The name is absent

American Colonial Colleges 269

These were not so much the staunch adherents of the Dutch
Reformed Church (who established their Queen’s College
at New Brunswick, New Jersey, in 1770), as the Episcopal-
ians; and it was they who founded (or, as their enemies al-
leged, captured) the first college in New York. It began with
a lottery, authorized by the New York Assembly in 1749;
but the Anglicans pushed it through.

King’s College was chartered by George II in 1754, with
an imposing Board of Trustees of which the Archbishop of
Canterbury was titular chairman, and in which a majority
of the members were Anglicans. Trinity Church, in return for
conveying a parcel of New York real estate to the College,
obtained a stipulation in the charter that the President should
always be an Episcopalian, and that the college chapel serv-
ices should be according to the Book of Common Prayer.
Religious freedom was not, in this instance, bartered for a
mess of pottage, since the real estate was not very far from
Wall Street, and extended from Broadway to the Hudson
River. But these provisions seemed outrageous to the nu-
merous non-Anglicans of New York; and as the Episcopal-
ians were connected with the Royal Governor’s party in the
Assembly, the King’s College charter became the target of
bitter attack. It was denounced as an imposture by the non-
Anglicans, a “detestable plot,” a “political engine,” an enter-
ing wedge for Bishops and tithes and religious persecution.
In consequence, only half the money raised by public lottery
for a college was given to King’s; but the other half was
more than made up by gifts from wealthy Anglicans, indig-
nant at this “robbery,” and by an Anglican missionary so-
ciety.

Dr. Samuel Johnson, graduate of Yale and convert to the
Church of England, was chosen the first president of King’s,
and for many years the College was staffed with Harvard and

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