1. Introduction

King's Highway

Like a rock formation that surrenders its secrets to a geologist, the Princeton University campus provides the architectural historian with a slice of 250 years of buildings and academic history. And like the geologist who deciphers complex tales of ages past, the architectural historian finds in the evolution of the Princeton campus not one story, but many.

Buildings of most major American architectural styles grace the Princeton campus. Although most famous for its premier representation of the Collegiate Gothic style, the Princeton campus contains buildings that range from Georgian and Greek Revival to the Italianate Revival and Post-Modern. Some of the country's most prominent architects have designed buildings at Princeton -- Benjamin Latrobe, Richard Morris Hunt, Cope and Stewardson, Ralph Adams Cram, and Robert Venturi. Their stories are part of the evolving campus as well.

Princeton's architecture also expresses the deeply rooted religious and pedagological views of its Trustees and Faculty. It reflects the shifting profile of the student body and the rise and fall of various college traditions and organizations. Not least, the evolution of the campus mirrors the interests and vanities of the donors who made these buildings possible.

The story of the Princeton campus continues to unfold. Unlike the rock in the hand of the geologist, the campus is a living entity -- new buildings rise, old structures are dismantled, styles and materials compete for attention and approval. But to appreciate fully how the campus has evolved, and why Princetonians identify their institution so closely with its buildings, we must go back to how it began.

Curator's note: The basis for this narrative is the work of Professor Robert Judson Clark

King's Highway — Princeton University. Property of the Trustees of Princeton University.

"The Province of New Jersey Divided into East and West, commonly called the Jerseys."

Rare second state of Faden's map of New Jersey, based upon Bernard Ratzer's surveys in 1769, as significantly revised and improved by Faden in December 1778.

Map image from Barry Lawrence Rudederman, Antique Maps Inc.

Cast off your memories of the affluent Princeton of modern days and imagine a student of the late 1750s, arriving at the College of New Jersey for the first time. Plodding north along a muddy lane -- rather grandiosely called the King's Highway -- he would have passed through the rolling, sparsely settled fields of central New Jersey.

Wikipedia entry for King's Highway

Stony Brook Bridge

Photograph of Stony Brook Bridge

He would have crossed the bridge over Stony Brook, which still stands today.

More information on the Bridge over Stony Brook

Nassau Hall

Close up of Nassau Hall, from the Portrait of George Washington Before Nassau Hall by Charles Peale Polk (American, 1767 - 1822).

In the distance stood an imposing stone ediface - Nassau Hall, reputedly the largest public building in Britain's North American Colonies and home of the fledgling College of New Jersey. Fifty miles behind lay Philadelphia, the largest and most cultured of the cities in colonial America; fifty miles ahead, the rapidly growing port city of New York.

Map of the Town of Princeton

But nothing to suggest why one would find this colossal structure in the little town of Princeton.

Nassau Hall and President's House

Source: Samuel Blair, Account of the College of New Jersey (1764)

Colossal it was. For most students journeying to Princeton to take up their studies, Nassau Hall would have dwarfed anything they would have seen during their travels. Its massive stone walls and sturdy Georgian proportions must have exuded an air of permanence even then. To the colonial eye, accustomed to the rough and transitory life of North America, this alone would have made a powerful visual statement.

Enhancing the solidity and stature of the building would have been the stark appearance of the cleared two-acre field in which it was set. The building must have seemed anomalous and out of place, set well back from the muddy road, proudly separate from the straggling handful of houses along the King's Highway, and seemingly in the middle of nowhere.

One can thus forgive those early matriculants to the College for wondering: Why? Why build Nassau Hall here?

Curator's note: According to Maynard , "America's first 'campus' was scruffy and unfenced."

Plot of land donated in 1754 to the College of New Jersey

Source: Princeton University Archives

The short answer is that the citizens of Princeton did a better job selling their town to the Trustees of the College than did those of New Brunswick, the other town considered. In the end, Princeton prevailed on the strength of the promise by Nathaniel FitzRandolph to donate four and a half acres in the center of town for the College to use.

Engraving of Nassau Hall

Source: New American Magazine , March, 1760

Consider the 1760 engraving of Nassau Hall that originally appeared in The New American magazine.

Princeton's Motto

The College's now-famous motto "Dei sub numine viget" (Under God's power she flourishes) -- occupies a prominent place in the center of the image, printed on a banner born by trumpet-blowing angels.

Imagery of the Enlightenment

In the upper left, an inset depicts bright rays of sunlight piercing clouds and illuminating an array of scientific apparatus, books, and other tokens of the age of reason.

Any good Presbyterian of the time, as a product of the Enlightenment, would have recognized this imagery. In the minds of the founders, the College -- and by extension, Nassau Hall -- symbolized the union of the light of God with the light of learning. In the architecture and construction of Nassau Hall, they were proclaiming that they were here to stay -- the Great Awakening taken shape in stone and mortar.