Robert J. Breckinridge (1800-1871) was born to a prominent family in Kentucky and was a lawyer and a politician before his conversion in the winter of 1828-29, after which point he served as a Presbyterian ruling elder before attending Princeton Seminary and becoming a minister of the gospel. He ministered at the Second Presbyterian Church in Baltimore, Maryland for 12 years (1832-44), served as the President of Jefferson College in Pennsylvania (1845-47), pastored the First Presbyterian Church in Lexington, Kentucky (1847-53), and taught as Professor of Theology at the Seminary in Danville, Kentucky (1853-69). Breckinridge remained in the northern Presbyterian Church in the United States after the division of the northern and southern Churches.