Nassau Hall, Princeton, New Jersey WHERE THE CONGRESS OF 1783
MET FOR FIVE MONTHS Where the College of New Jersey, as
Princeton University was officially known until 1896, erected
its first building at Princeton, the far-sighted trustees
arranged what was long ago the largest stone structure in the
Colonies. The records of early travellers on the road between
Philadelphia and New York tell of their amazement at the
wonderful building. In 1756 the college abandoned its rooms in
the First Presbyterian Church of Newark, New Jersey, and
occupied the ambitious quarters in Princeton, which had cost
about £2,900. Originally the halls extended from end to end of
Nassau Hall, a distance of one hundred and seventy-five feet.
These long, brick-paved halls afforded students inclined to
mischief wonderful opportunity to make life miserable ,for the
tutors who were charged with their oversight. " Rolling heated
cannon balls, to tempt zealous but unwary tutors, was a
perennial joy," writes Varnum Lansing Collins, in his boo