Jackson, William (1)

Jackson, William (1)

born in 1732, was one of the earliest ministers of the Reformed (Dutch) Church in New Jersey. He began his studies for the ministry with the Rev. John Frelinghuysen, whose daughter he married in 1757. The church at Bergen, N. J., which was the first of any denomination in the state, had existed ninety years without a pastor, being unable to procure one from the mother country. In 1753 in union with the Church on Staten Island, a call was made upon MT. Jackson which bound him to go to Holland, complete his studies, and obtain ordination from the Classis of Amsterdam. These churches were to pay him £100 for his support while absent. Four years and three months elapsed before his return in 1757, when he assumed full pastoral charge, dividing his services equally between the two congregations. These facts show both the tenacity of Church life and the devotion of the people to the idea of a thoroughly educated ministry. The Coetus and Conference troubles, which had so long rent the churches, and which grew out of this very question of an educated ministry, were finally adjusted in 1771, through the great exertions of Dr. John H. Livingston (q.v.) and his associates, and both Mr. Jackson and these churches rejoiced in the consummation. SEE REFORMED DUTCH CHURCH. His ministry lasted thirty-two years (1757-1789), when he became insane. He died in 1813. Mr. Jackson's literary and theological attainments were attested by academic degrees conferred by Yale, Columbia, and Princeton colleges. He was celebrated as a pulpit orator, preaching in the Dutch language. His voice was commanding, and his popularity was such that "in Middlesex and Somerset counties he was estimated as a field-preacher second only to Whitefield. On one occasion, at the Raritan church, the assembly was so large that he had to leave the pulpit and take a station at the church door to deliver his sermon," and the throng outside was greater than that which filled the building. His ministry was useful, acceptable, and crowned with great and permanent blessings. One of his five sons, the Rev. John Frelinghuysen Jackson, was for many years the pastor of the Reformed Dutch Church at Harlem, New York, where he died in 1836, at the age of sixty-eight years. He was a laborious, faithful, and devoted minister, and distinguished for his pecuniary liberality. — B. C. Taylor's Annals of Classis and Township of Bergen; Corwin's Manual of the Reformed Church, p. 120. (W. J. R. T.)