Theodore L. (Theodore Ledyard) Cuyler

Born in Aurora, New York, in 1822, Theodore Ledyard Cuyler studied at Princeton and Princeton Theological Seminary before entering the Presbyterian ministry. After serving churches in Burlington and Trenton, New Jersey, and then the Market Street Reformed Dutch Church in New York City, he became the first pastor of Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn in 1860.

Cuyler was known as an energetic preacher and a prolific religious writer. Contemporary accounts credit him with thousands of articles for the religious press, and he also published many books of sermons, devotion, and consolation, including The Empty Crib, written after the death of his young son. His ministry overlapped with the revival era of the late 1850s, and he also helped organize young people's church work that later influenced broader Christian youth movements.

He remained a prominent figure in American Protestant life for decades and died in New York in 1909. Remembered for combining pastoral warmth with an active public voice, he left behind both a large body of devotional writing and a strong association with Brooklyn's Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church.