Samuel Kirkland

Samuel Kirkland (December 1, 1741 – February 28, 1808) was a Presbyterian minister and missionary among the Oneida and Tuscarora peoples of present-day western New York State.

Kirkland graduated from Princeton in 1765. In 1793 he founded the Hamilton-Oneida Academy (later Hamilton College) as a boys' school in central New York.

A student of the Iroquoian languages, Kirkland lived for many years with the Iroquois tribes. He helped negotiate the land purchases that New York State made from the Iroquois after the American Revolutionary War, acquiring his own land in the process.