Samuel Finley

Finley, Samuel, 1715-66, Presbyterian minister, president of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton Univ.), b. Ireland. He went to North America in 1734 and is believed to have studied under William Tennent. He preached in the series of religious revivals known as the Great Awakening, mainly in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. In the early 1740s, Finley founded a school in Nottingham on the Pennsylvania-Maryland border (now the West Nottingham Academy). He became president of the College of New Jersey in 1761.