Princeton, New Jersey

• 1. Introduction

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  Princeton, New Jersey, spent most of its history as two towns, with one wrapped completely around the other. The 2020 United States census counted 30,681 residents in the municipality. That was an increase of 2,109, or 7.4 percent, over the combined 2010 count of 28,572. The place sits in Mercer County, and its name is shared with a famous university. Yet the town around that campus has a story of its own. How did a crossroads in the wilderness between two colonial provinces get its name? Why did one part of the community break away from the other? What finally brought the halves back together? And what else has a town of about thirty thousand people managed to hold?

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• 2. Naming a Crossroads

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  The Lenape were the earliest identifiable inhabitants of the Princeton area. In the late 17th century, European settlers arrived from two directions. Some came from Delaware to settle West Jersey, and others came from New York to settle East Jersey. The site that would become Princeton lay in the wilderness between the two.

  Henry Greenland was the first European to make his home within the future municipality. In 1683 he built a house and a tavern. Representatives of West and East Jersey met at that tavern to fix the boundaries between their provinces. His son-in-law, Daniel Brimson, lived in the area by 1690 and left property in a will dated 1696.

  Nathaniel Fitz Randolph, a native of the town, wrote in his private journal on the 28th of December 1758 about how the place got its name. He said it dated to 1724, when James Leonard built the first house in the area. Leonard described his large estate in his diary as lying at Princetown. Before that, the settlement was known only as part of nearby Stony Brook. Over time it appeared as Princetown, Prince's Town and finally Princeton. The name became common within the following decade.

  No official document says who the town honors. One tradition points to Prince William of Orange. Another suggests a landowner named Henry Prince, the son-in-law of a well-known English merchant, but no evidence backs that claim. A royal namesake seems more likely, because three neighboring places also carried royal names. They were Kingston, Queenstown near the corner of Nassau and Harrison Streets, and Princessville in Lawrence Township.

  In 1850, William Edward Schenck wrote that Princeton had reached "no very considerable size" until the College of New Jersey was established in the town. By the 1880 census, the population stood at 3,209 people, not counting students.

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• 3. Revolution and Memory

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  In January 1777, George Washington won the Battle of Princeton and forced the British to evacuate southern New Jersey. After the victory, the town hosted the first Legislature to meet under the State Constitution. That body had to decide the state seal, the governor and the organization of the government.

  Two original signers of the Declaration of Independence, Richard Stockton and John Witherspoon, lived in Princeton. Townspeople honored them by naming two downtown streets after them.

  On the 10th of January 1938, Henry Ewing Hale called on citizens to found a "Historical Society of Princeton". The society later found a home in Bainbridge House, which Job Stockton built in 1766. The house had already served many purposes. It hosted a meeting of the Continental Congress in 1783, then became a general office, and later served as the Princeton Public Library.

  Princeton University owns the house and leases it to the historical society for one dollar per year. It still has its original staircase, flooring and paneled walls. Apart from safety work such as wheelchair access and electrical upgrades, it has been restored to its original appearance. Around 70 percent of the building has never been altered.

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• 4. Two Towns, Then One

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  During the most stirring events of its history, Princeton was a wide spot in the road. The boundary between Somerset County and Middlesex County ran straight through town. It followed the high road between New York and Philadelphia, which is now Nassau Street.

  When Mercer County was formed in 1838, part of West Windsor was added to the piece of Montgomery Township that joined the new county. The result was Princeton Township. In 1853, the land between the old borough's southern edge and the Delaware and Raritan Canal was added to the township.

  Princeton Borough received its charter in 1813, at a time when New Jersey boroughs were quasi-independent subdivisions inside townships. The Borough Act of 1894 required every township to form a single school district. Rather than comply, the borough petitioned to separate, and it became its own municipality that year.

  The borough was completely surrounded by the township. It held Nassau Street, the main commercial street, along with most of the university campus. Until postwar suburbanization, it also contained most of the urban area. The two municipalities had roughly equal populations. They later formed Princeton Public Schools and ran some other services together. Two small boundary changes brought the hospital site into the borough in 1928 and the regional high school site in 1951.

  Residents of the township pushed for reunion in a struggle that lasted nearly fifty years. The first attempt came in 1953, when 63 percent of township voters backed a merger and 57 percent of borough voters opposed it. Later attempts failed in the borough, largely because of zoning. The crowded borough and the widely spaced township properties had different needs.

