Archibald Alexander

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Archibald Alexander (April 17, 1772 – October 22, 1851) was an American Presbyterian theologian and lecturer at the Princeton Theological Seminary.

He served as President of Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia for nine years, as Princeton Theological Seminary's first professor from 1812 to 1851.

Early life

Archibald Alexander was born in South River, Virginia, on April 17, 1772, the son of William Alexander, a farmer of means. He was raised under the care and ministry of Presbyterian minister William Graham (1745–1799), a man who had been trained in theology by John Witherspoon.

His grandfather, who is of Scottish descent, moved from Ireland to Pennsylvania in 1736, and later moved to Virginia after a two-year absence. William, the father of Archibald, was a fisherman and trader. William Alexander Caruthers, an American novelist (1802–1846), was his nephew.

At the age of ten, Archibald was sent to the academy of William Graham at Timber Ridge (since converted to Washington and Lee University), at Lexington. He became a tutor in the family of General Thomas Posey, twelve miles west of Fredericksburg, but after a few months, he resumed his studies with his former instructor. A remarkable movement, which is still being referred to as "the great revival," inspired his mind and led him to the study of divinity.

Personal life

Together, they were the parents of:

Alexander died in Princeton Township, New Jersey, on October 22, 1851.

William C. Alexander (1848–1937), his grandson, was an executive with the Equitable Life Assurance Society, author and founder of Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity. James Waddell Alexander II (1888–1971), his great-grandson, was a respected mathematician and topologist.

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Career

On October 1, 1791, he was licensed to preach, ordained by Hanover's presbytery of Hanover on June 9, 1794, and for seven years, he served as an itinerant pastor in Charlotte and Prince Edward counties.

Alexander, a 19-year-old priest, was a minister of the Presbyterian Church. He was elected president of Hampden–Sydney College, where he served from 1797 to 1812, and from 1807 to 1812, he was the pastor of the old Vine street Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia.

Alexander was appointed as its first professor in 1812 at Princeton, New Jersey, and the Princeton Theological Seminary was founded in 1812, and its first professor was inaugurated on August 12, 1812. He and Robert Baird and Charles Hodge helped establish the Chi Phi Society in 1824. He returned to Washington College in 1843 to give an alumni address, one of his many publications.

Alexander was one of the first supporters of the American Colonization Society, which orchestrated the emigration of free Black and enslaved Black Americans to Liberia. In 1827, he and his close friend Samuel Miller defended the group's mission against John Brown Russwurm's attacks. Freedom's Journal, a newspaper published in Russwurm. He later served as the vice president of the Colonization Society and wrote the most comprehensive history of the movement written before the twentieth century, A History of Colonization on the Western Coast of Africa (1846).

Samuel Miller became the second professor at the seminary, and Alexander and Miller were considered pillars of the Presbyterian Church in keeping its doctrines intact for 37 years. After his mentor, Charles Hodge, a well-known student and successor of Alexander Hodge, named his son Archibald Alexander Hodge after his mentor.

Archibald Alexander's personal papers dated from 1819 to 1851, including outgoing correspondence, manuscript papers, and lecture notes, which are available at the Presbyterian Historical Society in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

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