27 Facts About Thomas Clap

Thomas Clap was both the fifth rector and the earliest official to be called "president" of Yale College.

Thomas Clap is best known for his successful reform of Yale in the 1740s, partnering with the Rev Dr Samuel Johnson to restructure the forty-year-old institution along more modern lines.

Thomas Clap convinced the Connecticut Assembly to exempt Yale from paying taxes.

Thomas Clap opened a second college house and doubled the size of the college.

Thomas Clap introduced Enlightenment math and science and Johnson's moral philosophy into the curriculum, while retaining its Puritan theology.

Thomas Clap helped found the Linonian Society in 1753, a literary and debating society and one of Yale's oldest secret societies.

Thomas Clap personally built the first Orrery in America, a milestone of American science, and awarded his friend Benjamin Franklin an honorary degree.

Thomas Clap fought with the Connecticut Assembly, the Yale board, and finally, with his own tutors and students.

Thomas Clap was forced to resign as president of Yale in 1766 and died soon after.

Thomas Clap entered Harvard University at age 15, graduating in 1722.

Thomas Clap preached at Windham, Connecticut, in 1725 and was ordained to succeed the Rev Samuel Whiting as minister there in 1726, marrying Rev Whiting's daughter Mary in 1727, and remaining 14 years with a ministry marked by a rather severe orthodoxy.

Thomas Clap was elected rector of Yale College following Elisha Williams's resignation, largely because the trustees believed he would oppose Arminianism at Yale, and was inducted in 1740.

Thomas Clap's administration was to become known for its orthodoxy, pugnaciousness, authoritarianism, and embroilment in controversy.

Thomas Clap was learned both in theology and in science and constructed the first orrery in America.

Thomas Clap campaigned for laws to inhibit itinerant preachers and lay exhorters and to stop the disintegration of churches by separation.

In 1742, Thomas Clap closed the college, sending the students home.

Thomas Clap was supported by the General Assembly, and many of the more ardent students transferred to other institutions when Yale reopened in 1743.

Thomas Clap brought math and science into Yale's curriculum, and undergraduate studies in divinity were replaced by Johnson's non-denominational moral philosophy.

Thomas Clap published a Yale library catalog in 1743, with an index system based on his friend Samuel Johnson's map of learning, and drafted a new charter of the school, granted by the General Assembly in 1745, incorporating the institution as "The President and Fellows of Yale College in New Haven".

In 1746, Thomas Clap expelled Samuel Cooke from the Yale Corporation for his role in setting up the separatist congregation in New Haven.

Thomas Clap, meanwhile, was concerned by the poor preaching of Joseph Noyes and by the initiation of Anglican services in New Haven.

In 1753, Rev Samuel Johnson wrote to Thomas Clap that were he to continue with separate worship, the Episcopalians would complain, and that the charter of 1745 would be found to be invalid, as only the King could make a corporation, and that Yale would cease to exist.

Thomas Clap agreed to let the Anglican students attend their own church.

Thomas Clap became disenchanted with Noyes' Old Light orthodoxy and poor preaching and obtained a decision that not only could Yale students worship separately, they could form their own congregation and administer Communion.

Thomas Clap was not so successful with his own tutors and students.

Thomas Clap died four months later in New Haven at the age of sixty-three.

Thomas Clap's wealth came from marriage and his attention to lucrative investments.