Calif. Families Finley Prominent Cousins Contact

See more on Samuel below.


Prominent Finley Cousins

See James Family Tree for lineage.
Samuel Finley (1715-1766) [Stout 2-13] Presbyterian Minister. 5th President of College of New Jersey (now Princeton U.) 1761-1766.
In 1741 he stablished the first boarding school in America, "West Nottingham Academy", in Colora, MD.

Samuel is the 5th cousin 5 times removed from the Gen. 3 in the Finley line here.

Samuel Finley Breese Morse, who perfected the telegraph (patent in 1837) and created the Morse code , was Samuel's great grandson
On 24 May 1844 the first commercial telegraph line (which ran along the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad between the Capitol and Balimore) was officially opened as Morse sent his famous words "What hath God wrought" along the wire.

Samuel Morse is the 8th cousin 2 times removed from the Gen. 3 in the Finley line here.

See:
Morse Papers at the Lib. of Congress
Article at MIT's Inventor of the Week Archive
Jay Leno test of Morse Code vs Mobil SMS (Short Message Service)

Rev. James Finley (1725-1795) [Stout 2-19] Pastor of the East Nottingham Church, Cecil Co., MD, A brother of Samuel (above).
Played an important part in the early settlement of Fayette Co., PA
Pastor of the Rehoboth and Round Hill Churches, Westmoreland Co., PA.
A political figure and friend of Benjamin Franklin. One of the Finley history books says, the original draft of Declaration of Independence was made in his Philadelphia home. Stout references "Recs PA Hist. Society; DAR Lineage Book, v. 59 p88" for this information. However, according to www.ushistory.org the reconstructed Declaration House (Graff House) at S. 7th and Market Sts. where Jefferson did his writing was owned and occupied by Jacob Graff. Graff, a well-known bricklayer.


Robert Finley (1772-1817), grandson of James (1708-1768) [Stout 2-8] , American clergyman, a founder of the American Colonization Society, an organization dedicated to the establishment of a homeland in Africa for freed American slaves. Pastor of Basking Ridge, NJ Presbyterian Church for 20 years (1795-1817). Finley was instrumental in the growth of the Basking Ridge (NJ) Classical School (Brick Academy), serving there from 1795 until 1817, when he accepted the Presidency at Franklin College (Univ. of Georgia).

He was also the president of the University of Georgia in 1817.

Robert is the 7th cousin 3 times removed from the Gen. 3 in the Finley line here.

See Robert Finley - Wikipedia


Knox Henderson Finley, MD, 1904 - September 15, 2003

Dr. Knox Hendeson Finley was born in Santa Anna, California in 1904. He graduated from Pomona College in 1926, received his medical degree from Yale University in 1930, and completed a fellowship in Neurology at Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Munich Germany in 1935. He was board-certified in Neurology and Psychiatry, and for 45 years practiced medicine at Pacific Medical Center. Dr. Finley founded the hospital's Department of Neurology in 1959, and served as department chair for many years. Dr. Finley was also the Founding Director of the Institute of Neurological Science of the Institute of Medical Science. Dr. Finley, a great friend of the California Pacific Medical Center, passed away on September 15, 2003 at the age of 99.

Some Articles:
- Sex Differences in Verbal and Performance IQ's of Children Undergoing Open-Heart Surgery -- Honzik et al. 164 (3878): 445 -- Science 1969
- NEUROLOGY, NEUROSURGERY AND PSYCHIATRY - Calif Med. 1957 March; 86(3): 178-182.
- Emotional Physiology and Its Influence on Thought Content : The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease - 1953
- ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAPHY IN SCHIZOPHRENIA -- FINLEY and CAMPBELL 98 (3): 374 -- Am J Psychiatry - 1941
- Changes in Caliber of Pial Vessels in Guinea Pigs During Anaphylactic Shock -- Finley 27 (2): 169 -- The Journal of Immunology - 1934

More on the above:

According to the Red Rock Review: "The Finleys left Ireland and Scotland because of religious persecution. A majority of the early Finleys were Presbyterians, many becoming ministers, building churches. In America they flourished as farmers, tradesmen, preachers, and politicians. Some became doctors others attorneys. The first president of Princeton was a Finley. The first president of The University of Oregon was a Finley. The Governor of Pennsylvania was a Findley. One of the drafts of "The Declaration of Independence" was written in a Finley house in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania."

Samuel Finley:
It is likely that Samuel Finley was a graduate of William Tennent's Log College, in Neshaminy, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, known for its training of evangelical Presbyterian ministers who played a role in the 18th Century religious revival known as The Great Awakening.

