John Chester

John Chester (August 17, 1785 – January 12, 1829) was the second president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Biography He was born in Wethersfield, Connecticut, in August 1785. He was the son of John and Elizabeth Chester. He graduated from Yale College in 1804. He studied theology under Dr. Joseph Lyman of Hatfield, Massachusetts, and received a license to preach in 1807 from the Hartford Association College. He first preached in several towns in Massachusetts and Connecticut and then moved to New York State, where he first preached in Cooperstown, New York, and between 1810 and 1815, in Hudson, New York. Chester was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Societyin 1814.