Mccluskey, John, Dd

McCluskey, John, D.D., a Presbyterian minister, was born in Lancaster Valley, Chester County, Pennsylvania, June 17, 1795. He received his early education at the common schools in Washington County, and graduated from Jefferson College in 1822. After leaving: college he was a year and a half a teacher in the academy at Newtown, Bucks County. He next taught for a year at New Hope, when,, at the invitation of the Reverend Dr. Ezra Styles Ely; he went to Philadelphia, and spent a year studying theology under his guidance. In November 1825, he entered Princeton Seminary, and remained a year, when he was licensed by the Presbytery of Philadelphia. After supplying for six months the Church of West Alexander, he accepted a call to become its pastor, and was ordained October 8, 1828. In 1854 he became an agent for the Presbyterian Board of Education; in 1855 assistant pastor of the Church at Neshaminy, Bucks County, and in 1858 pastor elect of the Church at Smyrna, Delaware. He founded there a church school, in 1864: a female school in West Philadelphia, and in 1870 a school in Hightstown, with the special view to the education of the children of missionaries free of charge. In the same year he returned to West Philadelphia, and for four years was associate principal of the Mantua Academy. He spent several years at Wooster, Ohio, from whence he returned to Philadelphia, where he died, March 31, 1880. See Necrol. Report of Princeton Theol. Sem. 1881, page 24. (W.P.S.)