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- BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH XXXI.
WILLIAM WIKOFF WOODHULL, (Ph. D.), seventh generation from Richard Wodhull I., Patentee of Brookhaven, Long Island, was the third son of John Tennent Woodhull, M. D., and Ann Wikoff. He was born July 28, 1817.
He was prepared for college by tutors at his father's home at Manalapan, Monmouth County, New Jersey, and entered the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), at the age of thirteen, graduating at sixteen at the head of his class in 1833.
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For a brief period he was a tutor in the college, and all his life was spent in imparting knowledge.
He was the head of a very successful Classical School in Freehold, New Jersey, for many years assisted by his brother Charles Frederick Woodhull, who was also a graduate of the College of New Jersey, and who later opened a Classical School for boys in Camden, New Jersey.
William Wikoff Woodhull was a man of superior intellect and attainments, but one whose retiring disposition deterred him from seeking the higher college position he could have filled so creditably.
He was a man of a deeply religious nature, a profound thinker and a gentleman of the old school. When a young man of thirty he wrote upon the subject of teaching as follows: (The quotation occurs in a letter written February 10, 1847, to the Rev. Allen H. Brown, then pastor of the May's Landing Presbyterian Church, Atlantic County, New Jersey.)
"I am glad to hear that you are turning your thoughts and efforts towards the furtherance of the cause of education throughout the Pines, and I verily believe that you give it its proper place when you rank it 'Next in importance to the promotion of religion.'
"I consider the office of the teacher second only to that of the preacher of the Gospel, and the longer I live, the more difficult it is for me to comprehend, why it is, that most people take so little interest in this matter, and are so regardless of the qualifications, and especially of the moral and religious character of those whom they employ to instruct their children."
In 1867 the degree of "Doctor of Philosophy" was conferred upon him by his Alma Mater.
In his later life Dr. Woodhull was for a time Head Master of the Trenton Academy; he also taught for several years in the Classical School of Professor George Eastman, in Philadelphia.
He married, April 6, 1852, Ellen Conover Wikoff, of Freehold, New Jersey. They had no children.
(See Genealogy, No. 314.)
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1817 - 1886 (68 years)
d. 18 Nov 1869, Camden, Camden, New Jersey, United States 