Campbell Woods at Princeton Condominium

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CAMPBELL WOODS: A Brief History of the Surroundings You Live In

The community of Campbell Woods is situated in what is locally known as “The Ridge.” In past years, it was also referred to as “The Hill.”

John Hageman in his History of Princeton (1879) referred to this area as “the most beautiful spot in the township. It has the grand view to the North embracing all the valley between the Millstone River and the Sourland Mountains Northward as far as the eye can see and Westward as far as Blawenburg.” At that time, most of the land had been nearly cleared and was under cultivation, but by the 1930s, Hageman’s view had become difficult to see any longer. Trees had begun to grow on land that was no longer farmed.

In 1750, The College of New Jersey, then located in Newark, wanted a more central location such as New Brunswick or Prince Town (present-day Princeton). The town to be chosen was to give 1,000 pounds of NJ currency, ten acres of cleared land, and two hundred acres of land to supply firewood for the new college. Princeton townsmen were quick to respond to the conditions. John Stockton, father of Richard the Signer, was one of the contributors who gave wooded land. In 1701, his father, Richard Stockton, had purchased a tract of land on the ridge from William Penn. From this tract, John Stockton gave 40 acres to help meet the college’s request. This tract of land today would be located between the Princeton Community Village on Bunn Drive and Mt. Lucas Road. Thomas Leonard gave the balance of 160 wooded acres, and Nathaniel FitzRandolph donated 4 acres of cleared land where Nassau Hall now stands. Construction began in 1754. The College of New Jersey became Princeton University in 1896.

Mt. Lucas Road was one of the first roads into Princeton. When the Continental Congress held meetings at the College during August of 1783, George Washington traveled this road many times, coming from Rocky Hill to Princeton where he was staying at Rockingham, the home of Judge Berrier. Others who traveled Mt. Lucas Road included Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Richard Stockton, and Thomas Paine. Think about that the next time you drive onto it from Campbell Woods Way!

In 1842, an orphanage was established on property at the corner of Mt. Lucas Road and Poor Farm Road. Nine years later, the Township took it over and turned it into a home for the indigent that operated until the 1920s. For many years, Commodities Corporation was located at this site. It is presently owned by Goldman Sachs.

In the 1870s, twenty-nine families lived in the area of Mt. Lucas Road and Herringtown Road. They each owned an average of thirty acres of land. According to local history, these farmers traveled to the New Jersey shore in their wagons to bring back herring for inexpensive fertilizer, which is how the road got its original name. It is now known as Herrontown Road. As we Campbell Woods residents have discovered, the soil on the ridge is clay loam and red sandstone underneath—not ideal soil for farming and growing grain. But the farmers managed to grow corn and wheat, which they took to Thompson’s Mill at the Kingston Dam to be ground. The red mill building, now a private home, is on the north end of Carnegie Lake and Route 27. They also planted fruit trees and grew vegetables, which were sold to the townspeople.

The Gulicks, one of the large farm owners in Princeton, had sold ridge land for nominal prices to some of the Herringtown group. Some men were former full-time employees, and this could have been part of a retirement pension. Three farms were owned by “colored” who had probably been Gulick slaves. There is no evidence that affluence separated large farm owners from smaller ones socially or politically. The Herringtown farmers could vote, something most factory workers were not able to do until much later.

In 1880, the Township built a ‘new’ one-room schoolhouse to accommodate the growing number of children who lived in the area. A shed was added on a few years later as the number of pupils grew to 40. This building also served as a church and social center for the community. It is interesting to note that pictures of the school clearly show that this Township school was integrated. It is now a private home and much altered in appearance. (#461 Mt. Lucas Road) The school closed in 1918, and pupils then went to the newly opened Township Consolidated School on Witherspoon Street.

By 1916, more than half the farmers had left the area, and by 1930, most all were gone. Twelve to fifteen hours of work six days a week in difficult conditions and the fact that their educated children could do better in trades and industry were probable causes for the decline in farming.

In 1929, the J. G. Moffitt farm was purchased by Milton Campbell, a civil engineer, for $4,500. His home is now #1 Campbell Woods Way. The K. Hovnanian Companies purchased this property from Mr. Campbell’s daughter Catherine, a long-time English teacher at Princeton High School, for $1,454,000, and in 1994 began building 50 townhomes on the property. An existing red barn behind the old farmhouse was torn down and replaced by a garage.

There are three streets in the community of Campbell Woods. The shorter one is Burr Drive, named after Aaron Burr, Sr., president of The College of New Jersey from 1747-1757, who is buried in the Princeton Cemetery. He was the father of Aaron Burr, Jr., a political leader, a graduate of the College, and the man who killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel. The longest one is McComb Road named after John McComb, Jr., the architect of Alexander Hall (1817), the first building at the Princeton Theological Seminary, today used as a dormitory. He previously had designed Old Queens at Rutgers University and with Joseph Mangin, New York’s City Hall. The origin of the name for Campbell Woods Way is obvious as it is the entry to our community off Mt. Lucas Road.

An English visitor to New Jersey in 1882 wrote home complaining of the mass of muddy roads in Princeton, which had to be endured for months at a time. Although early “settlers” of Campbell Woods experienced some mud, they will remember best the endless snowstorms of their first winter (1995-1996). Approximately 76 inches of snow fell that winter! To clear Campbell Woods Way, the snow was dumped in the circle and in time became a hill of snow that was still melting in early May.

The following fall, a group of homeowners gathered together to battle the difficult soil of the ridge. They planted 1,400 daffodil bulbs along the wooded borders of the community with the hope that when the snows of following winters would melt, there would always be the promise of spring.