James Waddel Alexander (March 13, 1804 – July 31, 1859) was an American Presbyterian minister and theologian who followed in the footsteps of his father, the Rev. Archibald Alexander.
At the time of Alexander's birth, his father was president of Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia. He attended his first schools in Philadelphia after his father was called to serve as minister of the Third Presbyterian Church in 1807. The family then moved to Princeton, New Jersey when Archibald Alexander was named the first professor of the Princeton Theological Seminary in 1812. Alexander entered the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) in 1817 and graduated in 1820,[3] followed with a four years' course at the Princeton theological seminary.[2] In 1824, he helped to create the Chi Phi Society, a semi-religious, semi-literary organization, which ceased activity the following year when it merged with the Philadelphian Society.
In 1833, he was appointed Professor of Rhetoric and Belles-Letters in the College of New Jersey.[1] He served in this position until 1844, when he became pastor of New York City's Duane Street Presbyterian Church for the next five years.[4] He served as professor of ecclesiastical history and church government at Princeton Theological Seminary from 1849 to 1851.[1] He then returned to the New York church, which in its new location was known as the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church. He served as minister there until his death.[5]
Alexander became a patron of Henry Baldwin Hyde, who founded the Equitable Life Assurance Society in 1859. Many of the company's original directors were members of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church recruited by Alexander.[6] Alexander's brother, William Cowper Alexander, was named the first president of the company. His son, James Waddell Alexander, would also later serve as president of the company, while another son, William C. Alexander, served as company secretary.
Alexander was also a vice president of the University Club of New York from 1887 to 1890 and a president from 1891 to 1899.[7]
Personal life
On June 18, 1830, Alexander married Elizabeth Clarentine Cabell (1809–1885), daughter of George Cabell and Susannah Wyatt. Her paternal great–grandfather, William Cabell (1699–1774), was the patriarch of the prestigious Cabell family of Virginia. They had seven children:[8]
James Waddell Alexander (1839–1915), president of the Equitable Life Assurance Society, 1899–1905; father-in-law of portrait painter John White Alexander and grandfather of mathematician James Waddell Alexander II
His published works include his sermons and a book on the life of his father. Alexander's English translation of the hymn "O Sacred Head, Now Wounded," became the most widely used version in 19th and 20th century hymnals. His books, and many juvenile books for Sunday-school libraries, include:
A Gift to the Afflicted (1835)
The American Mechanic and Workingman (2 vols., 1847, a collection of papers to mechanics first printed under the pseudonym of "Charles Quill")
His correspondence is collected in Forty Years' Familiar Letters of James W. Alexander, Constituting, With the Notes, a Memoir of His Life (2 vols., New York: Charles Scribner, 1860), edited by Dr John Hall.[10]
