Stryker, Isaac P

Stryker, Isaac P., a missionary of the (Dutch) Reformed Church to Borneo, was born at Harlingen, N.J., Nov. 27, 1811, and was brought up to mechanical labor, until God turned him aside to prepare for the Gospel, ministry. He began his studies late in life, graduated at Rutgers College in 1837, and from the Theological Seminary at New Brunswick in 1840. In November of that year, having been ordained as an evangelist to the heathen by the Classis of New Brunswick, he sailed for Borneo with his classmate Rev. William T. Van Doren and wife. He died of a swift fever at Singapore in 1842, after spending a year in Java, as required by the law of the Dutch government, and almost before the real beginning of his missionary work. He was a man of fervid piety, zealously earnest in the Christian life, and thoroughly devoted to the cause of Christ among the pagans; The mission to which he belonged, after years of patient struggles, was abandoned in 1849. Mr. Stryker was unmarried. See , Corwin, Manual of the Ref. Church, p. 473. (W.J.R.T.)