First Presbyterian Church Burial Grounds and Elizabethtown Academy

First Presbyterian Church Burial Grounds and Elizabethtown Academy. . , From 1664 until 1703, the First Presbyterian Church of Elizabeth was the only house of worship serving most of current-day Union, Morris, Somerset and Hunterdon Counties. The oldest stones in the cemetery are from the year 1687 and are located in the outside rear of the church., The cemetery is a unique record of the centuries-long history of the church and the city of Elizabeth, including early families like the Ogdens and Boudinots, Rev. Jonathan Dickinson, founder of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) and 75 veterans of the American Revolution. Nearly 300 enslaved and formerly enslaved people are also buried here, in unmarked graves., Notable Revolutionary War-era Elizabeth residents buried here include:, Reverend James Caldwell and his wife Hannah Ogden Caldwell , Rev. Caldwell was a fierce advocate for independence, and several members of First Presbyterian Church joined the Continental Army with his encouragement. Rev. Caldwell was shot and murdered by an American soldier thought to have been bribed by Tories. Hannah was murdered during the June 1780 Battle of Connecticut Farms., Shepard Kollock was a printer who founded the New Jersey Journal as a Patriot newspaper in 1779 at the urging of Alexander Hamilton and General George Washington. The only regularly-published newspaper in northern New Jersey during the war, it later became known as the Elizabeth Daily Journal, published not far from here, until 1992., Hannah Arnett was a fierce advocate of American independence. In late 1776, when victory seemed unlikely, she and her husband Isaac hosted a meeting of their neighbors to decide whether to sign a pledge of loyalty to the British Crown. When the men decided to side with the British, she castigated them as traitors and threatened to leave Isaac. The men reconsidered and vowed to support independence. , Elizabeth Academy , The First Presbyterian Church grounds were also the site of the 18th century Elizabethtown Academy, located about where the Snyder Academy buildings stands today. Its students, all male, learned English, mathematics, geography, Latin and Greek. Alumni include Vice President, Aaron Burr, Speaker of the House of Representatives Jonathan Dayton, Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton and Supreme Court Justice Broskholst Livingston., The academy became a storehouse during the American Revolution and was burned down by the British. The school itself did not survive the war, as its headmaster, Francis Barber, left to serve in the Continental Army, along with many of his students. After reaching the rank of lieutenant colonel, Barber died in 1783 after being struck by a falling tree limb in Newburgh, NY.