Stony Brook: Gateway to Princeton

On view at Bainbridge House from Tuesday, February 9 through Sunday, July 4, 2010, the Historical Society of Princeton (HSP) is proudly hosting its newest exhibition Stony Brook: Gateway to Princeton.  The exhibition will explore the changing use of land within the Princeton Battlefield/Stony Brook Village Historic District and the surrounding area in Princeton Township, including properties along Stockton Street, Lawrenceville Road, Quaker Road, Mercer Road, and the Stony Brook. Although the agricultural way of life which sustained the Stony Brook community through the early 20th century is largely gone, much of the rural landscape remains thanks to open space and historic preservation initiatives.

The exhibition will illustrate the beginnings of the Stony Brook settlement with the purchase of several large tracts of land near the winding Stony Brook. A Piscataway resident and Quaker, Benjamin Clarke bought 1,200 acres in 1696 from Thomas Warne, one of the East Jersey Proprietors. In 1697, Clarke sold half of his acreage in two parts to two of his brothers-in-law, William Olden and Joseph Worth. Clarke was instrumental in the establishment of the Quaker Meetinghouse, a central facet of life for many of the Stony Brook residents.

Audiences will experience the evolution of the close-knit Stony Brook community, which came to include family farms, a mill, schools, and shops. New community residents began to take leadership of the area: beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, the Hale family owned the former Clarke property at Princeton Battlefield; Princeton University School of Science Professor Frederick N. Willson was a noted resident; and Mary Louise Snook became the beloved teacher of Princeton Township’s eight grade Stony Brook School. By the mid-20th century, however, most of the family farms ceased operation, the Stony Brook School closed due to low enrollment and its students were sent to the Valley Road School, and the large estates established in the late 19th century by Moses Taylor Pyne and Archibald Russell began to be sold off for single-family residential development.

The Historical Society of Princeton received a project grant from the New Jersey Historical Commission, a division in the Department of State.

This program is made possible in part by the Mercer County Cultural and Heritage Commission through funding from the New Jersey Historical Commission/Department of State, and the Mercer County Board of Chosen Freeholders.