard of Nathaniel Fitzrandolph. interest was piqued when I
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