Today’s ultra-busy day started with a Dutch Baby Pancake for breakfast, made by chef Dennis. With this nourishment, Dennis, Anna, and I embarked on our tour of Princeton. So little time, so many places to see!
Note: I was born in New Jersey! My parents lived in Philadelphia, but my mom’s doctor had privileges at the hospital across the river in Camden!
What I learned:
1. The Battle of Princeton turned the Revolutionary War around with Washington outsmarting the British by firing cannons from one direction and ambushing the enemy soldiers from the other direction.
2. The Clarke House where the Battle of Princeton occurred, on January 3, 1777, now holds tours to share the story of General Hugh Mercer (did you know triangular bayonet wounds can not be sewn up?) and Dr. Benjamin Rush (a signer of the Declaration of Independence).
3. Chartered in 1746 as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest college in the United States. Nassau Hall, Princeton’s first building, sustained a cannon attack in the Revolutionary War. In 1783, the building served as the nation’s capitol, housing the Continental Congress from June to November. It was in Nassau Hall that the news of the peace treaty with Great Britain was received.
4. The eating clubs at Princeton University are private institutions resembling both dining halls and social houses. Each eating club occupies a large mansion, all but one on Prospect Avenue.
5. Construction on Palmer Square began in 1929 and included demolishing a historic African-American neighborhood. The Witherspoon-Jackson neighborhood, where many African American residents were relocated by the Palmer Square project, was officially designated as Princeton’s 20th Historic District in 2016.
6. John Witherspoon (1723-1794), Princeton’s sixth president and founding father of the United States, had a complex relationship to slavery. Though he advocated revolutionary ideals of liberty and personally tutored several free Africans and African Americans in Princeton, he himself owned slaves and both lectured and voted against the abolition of slavery in New Jersey. (https://slavery.princeton.edu/stories/john-witherspoon)
7. Aaron Burr, infamous for killing Alexander Hamilton, lies buried in the Princeton Cemetery.
I think this is enough history for one day!
Dennis making a Dutch Baby Pancake!
The Clarke House where a Quaker family tended both American and British wounded during the Battle of Princeton.
Riding the Princeton Tiger!
Nassau Hall with a cannon marker.
Fountain in the reflecting pool.
Now for a series of natural frame photos!
“In place of numerous old wooden houses and tenements which are not only unsightly but which also form a great fire hazard, there will be two large apartment houses of the ‘garden’ type…Palmer Square would re-route all commercial traffic towards a central town square.” http://www.princetonmagazine.com/palmer-square-a-look-back
Ice cream from the Bent Spoon.
Hamilton and Burr!
