Robert Finley

About

Born in Princeton, New Jersey in 1772, Robert Finley was an American Presbyterian clergyman and educator who left a significant mark on American history. He graduated from the College of New Jersey, later renamed Princeton University, at the remarkably young age of 15. Finley devoted much of his career to pastoral and educational work, serving as a pastor for 20 years at a Presbyterian church in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, while also teaching in elementary school and at a boys' academy. He is best known as one of the founders of the American Colonization Society, an organization that established Liberia in West Africa as a settlement for free African Americans. In 1817, near the end of his life, Finley served briefly as president of the University of Georgia before his death on November 3 of that year.