USA > New Jersey > Burlington County > Burlington > History of Burlington and Mercer counties, New Jersey : with biographical sketches of many of their pioneers and prominent men > Part 37
USA > New Jersey > Mercer County > History of Burlington and Mercer counties, New Jersey : with biographical sketches of many of their pioneers and prominent men > Part 37
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The battle of Princeton was the sharpest, and, con-
in it, was the most fatal to our officers of any action order of courage and military skill. Washington, in the fiercest of the conflict, said to his officers, " See how those noble fellows fight! Ah, gentlemen, when shall we be able to keep an army long enough to- gether to display a discipline equal to our enemies?"
The licroism of Washington on the field of Prince- ton is matter of history. He comprehended the crisis of the struggle. The battle had been unexpectedly precipitated upon him. With his whole army almost at hand, his victory over the three veteran regiments at Princeton was certainly assured if all his troops had been put in action. Yet we see the lives of Mer- cer and many others of our choice officers sacrificed, . and the life of the commander-in-chief in imminent and perhaps in unnecessary peril to gain a victory over a small detachment of the British army. The explanation of what seemed to be rashness on the part of Washington was found in the disordered state of the militia engaged in the contest. They broke and ran, and would not return and rally to fight again. Washington could only rally them by throw- ing himself into the thickest of the danger; aud though he was as a target standing between the ad- verse posts after he got his men in line, so that one of his aides drew his hat over his eyes that he might not see him die as the next volley of inusketry was poured forth, yet when the smoke cleared away and the shout of victory was heard, and the enemy was fleeing, Washington was seen "alive, unharmed, and without a wound. Col. Fitzgerald, heedless of the dead and dying in his way, flew to the side of his
The staff of Gen. Washington at Princeton was Col. Reed, adjutant-general ; Col. Biddle, deputy quartermaster-general; Cols. Baylor, Fitzgerald, Moy- lan, and Webb, aides-de-camp. Col. Tilgham was assistant military secretary.
The immediate effect of the battle of Princeton upon the State and upon the whole country was regiments, and the tone of the orders given by the inilitary authorities was more authoritative than it had been before the battle.
Some attempts have been made to rob Gen. Wash- ington of the honor of having originated the plan of capturing Trenton on the 26th of December, 1776, and also the retreat from the Assanpink to Princeton, on the night of Jan. 2, 1777, and to give it to Gen. Mercer or Gen. St, Clair. The Hon. William B. Reed states that Gen. Mercer was intrusted with the cominand of the march to Princeton as a compliment to him for his suggestion of the movement. Baucroit,
593
BATTLES OF TRENTON AND PRINCETON.
the distinguished historian, after a careful investiga- tion of the subject, and marshaling his authorities, awards the honor in both instances to the comman- der-in-chief; and Adjt .- Gen. W. S. Stryker, of Tren- ton, in a recent article in the Magazine of American His- tory, after a minute local examination of the roads from and about the Assanpink at Trenton, and of the knowledge Washington had of them from local guides and from Gen. Reed and others, concurs with Bancroft and defends Washington from the implica- tion that he had suffered himself to be entrapped at the Assanpink without having provided a way of re- treat until after nightfall, a few hours before the re- treat commenced. He combats Gen. St. Clair's preten- sions quite successfully.
After the battle the village was left for a few days to itself, unguarded by either of the armies. But in the latter part of January, 1777, Gen. Putnam in force came and occupied it, and in May following Gen. Sullivan, with fifteen hundred men, to which ; and rooms vacant in the college building were occu- there were additions by troops from the South, was stationed here for some time.
But the tide of battle was now turned. New Jer- sey soon became entirely free from the presence and terror of an overshadowing hostile army, and hope was inspired in the final success of the cause of lib- erty. Princeton continued during the war to be a kind of military post, having present a body of sol- diers and a military hospital, and often prisoners were detained here.
Princeton had been occupied by the British troops from the 7th of December, 1776, to Jan. 3, 1777. Dur- ing that time the families remaining in and around this place, and the farms in the neighborhood, and along the road from New Brunswick through Prince- ton to Trenton, were robbed and pillaged of every- thing that a hired soldicry could want for use or destruction.
