James Neilson (1784-1862)
- Name
- James Neilson (1784-1862)
- Identifier
- NJS-PER-00009
- Given Name
- James
- Family Name
- Neilson
- Birth Date
- December 3, 1784
- Death Date
- February 21, 1862
- Sex
- Male
- Description
-
James Neilson was a prominent New Brunswick businessman and a benefactor of Rutgers College. He served on the Rutgers Board of Trustees from 1834 until his death in 1862. He supported Rutgers with regular monetary contributions and donated land for the college campus.
James Neilson was colonel of the New Jersey State Militia and served in the War of 1812; thus he is often called Colonel James Neilson in historical sources (not to be confused with his father Colonel John Neilson, who served in the Revolutionary War).
In 1830, James Neilson built a mansion called Wood Lawn that would serve as the family home for the Neilsons for over a hundred years, until it was bequeathed to Rutgers University upon the death of Neilson's son James Neilson Jr. in 1937. Neilson enslaved several African Americans throughout his life, with the last known records of slaveholding dating to the 1830s when the Neilson family resided at Wood Lawn mansion. - Spouse of
- Catharine Bleecker Neilson (1809-1893)
- Parent of
- James Neilson Jr. (1844-1937)
- Sibling of
- Abraham Schuyler Neilson (1792-1861)
- Organization
-
Rutgers University
- Bibliographic Citation
- Boyd, Kendra, Miya Carey, and Christopher Blakley. "Old Money: Rutgers University and the Political Economy of Slavery in New Jersey." In Scarlet and Black: Slavery and Dispossession in Rutgers History, edited by MARISA J. FUENTES and DEBORAH GRAY WHITE, 43–57.
- Thompson, Robert. Colonel James Neilson: A Business Man of the Early Machine Age in New Jersey, 1784-1862. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1940.
- Source Resource
- https://records.njslavery.org/api/items/1226
- Source Site
- https://records.njslavery.org/s/doc/page/home
- Child of
-
John Neilson (1745-1833)
- Contributor
- Jesse Bayker
- Media
-
BOOK-Neilson-1940.jpg
Linked resources
Part of James Neilson (1784-1862)