Narrative #6

The King's College Faculty

No more than fifteen -- and possibly as few as thirteen -- individuals taught at King's College during its 22-year history. Of these, five -- Drs. Samuel Bard_, Peter Middleton_, John Jones_, James Smith_ and John V.B. Tennent_ -- limited their teaching to lectures delivered under the auspices of the medical school. Of the ten who taught regular undergraduates, two did so as presidents. Samuel Johnson_ provided general instruction when the college got underway in 1754 and thereafter taught moral philosophy to seniors until his retirement in 1763. Myles Cooper_ came to King's College in 1762 as Professor of Moral Philosophy, a subject he continued to teach as president, along with Latin, Greek and "polite literature." The Harvard-trained, 22-year-old Daniel Treadwell_ received the first professorial appointment at King's College in 1757, as Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy. A year after his death in 1760, his dual professorship first went to Robert Harpur, then was split between Harpur (Mathematics) and Dr. Samuel Clossy_ (Natural Philosophy) in 1765. Two years later Harpur's professorship lapsed altogether when he was reduced to tutoring students privately. A fourth professorship, in Natural Law, was created in 1773, though its incumbent, John Vardill (KC 1766), was promptly dispatched to England and never actually taught in the position (though he likely taught earlier as a tutor).

The first tutor at King's College was Samuel William Johnson ("Willy"), who helped his father out during the college's second year, while awaiting passage to England where he died waiting to be ordained into the Anglican clergy. In 1756, the Cambridge-educated Leonard Cutting_ was hired as a full time tutor to provide language instruction to the lower classes, which he did until he resigned in 1763. Finally, two assistant ministers of Trinity Church, Charles Inglis_, who served as acting president in 1771-72 in Cooper's absence, and Benjamin Moore (KC 1766), who became acting president upon Cooper's hurried departure in 1775, likely offered some instruction before and during their temporary administrative appointments. Bard, Vardill and Moore were the first students of the College to teach there.

These numbers are misleading. Throughout its history, King's College proper operated with never more than three instructors, counting the president, at any one time. For long stretches it made do with two. During President Johnson's absences in 1756-57, prior to Treadwell's arrival and again in 1759-60 with Treadwell terminally sick, Tutor Cutting seems to have carried on alone. Similarly, when Cooper was in England in 1771-72, the teaching was pretty much left to Clossy and Harpur. Upon Cooper's hasty departure in 1775, all instruction again devolved upon Clossy, with possibly some help from acting president and sometime tutor Benjamin Moore.

Excluding presidents, part-timers and those who limited their teaching to medical students, the King's College faculty consisted of just four men: Leonard Cutting, Daniel Treadwell, Robert Harpur and Samuel Clossy.

  In addition to Clossy. The Medical faculty consisted of five men:

 Sources: Catalogue of the Officers and Graduates of Columbia College, 1754-1900 (1900); David Humphrey, From King's College to Columbia, 1746-1800 (Columbia University Press, 1976); Byron Stookey, A History of Colonial Medical Education: In the Province of New York, With Its Subsequent Development, 1767-1830 (1962)

Robert A. McCaughey
September 29, 1999
ram31@columbia.edu