Hillyer, Asa, Dd

Hillyer, Asa, D.D., a Presbyterian minister, was: born in Sheffield, Mass., April 6,1763; entered Yale College in 1782, and graduated in 1786. He was licensed to preach by the old Presbytery of Suffolk, L. I., in 1788, and was appointed to the churches at Connecticut Farms and Bottle Hill (now Madison, N. J., the seat of the. Drew Theological Seminary), and shortly after (Sept, 29,1789) was ordained and installed as pastor at the latter place. In the summer of 1801 he accepted an invitation to the church in Orange, 'one of the largest and most influential in the state." Here he labored with great acceptance and success for more than thirty years. In 1818 he received the degree of D.D. from Alleghany College. In the disruption of the Presbyterian Church (1837), Dr. Hillyer sided with the New School. "But, though he regarded the division as an unwise measure, it never disturbed his pleasant relations with those of his brethren whose views and action in reference to it differed from his own" (G. N. Judd, in Sprague's Annals). He was a trustee of the College of New Jersey from 1811 to his death, and from 1812 until the division of the General Assembly one of the first directors of the theological seminary at Princeton. This school, too, he regarded to the last with undiminished interest. — Tuttle, (Rev. Samuel L.), History of the Presbyterian Church, Madison, N. J. p. 39 sq.; Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit, 3, 533.