As we have already stated, " Tusculum" and " Mor-
The Council of Safety, which succeeded the " Com - mittee of Safety" after the State government was or- ganized, held more of their sessions in Princeton than
in any other place, especially in 1778. Governor Livingston was present, and generally presided. Not a few of the respectable Quaker inhabitants of Prince- ton were brought before this body for refusing to take the oath of abjuration and allegiance, and a good deal of exciting business was transacted by it. :
The American Congress in 1783 was so disturbed and threatened by a band of discontented and discharged Pennsylvania soldiers, numbering about three hun- dred, that that venerable body resolved to remove to Trenton or Princeton. The latter place was fixed upon, and Congress opened its session here on the 26th of June, 1783. The members were welcomed by Governor Livingston, who assured them of the loy- alty of the people of New Jersey, and the halls and library of college were put at their disposal. Dr. Elias Boudinot was president of Congress, and a rep- resentative member from New Jersey, and a trustee of the college. The sessions were held in the library, pied by members.
The college commencement was held soon after Congress met here, and was attended by the members and foreign ministers. The valedictorian, Ashbel Green, made a personal address to Gen. Washington, who was present, and gave fifty guineas to the trustees of the college, which they expended for a full portrait . of the general, painted by the elder Peale. Congress remained in session till the 4th of November, and before they adjourned peace was announced in the college chapel in the presence of a distinguished andience of ladies and gentlemen, Gen. Washington, and foreign ministers and their families, amidst great rejoicing. Gen. Washington's farewell orders to the armies of the United States were issued from Rocky Hill on the 2d of November, 1783.
When it is remembered that the British troops had been stretched out in cantonments along the Delaware from Bordentown to Washington's Crossing, the ex-
ven" were pillaged and robbed of furniture, silver, li- ! treme boundaries of Mercer County along the river, braries, stock, and produce on farm. Mr. Sergeant's , and that in their march several times across the State new house was burned, and his father's farm was pil- laged, and the college was despoiled of its library and other appliances. Scudder's mills were burned. The pews in the Presbyterian Church were taken out for firewood and burned. to and from the Delaware they passed through all the townships of the county, it is not extravagant to say that the whole county of Mercer in the days of the Revolution was the camping-ground first of the British and then of the American army. It certainly was the soldiers' tramping-ground.
In the autunin of 1777, the enemy having been drawn from this part of the State, Princeton again be- The State of New Jersey has published in a large volume an "Official Register of the Officers and Men came the seat of the civil power of the State. The Legislature, which had been flitting about the State to . of the Revolutionary War," in which may be found find a place of safety, now returned to Princeton, where ' the names of the volunteers from the counties of Bur- Gen. Putnam had been detailed to assure protection, lington, Hunterdon, Somerset, and Middlesex, which and to enforce a more vigorous prosecution of war measures. Governor Livingston reappeared, and re- tained the government here till the latter part of 1778. Many important laws were here adopted.
include those who belonged to those townships which now compose Mercer County. They bore their full share of the fighting, while their homes bore inore than their share of the pillage and plun- der by the Hessian soldiery quartered upon them.
594
HISTORY OF MERCER COUNTY, NEW JERSEY.
CHAPTER LXI.
THE LATE CIVIL WAR.
served with the State organizations; the remainder served from other States. The expenses of the State for organizing, equipping, sustaining, and transporting her troops were $2,894,384.99. The naval enlistment was 4850.1
THE uprising of the people of Mercer County, in common with those of all the other counties of the Among the many officers who belonged to Mercer County or were born in it, and who were named as entitled to special notice for service, were the follow- ing : State, to defend the national Union by force of arms against the armed secession movement of the Slave States upon the election of Abraham Lincoln as President in 1861, is a sublime but familiar chapter Gen. Gershom Mott, who was born in Mercer and was only thirty-nine years old when the war broke out. He had served in the Mexican war, and is still living. in our history. The call to arms by the President and by the Governor of the State was an appeal to the . patriotism of the people such as had not been heard by the generation then living. It was in vain Brig .- Gen. Caldwell K. Hall, who was born in Phil- adelphia in 1839, and is dead. that attempts were made to avert the conflict and to hinder the raising of a large army to sustain the Brig .- Gen. E. L. Campbell, still living in Trenton. national cause. The efforts of some of the baser Capt. Peter D. Vroom, Jr., who went out as adjutant sort of political leaders and agitators to thwart the . in the First Regiment, was wounded at South Moun- loyal purpose of the government by inflammable de- tain, and is now in the regular army. nunciations of high taxes and conscription, appealing Adjt .- Gen. William S. Stryker went out as a pri- vate, and became paymaster in the United States army, and became major as aide to Gen. Gillmore. He was at the siege of Charleston and became lieu- tenant-colonel, and is now adjutant-general of this State. to the people to vote against raising money and vol- unteers, are now remembered with a sense of shame by those who sometimes rode iuto local power upon such a wave. It is therefore unnecessary and un- advisable to show in this brief chapter the opposition which was made by some men to the work of raising, The surgeons who received special praise for meri- torious service were Surgeon Dr. William L. Phillips, of Trenton, Surgeon Dr. Edward L. Welling, of Peunington. equipping, and sending out from this State and from this county our quota of the grand army of the re- public.
