Department of Geography

The Rutgers Department of Geography was inaugurated on April 6, 1949, although geography had been taught in one form or another since the beginning of the University as Queen's College in 1766. Simeon DeWitt, one of the first graduates of Queen's College, became a geographer for the Revolutionary Army and subsequently for the State of New York, where he was responsible for surveying and mapping much of the classical place-name belt in the west-central portion of that state.