William Alexander

William Alexander, known as Lord Stirling (1726-83), American soldier, born in New York City. He served in the French and Indian War, first as commissary and then as aide-de-camp to the American colonial governor of Massachusetts William Shirley. In 1756 he went to England to defend Shirley against the charge of neglect of duty and to urge a claim of his own before the House of Lords to the earldom of Stirling. This claim was rejected, and in 1761 he returned to America. Alexander soon became surveyor general and a member of the Provincial Council, and in November 1775 he enlisted as a colonel in a New Jersey regiment. In 1776 he was promoted to brigadier general; as such he took part in the American revolutionary battles of Long Island, Brandywine, Germantown, and Monmouth. Alexander was a founder and the first governor of King's College (now Columbia University).