Columbia’s colonial times predecessor, King’s College, educated many of the men who helped create the new nation such as Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Robert Livingston and Gouverneur Morris. But King’s College was also the one-time-home for some who died during the conflict. Harman Rutgers was the first King’s College alumnus to fall during the Revolutionary War. 

In the Admissions for 1770, the Matricula, or the King’s College registration book, lists the name Harman Rutgers. The Matricula also includes a note in a smaller script next to Harman’s name: “Left Coll. in his 2nd year.” Harman seems to have been in good standing at the College because his name does not appear in the Black Book or the Book of Misdemeanors. The Book includes all sorts of infractions: from missing chapel, incomplete homework to stealing wine bottles from the President’s rooms. Harman was the younger brother of Henry Rutgers, King’s College Class of 1766. The older Rutgers brother became a Revolutionary War lieutenant colonel and later provided an endowment to what used to be in the colonial times Queen’s College, now Rutgers University. 

Unfortunately, Harman did not leave much of a paper trail so we have few facts about his short life. His name comes up in a will and a marriage certificate. In his father’s will from 1775, the older siblings were to serve as trustees in charge of the Harman’s legacy: “If the Trustees … shall think it prudent to trust my son Harmanus with any small sums of money they may do so, but I desire that they will be careful and sparing in that respect, lest he should misspend the same.” David Fowler suggests that this may have been related to the fact that in 1773, Harman married Dorcas Tibbets, “a woman of obscure background who was not Dutch and who was possibly regarded as beneath his station.” 

On August 22, 1776, Harman Rutgers died in the Battle of Long Island. His demise is included in Henry Johnston’s The campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn (1878):

Harmanus Rutgers, one of the patriotic Rutgers brothers in New York, serving, it would seem, as a gunner, was struck in the breast by a cannon-shot, and fell dead at his post. The tradition preserved in his family is that he was the first man killed in the battle.

There is at least one more King’s College alumnus who died during the Revolutionary War. John Parke Custis, George Washington’s stepson who attended King’s College in 1773, died of camp fever in October 1781. You can find Harman Rutgers and John Parke Custis in Columbia’s Roll of Honor, which serves as a memorial acknowledging the sacrifice and contributions of each Columbia war casualty.