Dr. John Van Cleve

Dr. John Van Cleve

Find A Grave Memorial ID # 114637191

From "Princeton and Its Institutes" by John F. Hageman

"Dr. John Van Cleve was one of the most respectable physicians of Princeton. He was a native of Maidenhead, in Hunterdon County, a few miles from Princeton. He was graduated at Nassau Hall (that is Princeton Ed.) in the class of 1797, and practiced medicine in Princeton during his life. By his skill and high attainments in his profession, combined with an excellent Christian character, he won the confidence and respect of the
community with a large practice, and retained them until his death. His residence and office were upon ground now occupied by the University Hotel in Nassau Street the house once owned and occupied by Jonathan Deare and recently moved to Bayard Avenue. In person he was tall and slender with agreeable manners. His wife was a Miss Houston, and they had an interesting family of three sons C.Houston, Horatio and John , and two daughters Mary Anna (who was married to Professor Gibbs of New Haven (Yale University) and Louisa. C. Houston VanCleve studied law and was admitted to the bar of New Jersey in 1830, but soon after moved to the west and has been dead several years. Horatio entered the army through West Point and is still living, (died 1891)

Children of Dr. John Van Cleve and Louisa Anna Houston:

1. Churchill Houston Van Cleve b. 1796-d. 1836
2. Mary Ann Fox Gibbs b. 1799-d. 1855
3. Louisa Davies b. c1802-d.c1842
4. John Woodhull Van Cleve b. 1804-d.1881
5. Brevet Maj. Gen. Horatio Phillips Van Cleve b.1809-d.1891

"Doctor Van Cleve was a ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church in Princeton from 1805 to 1826, and also a trustee from 1816 to 1823, and he filled the chair of chemistry in the absence of Dr. Maclean in 1812; and just before his death, the friends of the college had expressed a desire that he should take charge of the Medical Department, and Richard Stockton of the Law Department and give lectures therein, but the proposed establishment of these departments was not consummated.

"He was president of the New Jersey Medical Society, 1815; corresponding secretary 1810-1812; recording secretary 1820-1823; and was an active and prominent member of that association. He died December 24, 1826, aged forty-eight, and was buried in the Princeton Burying ground. His death was greatly lamented."
The following is from the manuscript of Mrs. Charlotte 0. Van Cleve on the life of her husband, General Van Cleve. It has been often quoted above. It was found in the attic of the family home in Minneapolis after her death in 1907).

"John Van Cleve was a physician of note, a descendant of emigrants from Holland, who settled on Long Island in 1653. His mother, Louisa Anna Van Cleve, was the daughter of William Churchill Houston of the American Congress in the Revolutionary period, highly distinguished as a patriot, a lawyer and a statesman, and was one of the men who drew up that wonderful document, which has for years and will for all years to come, thrill the heart of every true American, the Declaration of Independence; and, but for severe illness and enforced absence from home, his name would have been appended to the list of signers of that historic paper.

"Mrs. Van Cleve (wife of above) was the great granddaughter of Rev. Jonathan Dickinson, first president of Princeton College, which institution was formally opened in 1747. He was a man of varied learning and an author of enviable distinction. He died at the age of sixty, universally lamented."

"This highly favored family grew to maturity under the preaching of such renowned men as Dr. Alexander, Dr. Miller and others of that school of divines, and all were thoroughly indoctrinated in the tenets of the Presbyterian faith. Their mother was a woman of superior education and was a great reader and thinker, and realized fully her account¬ ability in the training of the children committed to her care. Love was the governing principle and proved here, as everywhere, that it is stronger than fear.

"Horatio has told me how he loved to take her hand and go with her to weekly prayer meeting and to the Monthly Concert of prayer for missions, and these habits, formed in his childhood, grew with his growth
prayer and conference unless unavoidably detained. It was an unfailing rule with him, as long as he lived, to lay by his contribution for the Monthly Concert, for he had been trained to consider it a privilege to give for the support of the Gospel and the extension of Christ’s kingdom on earth.

"A tenth of his income, slender as it was during a large part of his life, was conscientiously set apart as the Lord's money which he felt he had no more right to use for his own needs, than money belonging to his neighbor. From this consecrated fund he drew his regular contributions to the work of the church, and his gifts to benevolent objects. I remember his saying to me one day, 'I have been looking over my accounts and find that I am in debt to the Lord five dollars.

I would like to have you take it to the treasurer of the Sisterhood of Bethany, as I know they need it to carry on this work which they are doing for Christ's sake.'

"Some day his children will be looking over his diaries and private account books, and will find entries like this, 'Rec'd. $50.00,' and in the same line, under the heading'Tithes', will read, '$5.00', and it may be they will then realize how it was that he always gave to charity more liberally than many whose incomes were much larger than his."

1. Van Cleve Full text: https://archive.org/details/vanclevefamilypi00vanc/page/n7/mode/2up "The Van Cleve Family-Pioneers in Minnesota Dec 1959 Horatio Phillips Van Cleve, II ed.Published in typeface pp 30-31

Of Princeton University

Links

• http://freepages.family.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~emty/Section_F_Van_C...
• http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/25567273/person/1860300475

  ---

1. Journal of the Medical Society of New Jersey, Volume 13,  By Medical Society of New Jersey. Page 486

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/114637191/john-van_cleve

• Reference: Find A Grave Memorial - SmartCopy: Oct 31 2016, 2:46:27 UTC
• Reference: Find A Grave Memorial - SmartCopy: Aug 1 2022, 21:32:06 UTC