Built in 1872 when Rutgers was a small, private liberal arts college, the chapel was designed by architect Henry Janeway Hardenbergh at the beginning of his career.

[3] The chapel was designed in the High Victorian Gothic Revival style that was popular at the middle of the nineteenth century in the United States.

Although Rutgers was founded as a private college affiliated with the Dutch Reformed faith, today, it is a state university and nonsectarian.

It is also used for university events including convocation, concerts, alumni and faculty weddings, funerals, and lectures by prominent intellectuals and world leaders.

When Sophia Astley Kirkpatrick (1802–1871) died on March 6, 1871, at the age of 68, she named Rutgers College as her estate's residuary legatee.

[5]: p.44  At that time, Rutgers was a small, private liberal arts college in New Brunswick, New Jersey, affiliated with the Dutch Reformed faith.

[6][7] Rutgers' website states that this bequest from Sophia Kirkpatrick's will was the first time in New Jersey legal history that an institution became a direct heir to an estate.

[9]: p.75  Littleton, an attorney and 1815 graduate of Princeton, was a member of a wealthy, prominent New Brunswick family and pursued a career in politics.

[9]: p.75 [10]: p.23  During his career, Littleton Kirkpatrick was elected as county surrogate, mayor of New Brunswick, and as a Whig Party member of the United States House of Representatives during the Twenty-Eighth Congress (1843–1845).

A devoted member of the city's First Presbyterian Church, she was later described as having "adorned her profession by her Christian graces and her many deeds of charity and beneficence to the needy and suffering.

[9]: p.75  He was grandson of Philadelphia merchant and statesman Colonel John Bayard (1738–1807) who served as speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly, delegate to the Continental Congress, judge, mayor of New Brunswick, and was a Revolutionary War hero.[9]: p.27ff.

[15]: p.436 [16] Previously, chapel services had been held inside Old Queen's, but as the student body expanded in the 1850s and 1860s a larger space was needed to accommodate such events.

With the death of Sophia Astley Kirkpatrick in 1871 and Rutgers receiving $61,054.57 (2013: US$1,174,079.38)[a] from her estate, the trustees directed those funds to the building of a university chapel.

Within a few years, continued growth in the student body reduced that schedule to each class meeting in chapel only one day per week.

[37] According to Demarest, after the building was completed, college president William Henry Campbell was charged with raising $3,000 to acquire reference books for the library.

[38][39]: p.2 [40] In 1884, President Merrill Gates appointed a recent alumnus then serving as the college's registrar, treasurer, and faculty secretary—Irving S. Upson (A.B.

Upson agreed "to devote at least one hour a day to library work, for which he received a stipend of $15 a month, out of which he paid an assistant $2.50 per week.

The new library, called Voorhees Hall, was built on land donated by James Nielson behind Kirkpatrick Chapel that began to extend the college campus west.

[19][25][48] Brownstone is a durable reddish-brown sandstone used for many houses and buildings in New York City and New Jersey, including Old Queen's, Geology Hall, and Kirkpatrick Chapel.

[50] The chapel was described by alumnus Michael C. Barr and architecture professor Edward Wilkens as having "a particularly graceful interior of wood" with "light, delicate proportions.

[51] Since 1916, Kirkpatrick Chapel's services have been augmented by the force of large pipe organ regarded as one of the "finest classical examples of the instrument anywhere in the state.

[3][31]: pp.3–4  Her donation coincided with the observance of Rutgers' 150th anniversary that year, and the completion of a renovation to remove the partitions dividing the chapel from the former library and classrooms.

[50] Built in 1916 as the "Opus 255" by the Ernest M. Skinner & Company of Boston, the organ featured 33 stops, 24 registers, 27 ranks, and 1606 pipes.

[53] According to Rutgers, Skinner (1866–1960) who was considered the nation's premier organ-builder in the early twentieth century, gave personal attention to the building of this organ.

[3][52] When the purchase of the organ was being considered in 1916, Rutgers' director of music, Howard D. McKinney (RC 1903), sought the advice of English organist T. Tertius Noble who had been installed as the organist and music director at Saint Thomas Church (Episcopal) on Fifth Avenue and 53rd Street in New York City.

[59] A window depicting Joan of Arc was donated in memory of Rutgers College sophomore Henry Janeway Weston (1877–1898) who committed suicide in 1898.

[60][65] A large window over the narthex (or the entrance of the chapel) and a choir loft commemorates the signing of charter creating Queen's College in 1766 by New Jersey's last royal governor, William Franklin.

[59][60] According to Star-Ledger columnist Mark DiIonno, the "Charter Window" was donated by Frelinghuysen family to commemorate the 175th anniversary of the signing, and dedicated to their ancestor the Rev.

[60] An alumnus and local attorney, Edward Sullivan Vail (1819–1889), a graduate from the class of 1839, is listed in University publications as "Collector of Portraits for Kirkpatrick Chapel",[12]: p.93  after spearheading the effort to collecting over sixty paintings portraying Rutgers presidents, prominent trustees, professors and the chapel's namesake, Sophia Astley Kirkpatrick.

[67] The walls inside Kirkpatrick Chapel are adorned with memorial plaques recording the names of Rutgers graduates who died in war.