The capital of the State, with the Governor as commander-in-chief of the militia of the State, being i went out with the First New Jersey Cavalry, but did not remain long with his regiment; and Maj. Alex- ander Cumming, of Princeton, went out in the same regiment, but soon found himself, like Col. Halsted, too advanced in life to endure the service.
at Trenton, iu the county of Mercer, and the Rendez- vous Camp No. 1, of which Gen. N. N. Halsted was commandant, being at Trenton, it soon became the . chief military post in the State, and the war spirit soon rose above the croaking of disloyalists, and took possession of the popular will. Loyal and patriotic proclamations and messages, the loyal press, and loyal speeches and music, and a liberal bounty offered to the volunteer soldier to provide for his family in his absence triumphed over all opposition, and placed this county abreast of all others in responding to the various calls of the President for soldiers. There : ment, and death. The cemeteries at home contain was no lack of men and money. There was nothing special in this county to distinguish it from others, except that there was more of the pomp of war at Camp Perrine and in Trenton, whence most of the regiments took their departure for the seat of war.
Company A, of Trenton, Capt. William R. Murphy, was the first to offer service to the Governor, who de- tailed it to the arsenal. The roster prepared by Adjt. Stryker, in two large volumes, exhibits the names of volunteers and the number of regiments and officers throughout the State. It appears that there were raised and sent out to the war forty regiments and five battalions of artillery. The number of men furnished was 88,305, which was 10,057 in excess of the number called for. It was within 10,501 of the entire militia of the State. Of this number, 79,348
Col. William Halsted, of Trenton, an aged lawyer,
It would require a volume to enumerate and duly honor the names of the captains, majors, coloneis, and lieutenant-colonels, the chaplains, musicians, and all the privates who obeyed the voice of their coun- try and went forth from their homes and their fami- lies and endured the hardships and perils of war, many of them suffering sickness, wounds, imprison- . many graves with the names of dead soldiers upon the marble slab, and not a few high and costly monu- ments, upon which are engraved the names of all the brave young men of some particular town or town- ship who gave their lives to their country in the war. But there are national cemeteries all over this vast country in which many unknown graves contain the dust of Jersey boys, and among them some of the sons of Mercer County. Trenton and Princeton and Hightstown, and perhaps every rural township in the county, have some sad connection with the soldiers' burial-grounds found near the old camping-grounds and battle-fields and along the track of marching armies.
1 Raum's History of New Jersey.
i
595
PRINCETON.
Mercer County was not behind other counties of the ; from oblivion by the writers of this new history so State in the expression of sympathy and in furnishing . far as Princeton is concerned. In preparing this his- of sanitary and hospital supplies for her volunteer soldiers. The mothers and wives and sisters of the soldiers, drawing to their aid the whole community, joined in the patriotic work of the National Sanitary Commission and other kindred soldier relief associa- . tions in sending such supplies to the field of war and to the hospitals in the eities. torical sketch therefore, that the whole county of Mercer may be properly presented, we shall take the liberty of drawing largely from Mr. Hageman's vol- umes of " Princeton and its Institutions," and abridg- ing portions of that work in order that Princeton may fill the limited space assigned to her with the other townships of the county in this work.
