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Nassau Hall, Princeton, New Jersey: Congress

The spirited students were jubilant on the evening of July 9, 1776, when the news of the Declaration of Independence was read in Princeton. Nassau Hall was illuminated and the whole town rejoiced that President Witherspoon, as a member of the Continental Congress, had been a signer of the document.

In November, 1776, the students who had not enlisted ACROSS THE JERSEYS WITH PATRIOTS in the army were sent from the town just in time to escape the British, who took possession of the building and used it as barracks and hospital. Early in the morning of January 3, 1777, the British held the building. After the battle Washington's troops took possession, but abandoned it almost at once. At evening the British were once more in control. Soon they hurried on to New Brunswick. The next occupants were the soldiers of General Putnam, who found room here for a hospital, a barracks, and a military prison. They found that during the battle of Princeton a round shot had struck the portrait of George II in the prayer hall. After the British left Princeton College classes were continued in the President's house, and it was 1782 before a serious attempt was made to reoccupy Nassau Hall, which was found to be "mostly bare partition walls and heaps of fallen plaster."

A year later, when temporary repairs had been made, the Continental Congress, which had been besieged by a company of troops who were insistent in their demands for overdue pay, made its way to Princeton. From June to November the sessions were held in Nassau Hall. Commencement day came during the sessions and Congress sat, with Washington, on the platform. On that occasion Washington gave fifty pounds to the college. This sum was paid to Charles Wilson Peale for a portrait of the donor, which was placed in the frame from which the portrait of George II had been shot more than seven years before.

Congress was still in session at Nassau Hall when, in October, the first authentic news came of the signing of the Definitive Treaty of Peace with Great Britain.

A few weeks later the college was left to its sedate ways. Never since then has it witnessed such stirring events. But the experiences of the years from 1776 to 1784 had made Nassau Hall one of the nation's picturesque monuments. XXIX THREE HISTORIC HOUSES AT PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY MORVEN, THE MERCER HOUSE, AND WASHINGTON'S ROCKY HILL HEADQUARTERS "Sollemnity & Distress appeared almost on every countenance, several students that had come 5 & 600 miles & just got letters in college were now obliged under every disadvantage to retire with their effects, or leave them behind, which several through the impossibility of getting a carriage at so Confused a time were glad to do, & lose them all, as all hopes of continuing longer in peace at Nassau were now taken away I began to look out for some place where I might pursue my studies & as Mr. G. Johnson had spoke to me to teach his son I accordingly went there & agreed to stay with him till spring."