Martin N. Wyckoff (1850-1911) was born in Middlebush, New Jersey and went to Rutgers Grammar School and later graduated from Rutgers College in 1872. Immediately after graduating, Wyckoff traveled to Japan and took the place of William Elliot Griffis in Fukui. Wyckoff taught English, French, Physics, Chemistry, and Bible classes in Fukui. However, by May 1874, Wyckoff declined another contract with the school in Fukui due to his fears of it being closed or merged and instead moved to Niigata to teach. Three years later in 1877, Wyckoff went back to the United States to work on graduate study. He then went back to Japan in 1881 and founded Sen-shi Gakko which then merged with John Ballagh’s Tsukiji College and merged yet again in 1886 to create Meiji Gakuin University in 1886.
Although there are not many sources about Wyckoff, his love of teaching and Japan is apparent in all the time and effort he spent there. From immediately traveling to Japan after graduating to begin teaching in the school that he founded to his textbook English Composition for Beginners Prepared for Japanese Students, Wyckoff truly appreciated Japan and no doubt helped create a relationship between Rutgers and Japan.
Source:
Perrone, Fernanda. “The Rutgers Network in Early Meiji Japan.” Rikkyo American Studies, vol. 39, Mar. 2017, p. 81.