Albert Baldwin Dod was born on March 24, 1805 in Mendham, New Jersey. He was the son of Daniel and Nancy (Squier) Dod. His father was a builder of engines, was master of several other trades, read widely in Calvinistic theology, and wrote verse. Proficiency in mathematics was a family trait.
From early childhood Albert was quiet and studious, quickly assimilating what the schools of Elizabethtown and Bloomfield, New Jersey, had to teach him, entering the sophomore class in the College of New Jersey in the spring of 1821, and graduating in the autumn of 1822. At Princeton he came under clerical influences and decided to become a minister. Through Samuel Lewis Southard, who was a friend of his father’s, he secured a place as tutor in a family living near Fredericksburg, Va. After three years in the Old Dominion he studied at the Princeton Theological Seminary 1825-26.
In 1827 Dob was a tutor in the College. In 1828 he was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of New York, but al- though he supplied many pulpits in New York, Philadelphia, and elsewhere, he never felt inclined to abandon teaching for the active ministry. His love of mathematics, his zeal for imparting instruction, and his remarkable gift for lucid exposition made him an unusually successful teacher. He introduced written examinations into the College, and at the suggestion of his colleague, Joseph Henry, gave a course of lectures on architecture. He had a taste for literature and the fine arts, was a laborious student of metaphysics, and from 1835 on contributed able articles to the Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review.
Hegel, Cousin, and Emerson he lumped together as no better than atheists, thereby winning the commendation of Andrews Norton, who republished one of his reviews in Two Articles . .. Concerning the Transcendental Philosophy.
Dob was religiously minded and believed that God had ordained capital punishment in Genesis IX, 5-6.
From early childhood Albert was quiet and studious and gentle.
Among his friends Dod was remembered for his brilliant conversation.
Quotes from others about the person
“There was nothing he could not make plain. ” (Charles Hodge)
In April 1830 Dod married Caroline, daughter of Samuel Bayard of Princeton.
