Frelinghuysen

Frelinghuysen, FREDERICK, an American statesman, grandson of a Dutch pastor who emigrated to New Jersey in 1720, was born in 1753, graduated at Princeton, and was admitted to the bar in 1774. He raised a corps of artillery, and took part in the battles of Trenton and Monmouth Court-house; and he was a member of the Continental Congress in 1778 and 1782–83, and a United States senator in 1793–96. In 1794 he was made a major-general of militia. He died in 1804.—His second son, THEODORE, was born in 1787, graduated at Princeton in 1804, and practised law in Newark, where he became state attorney-general. In the United States senate (1829–35) his speeches earned him the title of 'the Christian statesman.' He became chancellor of the university of New York in 1839, and in 1844 was nominated by the Whig party for the vice-presidency of the United States, on the same ticket with Henry Clay. In 1850 he was chosen president of Rutgers College, New Brunswick, where he died in 1861.—His nephew, FREDERICK THEODORE, born in 1817, graduated at Rutgers in 1836, and succeeded in 1839 to his uncle's practice. He was attorney-general of New Jersey in 1861–66, and in 1866–69 and 1871–77 he sat in the United States senate, where he carried a bill against polygamy, and had charge of Charles Sumner's civil-rights bill. He was secretary of state in Arthur's cabinet, 1881–85, and retired from office exhausted by his labours, to die at Newark, 20th May 1885.