James W. Alexander (1804-1859)

Source: Presbyterian Heritage Center

Alexander, James Waddell

b: March 15, 1804; Hopewell Estate, Louisa County, Virginia
d: July 31, 1859; Red Sweetsprings, Virginia

Family

• Son of a Presbyterian minister, Archibald Alexander (1772-1851) and Janetta (née Waddell) Alexander (1782-1832)

Education

• Educated at schools in Philadelphia, where his father was briefly a minister, and then at Princeton, where his father had been appointed as the first professor at the Princeton Theological Seminary (1812).
• Went to the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) (AB 1820)
• Studied theology at Princeton Theological Seminary (1812)

Highlights & Accomplishments

• Ministered to two Presbyterian churches, one in Charlotte County, Virginia (1826-28), the other at Trenton, New Jersey (1829-32)
• Was professor of Rhetoric and Belles-Lettres at the College of New Jersey (1833-44)
• Became pastor of Duane Street Presbyterian Church, New York City (1844-49)
• For a brief period, a Professor of Latin and English Literature at Princeton Theological Seminary (1849-51).
• Wrote a biography of his father, The Life of Archibald Alexander, DD (1854), and other devotional works such as Thoughts on Preaching, being contributions to homiletics (1861).
• His translations were published after his death as The Breaking Crucible; and other translations from German hymns (New York, 1861), containing his celebrated ‘O sacred head! now wounded’*
• Also published after his death was an edition of his letters, edited by John Hall (1829-1898)
• Commemorated alongside his father, Archibald Alexander, and his brother, the biblical scholar Joseph Addison Alexander (1809-1860)

Hymns included in the Seventh-Day Adventist Hymnal

O Sacred Head Now Wounded, SDAH 156

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