  A 1979 referendum won 70 percent support in the township but failed in the borough by 33 votes. A recount upheld that result. In 1996, township voters again approved by almost a 3-1 margin. About 57 percent of borough voters rejected the plan, which marked the sixth failure.

  On the 8th of November 2011, voters in both communities finally approved a merger. It was the first referendum in which university students were encouraged and allowed to register locally. That likely contributed strongly to the result. The students did not own homes, so they had no zoning worries, and they all counted as part of the borough. In the borough the vote was 1,385 to 902. In the township it was 3,542 to 604.

  Proponents said the new municipality would save $3.2 million through scaled-down services. That included layoffs of 15 government workers, among them 9 police officers, although the measure itself did not require layoffs. Opponents challenged the savings report as unsubstantiated, raised the zoning differences again and noted that voters would have less representation in a smaller government.

  It was the first merger in the state since 1997, when Pahaquarry Township voted to consolidate with Hardwick Township. The consolidation took effect on the 1st of January 2013, and the old borough and township both ceased to exist.

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• 5. Seats of Power

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  Since 1945, the official residence of the New Jersey governor has been in Princeton rather than in the capital, Trenton. That year, Morven became the first governor's mansion. At the time it stood in Princeton Borough. Robert Wood Johnson II, chairman of Johnson & Johnson, also lived there.

  In 1982 the larger Drumthwacket replaced Morven. This colonial mansion stands in the former township. It is one of only four official governors' residences in the country that are not located in their state capitals. Not every governor has actually lived in these houses. Morven became a museum and garden, owned and operated by the New Jersey Historical Society.

  The local government uses the borough form, which is found in 218 of New Jersey's 564 municipalities and is the most common form in the state. It is a "weak mayor / strong council" system. The mayor is elected to a four-year term, presides at meetings and votes only to break a tie. The mayor can veto ordinances, but two-thirds of the council can override a veto.

  The council has six members who serve staggered three-year terms, with two seats up each year. The current mayor is Democrat Mark Freda, whose term expires on the 31st of December 2028. Princeton sits in the 12th Congressional District and the 16th state legislative district.

  Residents pay for this government at a steep rate. In 2018, the average property tax bill in Princeton was $19,388. That was the highest in the county, against a statewide average of $8,767.

  In March 2011, the former borough and township had 18,049 registered voters combined. Of these, 9,184 were Democrats, or 50.9 percent. There were 2,140 Republicans, or 11.9 percent, and 6,703 unaffiliated voters, or 37.1 percent. In 2012, Barack Obama took 75.4 percent of the vote, with 9,461 votes cast, and turnout was 72.6 percent. In the 2016-2020 and 2024 presidential elections, the Democratic nominee received over 80 percent.

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• 6. Town and Gown

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  Princeton University began in 1746 as the College of New Jersey and moved from Newark to Princeton ten years later. Its historic center is on Nassau Street, and the main campus stretches south from there. The James Forrestal satellite campus lies in Plainsboro Township, and some playing fields sit in West Windsor. In 2024, the university topped the U.S. News & World Report national rankings for the ninth consecutive year. It also topped comparable lists from Forbes and The Wall Street Journal.

  The Institute for Advanced Study holds 800 acres of land called the Institute Woods. Albert Einstein lived at 112 Mercer Street from 1936 until his death in 1955. J. Robert Oppenheimer directed the institute. Fellows included the logician Kurt Gödel, the physicist Freeman Dyson, the diplomat George F. Kennan and the physicist Edward Witten. The mathematician John von Neumann worked at both the university and the institute. Andrew Wiles, who proved Fermat's Last Theorem, is a Princeton University professor.

  Princeton Theological Seminary is the first and oldest seminary of the Presbyterian Church (USA). Its main academic campus is in Princeton, and its residential housing is just across the line in West Windsor. Other institutions in the area include Educational Testing Service, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory and Dow Jones & Company. William H. Angoff, a research scientist at Educational Testing Service, helped improve the SAT.

  The Princeton Public Schools run six schools. In the 2020-21 school year they enrolled 3,740 students, taught by 341.0 classroom teachers, for a ratio of 11.0 students per teacher. Princeton High School had 1,555 of those students. U.S. News & World Report ranked it 33rd in New Jersey in 2024. St. Paul's Catholic School, founded in 1878, is the oldest Catholic school in town. The Princeton Public Library was founded in 1909. Its current Witherspoon Street building opened in April 2004 and replaced one from 1966.

