Aaron Burr, Sr.

The Reverend Aaron Burr, Sr., (January 4, 1716 – September 24, 1757) was a notable divine and educator in colonial America. He was a founder of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) and the father of the third United States Vice President, Aaron Burr (1756–1836), who killed Alexander Hamilton. A native of Connecticut, Burr was born in 1716 in present day Fairfield to Daniel Burr, a wealthy landowner. He was of English ancestry (his grandfather Jehu Burr had been born in Lavenham, Suffolk, England, in 1625, settled in the Connecticut Colony as a young man, and died there in 1692). Aaron Burr attended Yale College (now Yale University), where he obtained a B.A. in 1735. After graduation, he became a Presbyterian minister in...