Quick Facts
Biography
Littleton Kirkpatrick (October 19, 1797 in New Brunswick, New Jersey – August 15, 1859 in Saratoga Springs, New York) was an American Whig Party politician, who represented New Jersey's 4th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from 1853 to 1855. He was the son of Andrew Kirkpatrick, and grandson of John Bubenheim Bayard.
Biography
Kirkpatrick was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey on October 19, 1797. He graduated from Princeton College in 1815. He studied law in Washington, D.C., was admitted to the bar in 1821 and commenced practice in New Brunswick. He was master in court chancery in 1824, and surrogate of Middlesex County from 1831 to 1836. He was Mayor of New Brunswick, New Jersey from 1841 to 1842, and served as a trustee of Rutgers College from 1841 to 1859.
Kirkpatrick was elected as a Democrat to the Twenty-eighth Congress, serving in office from March 4, 1843 to March 3, 1845, and was chairman of the Committee on Revisal and Unfinished Business.
He died in Saratoga Springs, New York on August 15, 1859. He was interred in Presbyterian Cemetery in New Brunswick, and reinterred in that city's Van Liew Cemetery in 1921.
Legacy
His wife, Sophia, remained in the city of New Brunswick after Littleton's death. When she died on March 6, 1871 at the age of 68, she named Rutgers College as her estate's residuary legatee. Rutgers used the proceeds of this bequest to build Kirkpatrick Chapel in 1873. Today, this chapel is located on the historic Queen's Campus section of Rutgers's College Avenue Campus.