John Witherspoon

Do you know the story of the only clergyman whose signature is on the Declaration of Independence? On this episode of 5 Minutes in Church History, Dr. Stephen Nichols presents John Witherspoon: university president, esteemed preacher, and American patriot.

On the campus of Princeton University is a statue that is ten-foot tall that stands on a seven-foot base, and on the front of the statue there's a name and three panels, and each of those panels are introduced with a word: president, patriot, preacher. And the name is John Witherspoon.

Who was John Witherspoon? Well, he was born in 1723 in Scotland. His father was a minister. Early on, he showed evidence of a call to ministry, and he also showed significant academic ability, so he went off to the University of Edinburgh. He went right from his bachelor's program into his master's program, which he received in 1739. Then he went off and served as a minister, primarily in Paisley in Scotland. In 1764, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Divinity from the University of St. Andrews. In 1766, he was voted on to be the president of Princeton University in the colony of New Jersey in the American colonies. But Mrs. Witherspoon was not so inclined, and so he declined the offer.

Well, two years later, there was a former Princeton student, Benjamin Rush, who was a medical doctor in Philadelphia, who was studying further medicine at the University of Edinburgh. He happened to be a trustee of Princeton, and so he was dispatched to go meet with John Witherspoon. Whatever Benjamin Rush said to him, it was enough to get John Witherspoon and Mrs. Witherspoon to cross the Atlantic and to become the president of Princeton. He took office in 1768, and he held that office until his death in 1794. When he got there, he found things were a little bit in disarray. They had had a succession of presidents who did not have very long terms. One of them was back in 1758, and that was Edwards, who had all of a six-week term of office. So, he got very busy, rolled up his sleeves, and jumped into getting Princeton back on track.

Of course, something happened in 1776 that also derailed him a little bit. He went off as a delegate with fellows from New Jersey and was there at the Continental Congress and actually affixed his signature to the Declaration of Independence. John Witherspoon is the only clergyman to have a signature on the Declaration of Independence. He remained in the Continental Congress, and also served as the Congressional chaplain until 1784.

During the Revolutionary War, he lost a son in the Battle of Germantown. And in November of 1777, the Battle of Princeton went right to Nassau Hall. At the time, Princeton consisted of the president's house, another house, and Nassau Hall. It had everything. It had the cafeteria; it had students’ rooms; it had faculty offices; it had classrooms; it had the library. And it was fired upon by British cannon. They evacuated the building, and once the British got in there, they knew who John Witherspoon was. That's for sure. And so they destroyed much of his office, burnt his papers, etc., and also left the building in quite disarray.

Well, once again, Witherspoon rolled up his sleeves and set to work. Witherspoon not only was president, he was also a professor. He taught what was called moral science, which we, of course, would call today ethics. This was a class that was taught in the senior year. It was very typical in universities of this day for the college president to teach this class. The students had the curriculum of the university, and they were about to be sent out into the world as clergymen or as lawyers or as doctors. But they all were anticipated to be leaders, not only in the church, but also leaders of the state. So, they designed this course to pull together all of their curriculum and also to say, "Now, this is what you do with all of that knowledge that you have, and this is how you live life." So, Witherspoon taught that course to those seniors.

One of those seniors that he taught was James Madison, and he was so impressed with Madison, that he had Madison stay on an extra year and be somewhat of a graduate assistant to him before Madison went back to his Virginian College of William and Mary, and you know the career that he would go on to have.

In 1789, John Witherspoon was the moderator of the first General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church at Philadelphia. He was widely esteemed as a great minister. In those days, most American preachers read their manuscripts for their sermons. Not Witherspoon. He had what one student called “presence.”

Well, that's John Witherspoon, president of Princeton University, patriot who signed the Declaration of Independence, and preacher. I'm Steve Nichols, and thanks for joining us for 5 Minutes in Church History.