N.YOm
 

CHAPTER II.
 

THE EEVEREND AARON BURR,

FATHEE   OF   AAEOlf   BUEE.

Outline of his early History—Pastor of Newark CniTEcn—A Gi:eat School¬
master—President OP Princeton College—The First Commencement—StrDDES
Marriage op the President—His Writings—His Poetbait.

The Reverend Aaron Burr was a conspicuous and important
person in his day.

He came of a Puritan family which may have originated in
Germany, where the name is still common, but which had
flourished in New England for three generations, and had
given to those provinces clergymen, lawyers, and civilians of
some eminence. He was born at Fairfield, in Connecticut, in
1716, and graduated at Yale, with great distinction, in his nine¬
teenth year. His proficiency in Latin and Greek enabled him
to win one of the three Berkley scholarships, which entitled the
possessor to a maintenance at college for two years after grad¬
uating. While he was pursuing his studies upon that endow¬
ment, he was arrested, as college students frequently were in
those days, by a ' revival of religion.' He became a convert and
a student of theology. " His human literature," to use the
figure of one of his eulogists, " was thenceforward an obsequi¬
ous handmaid, ever ready to set off and embellish his mistress.
Divinity."

An account of his conversion, in his own words, has been pre¬
served. It is remarkable, among other narratives of the kind
for its concise exactness of expression. " This year," he says
" God saw fit to open my eyes and show me what a miserable
creature I was. Till then I had spent my life in a dream, and
as to the great design of my being, had lived in vain. Though
before, I had been under frequent convictions, and was driven