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IN 1868, a colossal-columned house in the form of a Greek temple arrived by barge from Massachusetts, disembarked at Princeton Basin, traveled up
Alexander Street, and settled into Dr. Miller’s orchard on Mercer Street. The Reverend George Sheldon had purchased the orchard in 1866 and had plans drawn
up for a new house in the latest Victorian fashion. But when his brother died, leaving Sheldon a family house in Northhampton, Massachusetts, Sheldon came
up with a new idea. He took a Princeton builder to Northhampton to evaluate the practicality of moving the 1830s wooden house to Princeton. The house was
disassembled, freighted through Connecticut to New York City, shipped up the Raritan River, barged through the D & R Canal to Princeton Basin, and reassembled
on Sheldon’s new parcel.
The Sheldon House was not the first building moved in Princeton, nor, surprisingly, did its long-distance move attract much notice at the time. Within a
few short years after the Sheldon House arrived, moving older buildings became commonplace, as Princeton and its major institutions grew. Over the next one
hundred and thirty years, nearly two hundred buildings were moved in Princeton. Not only is the number of relocated buildings astounding, but the types of
buildings, the changes made to the buildings during and after the moves, the distances moved, and the locations and characteristics of the new sites are very
diverse. Elegant houses, modest workers’ cottages, elaborate Victorian dwellings, stately Colonial Revival houses, estate outbuildings, clubhouses, churches, pharmacies,
boarding houses, a rectory, a theater, and a school are among the buildings moved to new locations. Some buildings were moved twice, two houses were
moved three times, and three houses were moved to Princeton from other states.
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