Kirkpatrick Chapel

About

The Sophia Astley Kirkpatrick Memorial Chapel, known as Kirkpatrick Chapel, is the chapel to Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey and located on the university's main campus in New Brunswick, New Jersey in the United States. Kirkpatrick Chapel is among the university's oldest extant buildings, and one of six buildings located on a historic section of the university's College Avenue Campus in New Brunswick known as the Queens Campus. Built in 1872 when Rutgers was a small, private liberal arts college, the chapel was designed by architect Henry Janeway Hardenbergh at the beginning of his career. Hardenbergh, a native of New Brunswick, was the great-great-grandson of Rutgers' first president, the Rev. Jacob Rutsen Hardenbergh. It was the third of three projects that Hardenbergh designed for the college.

Kirkpatrick Chapel was named in honour of Sophia Astley Kirkpatrick. Kirkpatrick was the wife of Littleton Kirkpatrick, a local attorney and politician who was a member of the board of trustees of Rutgers College from 1841 until his death in 1859. When Sophia Kirkpatrick died in 1871, Rutgers was named as the residuary legatee of her estate. A bequest of $61,054.57 (2013: US$1,174,079.38) from her estate funded the construction of the chapel. According to Rutgers, this marked the first time in New Jersey history that an institution became a direct heir to an estate.