due to the inability of assembly, council, and governor to resolve differences on these issues. Governor Morris' high-handed actions in support of the proprietors had united previously divided populist factions against him and the council. The province was also a rural patchwork quilt of different cultures and religions, unlike predominantly English and Congregationalist New England. Elizabethtown, near New York, was heavily populated by evangelical Christians, among them Reverend Aaron Burr, and Belcher found himself welcome there. He regularly attended services there, and was particularly influenced by preachers including George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards, leaders of the Great Awakening with whom he corresponded. Although Belcher's arrival prompted some goodwill, resulting in the passage of bills to fund the government and deal with ongoing counterfeiting of the colonial paper currency, divisions soon resurface along the same sectional lines. Belcher believed that the land issues should be resolved by negotiation between the parties, and sought to maintain a position as a neutral arbiter of the dispute. Because he had been propelled into the office by antiproprietary interests, he refused to unconditionally support the council in moves to advance proprietary interests, but also received little support from the assembly. Because the assembly and council divided over the issue of how to tax undeveloped lands (which the proprietors owned in large amounts), the government was short of funds between 1748 and 1751. One controversial matter that Belcher was able to finesse was the establishment of the College of New Jersey (now known as Princeton University). The college was proposed by New Jersey's evangelical Presbyterians, with whom Belcher found religious agreement. However, Quaker leaders and the proprietors had expressed great reservations about the Presbyterians' drive to gain a charter for the school (on the grounds that it would be used as a vehicle for converting their children), and Governor Morris had refused to grant one. After his death, council president John Hamilton, acting prior to Belcher's appointment, granted the charter. The college's opponents pressured Belcher to withdraw the charter; he instead adopted the college as a cause to support, and expanded its board to include a diversity of religious views. When its first building was constructed in 1754, the college's board wanted to name it after Belcher, but he demurred, preferring it to be named in honor of King William, who hailed from the Dutch House of Orange-Nassau. As a result, the building (which still stands)