Matthew Leydt (1755–1783) was the first graduate of Queen's College (now

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and was ...

) in

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New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delawa ...

. Matthew was the son of Syntje Slegt (1729–1763) (also spelled Tryntje Slecht or Sleight) and the Rev. Johannes Leydt (1718–1783), minister of the

Dutch Reformed The Dutch Reformed Church (, abbreviated NHK) was the largest Christian denomination in the Netherlands from the onset of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century until 1930. It was the original denomination of the Dutch Royal Family and ...

congregation at

and at Six Mile Run in Franklin Township (both from 1748 until his death), and Trustee of Queen's College Matriculating as a

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when instruction began in 1771, he graduated at the age of 19 with a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...

(A.B.) degree in 1774 —constituting the college's entire first graduating class. While at Queen's, Leydt studied under Frederick Frelinghuysen, the college's first tutorRutgers Through the Years Timeline
accessed 18 September 2006 and was instructed in theology by the Rev.

Jacob Rutsen Hardenbergh Jacob Rutsen Hardenbergh (22 February 1735/6 – 30 October 1790) was an American Dutch Reformed clergyman, colonial and state legislator, and educator. Hardenbergh was a founder of Queen's College—now Rutgers, The State University of New J ...

, who became the college's first president in 1786. After graduation, Leydt was licensed to enter the ministry of the Dutch Reformed Church in 1778. He served at the Southampton Dutch Reformed Church in Neshaminy in

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, until his death on November 24, 1783 in North Hampton,

, at the age of twenty-eight.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Leydt, Matthew 1755 births 1783 deaths People from Franklin Township, Somerset County, New Jersey Rutgers University alumni American people of Dutch descent Reformed Church in America ministers 18th-century American clergy