Robert Harpur (January 25, 1731 – April 15, 1825) was an Irish-American teacher, politician, pioneer, and landowner. He participated in surveying lands within the Central Military Tract in New York State and is credited with giving classical (Latin and Greek) place names to numerous locations in

central New York The central region of New York state includes: * Auburn in Cayuga County * Cortland in Cortland County * Oneida in Madison County * Syracuse, the largest city of Central New York, in Onondaga County * Fulton and Oswego in Oswego County ...

. He settled in the

Binghamton, New York Binghamton ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of New York, and serves as the county seat of Broome County. Surrounded by rolling hills, it lies in the state's Southern Tier region near the Pennsylvania border, in a bowl-shaped valley at the c ...

area, where Harpur College (later the Harpur College of Arts and Sciences of

Binghamton University The State University of New York at Binghamton (Binghamton University or SUNY Binghamton) is a public university, public research university in Binghamton metropolitan area, Greater Binghamton, New York, United States. It is one of the four uni ...

) was named for him.

Life

Harpur was born in

Ballybay Ballybay () is a town and civil parish in County Monaghan, Ireland. The town is centred on the crossroads of the R183 and R162 roads. Geography The town is the meeting point for roads going to Monaghan, Castleblayney, Carrickmacross and ...

County Monaghan County Monaghan ( ; ) is a Counties of Ireland, county in Ireland. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Ulster and is part of Border Region, Border strategic planning area of the Northern and Western Region. It is named after the town ...

, Ireland. He was a graduate of the

University of Glasgow The University of Glasgow (abbreviated as ''Glas.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals; ) is a Public university, public research university in Glasgow, Scotland. Founded by papal bull in , it is the List of oldest universities in continuous ...

and taught in Ireland for 7 years before coming to the

Colony of New York The Province of New York was a British proprietary colony and later a royal colony on the northeast coast of North America from 1664 to 1783. It extended from Long Island on the Atlantic, up the Hudson River and Mohawk River valleys to the G ...

in 1760. Three days after his arrival in 1761 he was installed as professor of mathematics at King's College, renamed Columbia College after U.S. independence (today the undergraduate college of

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

). One of his pupils was

Alexander Hamilton Alexander Hamilton (January 11, 1755 or 1757July 12, 1804) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the first U.S. secretary of the treasury from 1789 to 1795 dur ...

while he studied there in 1774. During his tenure, he was hired by the university to catalog the collections of the Columbia library, making him the first librarian of the university. Harpur served in various capacities in the New York government during the

American Revolution The American Revolution (1765–1783) was a colonial rebellion and war of independence in which the Thirteen Colonies broke from British America, British rule to form the United States of America. The revolution culminated in the American ...

. He was a member of the

New York State Assembly The New York State Assembly is the lower house of the New York State Legislature, with the New York State Senate being the upper house. There are 150 seats in the Assembly. Assembly members serve two-year terms without term limits. The Ass ...

from 1777 to 1784. He was Deputy Secretary of State under

John Morin Scott John Morin Scott (1730 – September 14, 1784) was a lawyer, military officer, and statesman before, during and after the American Revolution. Early life Scott was born in Manhattan, Province of New York in 1730. He was the only child of John ...

and

Lewis Allaire Scott Lewis Allaire Scott (February 11, 1759 – March 17, 1798) was an American politician. Early life Scott was the son of John Morin Scott (1730–1784) and Helena ( Rutgers) Scott. His elder sister, Mary Morin Scott, married John Litchfield and, af ...

from 1778 to 1795. In the spring of 1795 Robert Harpur, with his 2nd wife Myra and family, moved west along the upper

Susquehanna River The Susquehanna River ( ; Unami language, Lenape: ) is a major river located in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, crossing three lower Northeastern United States, Northeast states (New York, Pennsylvani ...

. He settled near

Belden Brook Belden may refer to: Places United States * Belden, California * Belden, Colorado * Belden, Illinois * Belden, Minnesota * Belden, Mississippi * Belden, Nebraska * Belden, North Dakota * Belden, Ohio Other uses

* Belden (electronics company), ...

on his Warren Patent, which is near present-day Harpursville, NY.

Legacy

Harpursville, New York Colesville is a town in Broome County, New York, United States. The population was 4,877 at the 2020 census. The town is in the northeastern part of the county and is northeast of Binghamton. History The area was first settled circa 1785. T ...

in eastern

Broome County, New York Broome County is a county in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2020 United States census, the county had a population of 198,683. Its county seat is Binghamton. The county was named for John Broome, the state's lieutenant governor whe ...

was named after him. Additionally, Harpur College, the arts and sciences component, and the oldest part, of present-day

, was also named for him.

Classical names used in New York

While Harpur worked as a clerk in the office of the New York State Surveyor General, and Secretary of the Land Board, he assigned numerous

classical tradition The Western classical tradition is the reception of classical Greco-Roman antiquity by later cultures, especially the post-classical West, involving texts, imagery, objects, ideas, institutions, monuments, architecture, cultural artifacts, ritu ...

names to locations in the

Central New York Military Tract The Military Tract of Central New York, also called the New Military Tract, consisted of nearly of bounty land set aside in Central New York to compensate New York's soldiers after their participation in the Revolutionary War. Establishment ...

, today in

Cayuga County Cayuga County is a county in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2020 census, the population was 76,248. Its county seat and largest city is Auburn. The county was named for the Cayuga people, one of the Native American tribes in the Iroq ...

Cortland County Cortland County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2020 census, the population of Cortland County was 46,809. The county seat is Cortland. The county is named after Pierre Van Cortlandt, president of the convention a ...

, Oneida County,

Onondaga County Onondaga County ( ) is a county in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2020 census, the population was 476,516. The county seat is Syracuse. The county is part of the Central New York region of the state. Onondaga County is the core of the ...

, and Seneca County. An earlier theory was that Surveyor General

Simeon De Witt Simeon De Witt (December 25, 1756 – December 3, 1834) was Geographer and Surveyor General of the Continental Army during the American Revolution and Surveyor General of the State of New York for the fifty years from 1784 until his death. Life ...

assigned these classical names.

Archival material

The

New York State Library The New York State Library is a research library in Albany, New York, United States. It was established in 1818 to serve the state government of New York and is part of the New York State Education Department. The library is one of the large ...

, in

Albany, New York Albany ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It is located on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River. Albany is the oldes ...

, holds the following materials of Harpur, according to its online catalog: "This collection contains material created by Harpur and material collected about him. Among Harpur's papers are his personal account books, 1768-1814, which include house expenses and tuition accounts for students he tutored; and a photostat of a land grant to Harpur for lands in Kingsbury and Queensbury townships. Among the items collected about Harpur are several biographies, postcards of the Senate House in Kingston, N.Y. and Clinton's mansion, and a photostat of a 1790 print of Columbia College, where Harpur taught."

References

External links