The requisite taxes were paid, the war debt was The towuship of Princeton lies in the northern part of Mercer County, being bounded on the north by Mont- gomery township, in Somerset County; on the east by the Millstone River, which separates it from Franklin authorized by law, and was held sacred. Every town- ' ship fulfilled its obligations, and what is reniaining in township, county, and State is fast melting away. The sacrifice of life and money was enormous, but , township, in Somerset, and from South Brunswick, in the great republic stands forth among the nations of the world as the fruit of this sacrifice.
THE LOCAL HISTORY OF TOWNSHIPS.
CHAPTER LXII. PRINCETON.
THE township of Princeton, politically, is of recent origin, having been erected iu the session of 1837-38 by the Legislature, when the county of Mercer was formed from portions of the counties of Middlesex, Burlington, Hunterdon, and Somerset. Within its ter- ritorial boundaries was incorporated the old borough of Prineeton, from which the township received its name. Prior to that time the borough embraced portions of both Somerset and Middlesex Counties. The old road, or king's highway, as it was aneiently called (now known as Nassau and Stockton Streets in the borough), was the line which had for many previous years divided those counties. That portion which lay on the north side of the road formed a part of Montgomery township in Somerset County, and
that on the south side was a part of West Windsor in the county of Middlesex. The inhabitants of Prince- ton then residing on the north side were drawn gen- erally to the villages of Harlingen and Rocky Hill in the public business transactions of Montgomery township, and to Somerville in the business of the county of Somerset; while those residing on the south side were identified with the township of West Windsor, and were drawn to New Brunswick, as the capital of the county of Middlesex.
The history of Princeton has been fully written and published in two octavo volumes so recently as the year 1879, by Mr. Hageman, who, beginning with its early settlement, traced it through the Revolution- ary war to the present time, taking in its churches, schools, college, theological seminary, literature, authors and volumes, prominent families and eiti- zens, eivil war, and cemetery, ete.
There is but little if anything left to be snatched 39
Middlesex Counties ; ou the south by the Delaware and Raritan Canal, which separates it from West Windsor; and on the west by the old province line, which separates it from the townships of Lawrence and Hopewell. When the towuship was first created the West Windsor boundary was the line of Prince- ton Borough, but the Legislature has since chauged it by making the Delaware and Raritan Canal the line.
The township is about five miles in length from north to south, and three miles in width, and, accord- ing to the last eensus (1880), it contains four thousand three hundred and forty-eight inhabitants. It em- braces within its limits Rocky Hill Mountain, which lies across the northern portion of the township. This mountainous ridge has been nearly cleared of its forests, and much of it is under cultivation. From its top there are beautiful landscape views on the north, extending for nearly twenty miles over the cul- tivated champaign of Somerset County, through which flow the Millstone and Raritan Rivers; while southward the eye takes in a broad expanse of alluvial land, slightly undulating, with the blue Navesink Hills rising to view in the distant southeast along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. The town of Princeton is peculiarly attractive and picturesque from this point of observation. Somerville lies eighteen miles north of the town of Princeton, New Brunswick east sixteen miles, Trenton south ten miles. The township contains seventeen square miles, and ten thousand nine hundred and six acres of land.
The Soil is a rich elay loam, with the red sandstone underueath. It is well adapted to farming purposes, and highly favorable to the growth of trees, which are much cultivated, and grow with luxuriance. The red shale is found a few miles north of Princeton, while the whole State south of it is sandy alluvial land. The trap rocks crop out everywhere on Rocky Hill. The land in this as in the adjoining townships is productive, and generally in a good state of culti- vation. There are model farms and specimens of model farming. Wheat, rye, corn, grass, oats, pota- toes, and other vegetables and a general variety of fruits are all raised, and readily find a remunerative market. The surface of the land is undulating, with i a pleasant variety of hill and dale. The farms are
596
HISTORY OF MERCER COUNTY, NEW JERSEY.
not generally large, but average about one hundred acres. The farm-houses are commodious and attrac- i vol. i. p. 197. tive, and indicate a good degree of prosperity and home comfort. Some of the most valuable farms in Princeton are. owned by young men of thrift, who have been liberally educated, and who apply to their agricultural pursuits the results of science and reading.
