The New Brunswick Theological Seminary, founded in 1784, relocated from Brooklyn, New York, to New Brunswick in 1810, and shared facilities with Queen's College (and the Queen's College Grammar School, as both were then under the oversight of the Reformed Church in America. During those formative years, all three institutions were fit into the Old Queens Building, then the only structure on campus. In 1815 Elias Van Bunschooten, at the end of his life, gave the college a gift of almost $19,000 (equivalent to $ in ) in various forms. It was one of the largest financial donations made by an Old Queen's trustee at the time and helped the college ease some of the financial burden it was facing after being closed from 1795 to 1807. Donations such as his along with Andrew Kirkpatrick and Ira Condict helped save the college through the rough financial situation it was facing in the late 1790s and early 1800s. During its early years, the college developed as a classic liberal arts institution, and this development (coupled with both institutions' growing larger and resulting in overcrowding at the site), caused Rutgers College and the New Brunswick Theological Seminary to sever this arrangement. In 1856, the Seminary relocated to a seven-acre (28,000 m2) tract less than one-half mile (800m) away. Both institutions maintain a close-knit relationship to this day, and the Seminary's Gardner Sage Library participates in the Rutgers University Library system.Gardner Sage Library accessed 10 September 2006.
