Jacob Rutsen Hardenbergh, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetJacob Rutsen Hardenbergh
American politician
Date of Birth: 22-Feb-1736
Place of Birth: Rosendale, New York, United States
Date of Death: 30-Oct-1790
Profession: politician
Nationality: United States
Zodiac Sign: Pisces 
About Jacob Rutsen Hardenbergh
- The Reverend Jacob Rutsen Hardenbergh, D.D., S.T.D., (22 February 1735/6 – 30 October 1790) was an American Dutch Reformed clergyman, colonial and state legislator, and educator.
- Hardenbergh was a founder of Queen's College—now Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey—in 1766, and was later appointed as the college's first president. Hardenbergh was descended from a Dutch family that settled New Amsterdam in the seventeenth century and was prominent in New York colonial affairs.
- He prepared for ministry at the home of the Reverend John Frelinghuysen, a prominent Dutch Reformed minister near Somerville, New Jersey.
- After being ordained, Hardenbergh was called to serve congregations in New Jersey's Raritan River valley, and later in Ulster County, New York.
- During the 1760s, Hardenbergh was influential in the establishment of Queen's College, the eighth of nine colleges established during the colonial period.
- After his efforts to lobby Britain's King George III and New Jersey's royal governor, William Franklin to permit the establishment of a Dutch Reformed-affiliated college, Queen's College was chartered in 1766.
- During the American Revolution, Hardenbergh served as a delegate for New Jersey's Provincial Congress which ratified the Declaration of Independence and to frame the state's first constitution (1776).
- He subsequently served several successive one-year terms in New Jersey's General Assembly.
- In 1785, Hardenbergh was appointed as the first president of Queen's College, a post he would hold from 1786 to his death in 1790.
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