William Fincke William Mann Fincke ( January 1 , 1878 – May 31 , 1927 ) was an American football player , pacifist minister , and educator . He played college football for the Yale Bulldogs football team and was selected as a consensus All - American in 1900 . He later became a Presbyterian minister , pacifist , and proponent of the social gospel . Along with his wife , Helen , he founded both the Brookwood Labor College and the Manumit School . Early years . Fincke was born in New York City in 1878 . His father , William Mann Fincke , was a businessman . Fincke attended preparatory school at The Hill School in Pottstown , Pennsylvania . He graduated from The Hill School in 1897 . Finke was a step - brother to Lincoln Ellsworth . Yale . Finkce enrolled at Yale University , where he played football in 1899 and 1900 . He was also a member of Yale ' s track team for three years and the captain of the track team during his senior year . In 1900 , he was selected as a consensus All - American while playing at the quarterback position for the undefeated Yale Bulldogs football team . Finkce was a member of the Delta Psi fraternity while attending Yale University . He was also a class deacon and the chairman of the Class Supper Committee . He graduated from Yale ' s Sheffield Scientific School in 1901 with a Ph . B . degree . Later years . Business career . After graduating from Yale , Fincke worked for Ellsworth & Company , a Lake Erie ferry service owned by his father . In the position , he was involved in shipping coal to the factories of the Great Lakes region . After several years with Ellsworth & Company , he served from 1906 to 1907 as the general manager of the Pennsylvania - Ontario Transportation Company in Woodstock , Ontario . During this time , Fincke reportedly " lost interest in industrial management and was troubled by capitalism ' s exploitation of the laboring class . " Seminary and ministry . In 1908 , Fincke next enrolled at the Union Theological Seminary . While enrolled at the seminary , became critical of the church ' s traditional role and its relationship to wealth and studied the works of Walter Rauschenbusch and Washington Gladden , who advocated the social gospel . After graduating from the seminary in 1911 , Fincke served as assistant pastor of the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York . From 1912 to 1917 , he was the pastor of the Greenwich Presbyterian Church in lower Manhattan . In April 1917 , Fincke ' s congregation voted to remove him as pastor after he delivered a pacifist sermon rejecting the belief that World War I , which the United States had recently joined , was a fight for liberty and democracy . World War I . In 1917 , Fincke enlisted in the United States Army Medical Corps . The ship on which he sailed to Europe was sunk by a German U - boat , but he was rescued . In France , he served as a stretcher - bearer and with the Presbyterian Hospital Unit . He served in Europe from May 1917 to January 1918 . Post - war activism and educational efforts . After the war , Fincke became active in the Labor Temple in New York City . He was the acting director of the New York Labor Temple from April 1918 to June 1919 . The Labor Temple was affiliated with the Presbyterian Church and offered social , religious and educational programs for the city ' s working class . During the Steel strike of 1919 , Fincke traveled to Duquesne , Pennsylvania , as part of the Fellowship of Reconciliation . He led a fight for the free speech rights of striking steel workers and was briefly imprisoned on a charge of disturbing the peace . In 1919 , Fincke established the an experimental boarding school on the former Brookwood Estate in Katonah , New York . Fincke had purchased the estate in 1914 , and his wife and family lived in the estate . He converted the main house into an experimental school and dormitory for teen - aged workers from the " needle trades " in New York City and farms in the lower Hudson Valley . Fincke was assisted at Brookwood by Fellowship of Reconciliation activists , including peace activist John Nevin Sayre , Socialist Party leader Norman Thomas , and labor economist Robert W . Dunn . Courses at the college included " The Literature of Revolt , " " The History of Workers in America , " and " Social and Economic Problems of Today . " Students at the college were not charged tuition , and the operating costs were funded in part by Finkce ' s personal wealth . In 1921 , the school became the Brookwood Labor College , the first residential labor college in the United States . In 1922 , Fincke ended his involvement with Brookwood . Along with his wife , Helen , he moved to a farm in Pawling , New York . On the farm , he and his wife established the Manumit School , a co - educational boarding school referred to as a " laborers ' peace school for young children . " Manumit was also described as " an alliance of progressive labor and progressive education " and was associated with a number of New York City labor unions . Death . In 1927 , at age 49 , Fincke died of lymphatic leukemia at St . Luke ' s Hospital in New York City . He was buried at Manumit School .