George Duffield (372)

George Duffield (7 October 1732–2 February 1790) was a clergyman, and a member of the American Philosophical Society, elected in 1779. Born in Lancaster County to a land-owning Irish-immigrant family, Duffield graduated from Princeton in 1752, then went on to study theology before returning to Princeton to work as a tutor. He was ordained a Presbyterian minister in 1761 and became responsible for a few churches in Pennsylvania frontier towns, spending some of his time travelling and preaching to Indians in Western Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia. Not long after, Duffield embroiled himself in the Old Light-New Light controversy: taking the side of the more progressive New Light faction, he was met with public outrage, whereby he relocated to the more radical, New Light Third Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia (also known as Old Pine Street Church) in 1771. His Whig politics and New Light leanings now alarmed the more conservative First Presbyterian Church, to which Old Pine Street Church was indebted. The conflict culminated when Duffield found himself locked out of Old Pine on a Sunday morning. Not intimidated, he broke in through a window and began his sermon undaunted, preaching until a royal magistrate appeared and began to read the riot act. Nevertheless, Duffield refused to waiver from his Whig and New Light beliefs: he served as a chaplain for American forces throughout the Revolutionary War, joining General George Washington at Valley Forge during the brutal winter of 1779-1777, and became Associate Chaplain of Continental Congress in 1777. After the war, he continued in his patriotic and religious duties: he led a reorganization of the Presbyterian church, became the first stated clerk of the General Assembly, and figures such as John Adams would frequent the pews of Old Pine, now known as the “Church of the Patriots”. In 1785 Yale declared Duffield a Doctor of Divinity. He died in Philadelphia, Old Pine serving as his final resting place. (EB)