I imagine that many readers would be interested to know the identity of Mr. or Mrs. Van Wickle, who presumably donated Brown’s famed Van Wickle Gates. As a person who grew up in Princeton, N.J., whose local college also has a set of Van Wickle Gates, I’m doubly curious! Can someone enlighten me?

Richard Funk ’70

Providence, R.I.

According to the Encyclopedia Brunoniana, written by former University archivist Martha Mitchell, “The gates were built with the bequest of Augustus Stout Van Wickle 1876, president of a bank and several coal corporations, who was killed in a skeet shooting accident in 1898. He also provided in his will for a gate and fence at Princeton University as a memorial to his ancestor Nathaniel Fitz Randolph, who gave the land on which Nassau Hall was built.” For more information, see here