In 1743 Finley was assigned by the New Brunswick Presbytery to the newly formed (January 1742) Presbyterian congregation at Milford, Connecticut. The Presbyterian Church in Connecticut was under fire (I have to do more research to find out why). Finley preached in Milford on August 25, and in New Haven, Connecticut on September 1, 1743. For this, he was prosecuted and condemned. Governor Jonathan Law ordered him "transported as a vagrant" from the Connecticut colony.

A posting at the reaction blog says of Finley:
Rev. Dr. Samuel Finley was founder of the first boarding school in America, a founder and early president of New Jersey College (later Princton University). He was described on his appointment as president as "a very accurate scholar, and a very great and good man," but as the biographical sketch published by Princeton records, he was also "an evangelical preacher [who] was marked by an energetic, contentious, and sometimes acrimonious spirit." He once carried on a two-day debate with a Baptist minister on infant baptism and he called a collection of sermons on the evils of another sect "Satan Stripp'd of His Angelic Robe." He was also a liberal (he would have said "whig"). Samuel's ward and maternal nephew, Dr. Benjamin Rush, was a signer of the Declaration.

According to Finley Findings Vol. 2: "Albert Finley FRANCE adds the following information:

"West Nottingham Academy, Colora, MD, established in 1741 had its beginning before our country itself was fairly in the making; before George WASHINGTON had first won fame by saving a remnant of BRADDOCK's army at Fort Duquesne; before Patrick HENRY had thrilled the Colonies with his speech before the Virginia Assembly; before the embattled farmers of New England had chased the British back from Lexington.

"It is not only the oldest preparatory boarding school for boys in America, but is also the oldest existing Presbyterian Educational Institution of any kind in the new world. The founder of the school, then a log building, near the village of Rising Sun, MD, was the Rev. Samuel FINLEY, then pastor of the West Nottingham Presbyterian Church, which had been established some 17 years earlier. That Dr. FINLEY was a man who combined high scholarly attainments with marked administrative ability is attested by the fact that he was later called in 1761 to become president of Princeton College.

"Attracted by Dr. FINLEY's fame as a scholar and his character as a man, boys came from all parts of the Colonies and the subsequent careers of many of them bear eloquent testimony to the soundness of the training received. Among these early students was Benjamin RUSH of Philadelphia, later to become a signer of the Declaration of Independence and a surgeon in Washington's army and first professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania; Richard STOCKTON of New Jersey and John ARCHER.

"Among the students in 1747 to 1750 we find the names of John and James FINLEY, sons of James and Margaret (JOHNSON) FINLEY of Rising Sun, MD. John later served as captain in the Revolution and lived in 1790, East Wheatfield Township, Westmoreland Co, later Indiana Co, PA. He was the father of Isabella FINLEY KINTER, who married John KINTER, Revolutionary soldier and died in Indiana Co, 1853; both buried in Washington Presbyterian Church Yard, near Chambersville, Indiana Co, PA."

What neither TORRENCE nor FRANCE acknowledge is that the Rev. Samuel FINLEY's views were controversial for his time. In HANNA's The Scotch-Irish, originally printed in 1902 (reprinted in 1968 by Genealogical Publishing Co., Baltimore), Vol. 1, P. 93, he states:

"Reverend Samuel FINLEY, a Scotch-Irish Presbyterian, afterwards president of Princeton College, was arrested and imprisoned in Connecticut in 1742-43, because he ventured to preach in that colony without an invitation from a minister of one of the established churches."

In Vol. 2, P. 24, he is next found in Connecticut: "In 1743, at the request of the congregation, the New Brunswick Presbytery sent them, as supply, the Rev. Samuel FINLEY, afterwards president of Princeton College. He preached at Milford on August 25th and at New Haven on September 1st.

"For this offense, he was prosecuted, tried and condemned. For disturbing the peace of the community, Governor Law ordered him to be transported as a vagrant, by the constable, from town to town, out of the colony.

"This treatment was considered by some of the foremost citizens of Connecticut and of the city of New York to be so contrary to the spirit and letter of the British Constitution as to work a forfeiture of the colonial charter. After this, the Rev. Mr. POMEROY preached at Milford occasionally, but he also was arrested, and carried to Hartford, to answer to the General Assembly for his conduct."

[Stout 2-x] refers to the Stout Genealogy numbering shown here under James (1530-1597) descendants.

Samuel and James are 2nd cousins 8 times removed from Gen. 3 in the Finley line here.

See Also:
Early American Presbyterians
Paying The Price For Religious Freedom

last updated 29 Mar 2007