The Climate of Princeton is salubrious, and such is generally conceded to be the climate of the whole State of New Jersey. Because of its healthfulness , seded it. It is now only the old name of a thickly- Princeton was called by Dr. Witherspoon the "Mont- pellier of America." Gordon, in his "Gazetteer of New Jersey," describes Princeton as remarkable for the salubrity of its climate; and the Rev. Samuel Miller, D.D., who resided here for about forty years while professor in the Theological Seminary, and who always watched the changes of the weather with interest, and kept a daily record of the thermometer, wrote near the close of his long life that " Princeton has one of the finest climates in the solar system."
On the slope of the mountain, about a mile from the northern boundary line of the borough of Prince- ton, is "Tusculum," well known as once the country- seat of the Rev. Dr. John Witherspoon, president of Princeton College. The old stone house, on whose walls the year 1773 is inscribed, still wears a stately appearance, and has escaped the transforming genius of modern improvements, which has wrought such Mount Lucas is the centre of a school district, a marvelous changes within a few past years in the ! large modern school-house having recently superseded original college buildings. The house, though built more than a century ago, testifies by its plan and structure that its projector was a man who devised liberally for the comfort of his family and friends.
CEDAR GROVE, which is about two and a half miles : by Franklin Merrill, then a student in the theological from the borough of Princeton, on the brow of the hill on the road leading from Princeton to Blawen- burg northward, contains a little cluster of dwellings, a district school-house, a blacksmith-shop, and a neat chapel for preaching and religious services. This chapel was originally a Methodist Church, but the building was sold, when the Methodists built a church in Princeton, to Mr. Paul Tulane, who at that time resided in that neighborhood, though doing business in New Orleans. This chapel is open cvery Sabbath to the different denominations of Christians in the vicinity for preaching alternately in succession, Mr. : finally failed of success through the want of a suc- Tulane paying from his own funds the several preach- ers for their services. The legal title of the chapel, with an adequate fund to continue the charity, have recently been conferred in trust upon the trustces of the First Presbyterian Church of Princeton.
The place derived its name from the grove of cedars which environ it. It has a beautiful southern pros pect. In the latter part of the last century a colony of French refugees, families of wealth and distinc- tion, settled at this place, and bought up most of the farms in the neighborhood of Cedar Grove and Cherry Valley. A particular account of these refugees may
be found in Mr. Hageman's " History of Princeton,"
CHERRY VALLEY is a name given to the cross- roads about half a mile north of Cedar Grove, a neigh- borhood whose central figure was a stone school- house where the Princeton road crosses the Pennington and Rocky Hill road. It was here where the public school and religious services were maintained by the families residing in the neighborhood before Cedar Grove and Blawenburg with better facilities super- settled neighborhood.
MOUNT LUCAS, which is also situated in this town- ship, is about two and a half miles north of Princeton, on the road leading from the latter place to Rocky Hill village, and being on the top of the mountain is a most beautiful and picturesque place. Its grand view is north of the mountain, and embraces all the valley between the Millstone River and Sourland Mountain northward as far as the eye can see, and westward up through Blawenburg. It exhibits to view the whole township of Montgomery, presenting a landscape of green farms dotted with white farm- houses and church-spires rising from the villages of Harlingen, Blawenburg, Rocky Hill, and Griggs- town, with here and there little patches of timber- land reserved to indicate what heavy forests covered the whole area a century and more ago.
the old stone building. It was formerly the site of the " Mount Lucas Orphan and Guardian Institute," which was the first orphan asylum in New Jersey, so far as we can learn. It was founded in the year 1842 seminary at Princeton. The farm was held by private trustees until 1845, when it became incorporated by law under a special charter. A large stone building was added to the frame building on the place. The institution was supported by private charity, and con- tinned under the direction of private citizens for thir- teen years, and during that time it received about thirty pupils, boys and girls. It was for the benefit , of this institution that the Rev. Dr. Archibald Alex- ander appropriated the proceeds of the "Log Col- lege," which he published in 1845. The enterprise
cessor who possessed the faith and enthusiasm of the' founder, and for want of a permanent endowment. The property was sold, and the surplus funds which had been restricted from waste after payment of debts were landed over to what was then the " Ashmun In- stitute," now "Lincoln University," in Pennsylvania, for the education of pupils in that institution. The farm now belongs to the township of Princeton, and is kept as the almshouse of the township.
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