Vanderlinde, Benjamin

Vanderlinde, Benjamin a Reformed (Dutch) minister, was born, near Hackensack, N.J., in 1719; and was the first person educated and licensed in this country by the Coetus to preach the Gospel as a minister of the Dutch Reformed Church in America. This occurred in 1747, and was the occasion of much previous hesitation and subsequent conflict. The advocates of a learned ministry treated it as a dangerous innovation, a beginning of revolutionary proceedings, and of defection from the mother Church in Holland. His examination was sustained, and he was afterwards ordained and installed over the Church at Paramus, N. J., of which he remained the acceptable pastor for forty-one years 1748 to 1789. He preached also at a place called Ponds; and two new churches, Ramapo and Saddle River, were organized during his ministry. His wife was a niece of general Schuyler, the Revolutionary patriot. He died in 1789. See Corwin, Annual of the Reformed Church in America, p. 500. (W. J. R.T.)