  Westminster Choir College was established in Princeton in 1932, after stops in Dayton, Ohio, and briefly Ithaca, New York. Rider University has owned it since 1992. Neighbors strongly opposed a 2012 parking expansion that required cutting old-growth trees. In 2019, Rider tried to sell the campus to a Chinese company, which caused a public outcry and stopped the sale. In 2020, Rider moved every Westminster activity to its Lawrenceville campus. The Princeton campus is now largely unused while legal disputes continue.

  As of 2023, Princeton pays Rider $1,000 per month to lease overflow parking at the choir college. The town then sells those parking rights for $30 per month to businesses, residents and non-residents.

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• 7. Between Two Cities

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  Princeton sits just south of Princeton Ridge, a long, curving rise. The low-lying ground has caused trouble with cell phone signals. The borough covers 18.41 square miles, of which 0.47 square miles, or 2.53 percent, is water. Four unincorporated communities have been absorbed into Greater Princeton but keep their own identities. They are Cedar Grove, Port Mercer, Princeton Basin and Jugtown.

  Princeton lies roughly equidistant from New York City and Philadelphia, and it has been connected by rail to both since the 19th century. The Princeton Branch runs 2.7 miles to Princeton Junction, a station on Amtrak's Northeast Corridor. The Princeton station moved in 1918 from under Blair Hall to a more southerly spot on University Place. It moved again, farther southeast, in 2013.

  Commuting to New York became commonplace after the Second World War. The NJ Transit ride to New York is generally much faster than the trip to Philadelphia, which requires a transfer to SEPTA trains in Trenton. A shuttle connects the Princeton and Princeton Junction stations, timed to the Northeast Corridor trains. It is called the "Dinky" and also the "PJ&B," for "Princeton Junction and Back." It runs with two cars, or sometimes only one.

  The borough has 126.95 miles of roadway. The municipality maintains 118.36 miles, the county 3.93 miles and the New Jersey Department of Transportation 8.66 miles. U.S. Route 206 and Route 27 pass through town. Several highways around Princeton were never built. The Somerset Freeway, a planned stretch of Interstate 95, was canceled in 1980. Route 92, meant to ease the lack of limited-access highways, was cancelled in 2006.

  The private Forrestal Airport operated on university property, 2 miles east of the main campus, from the early 1950s through the early 1990s. Today Princeton Airport is a public airport 3 miles north of downtown, in Montgomery Township. The closest commercial airport is Trenton-Mercer in Ewing Township, about 15 miles away. Frontier Airlines flies nonstop from there to 17 cities. Newark Liberty International Airport is 39 miles away, and Philadelphia International Airport is 52 miles away.

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• 8. Famous Names, Fictional Streets

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  Grover Cleveland, who served as both the 22nd and 24th President of the United States, retired to Princeton. He died there and is buried there. His daughter Ruth, who died at age 12, rests in Princeton Cemetery. Aaron Burr grew up in town and is buried there too. Paul Robeson was born and raised in Princeton. The author Peter Benchley, who wrote Jaws, lived and died there. Christopher Reeve grew up in Princeton and attended Princeton Day School.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald based his literary debut, This Side of Paradise, loosely on his years at Princeton University. Richard Ford set many of his novels in Haddam, New Jersey, a fictionalized Princeton. Judy Blume set her novel Superfudge in Princeton. In music, all of the members of Blues Traveler are from Princeton. So is Chris Barron, lead singer of the Spin Doctors, and they were high school friends.

  The Academy Award-winning film A Beautiful Mind is set in Princeton and tells the story of the mathematician John Nash. Many of its "Princeton" scenes were actually shot at Fordham University's Rose Hill campus in the Bronx. The 1994 film I.Q. also takes place in Princeton, with Walter Matthau playing Albert Einstein. In one scene he looks through a telescope on the roof of "Princeton Hospital" and sees two characters kissing on the Princeton Battlefield.

  Orson Welles's 1938 radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds is set partly in nearby Grover's Mill. It features a fictional Princeton University professor as a main character, though the action never moves into Princeton itself. In George Lucas's Young Indiana Jones series, Princeton is the hometown of Indiana Jones, whose father, Henry Jones, Sr., is a university professor. The Princeton scenes were actually filmed in Wilmington and Durham, North Carolina.

  The television show House was set at the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. Establishing shots used the university's Frist Campus Center. The real hospital moved from Witherspoon Street to a new building in Plainsboro, which opened on the 22nd of May 2012. That was one day after the House finale aired.

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