Thomas Clap, Yale's First President.

Born June 26, 1703, Thomas Clap was a Congregational minister and academic. There are no surviving portraits of him. Clap (or Clapp) became the fifth rector and, when the title was changed to president, he became Yale’s first president. During his term (1740-1766), he introduced curriculum in science, mathematics, and contemporary philosophical topics in addition to the traditional theological courses. He began to move Yale's focus from the training of Congregational clergy to a broader program. He built the first orrery for the science department, authorized the construction of Connecticut Hall---now the oldest surviving campus structure--and saw to it that his friend Benjamin Franklin obtained an honorary degree. Unfortunately, politics and religion, and Clap's authoritarian personality, filled his final years as president with controversy. When I last visited New Haven, in November, I found his and his wife's monuments in the Grove Street Cemetery. Here is also a transcript of his epitaph, in Belden's "Sketches of Yale College" (1843), and the title page of a sermon that Clapp's successor preached.