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The Witherspoon-Jackson community, centered around Witherspoon Street, comprised the heart of Princeton’s African-American community during  the 19th century.

Robert Field Stockton, a naval officer and supporter of the American Colonization Society, embodied the College of New Jersey’s struggle—and eventual failure—to reconcile the cruelties of slavery with a desire to encourage harmony between the North and South.

News about the College of New Jersey and its students—including their connections to the South—spread across the country through multiple forms of print media.

Runaway slaves from the Princeton area used sophisticated knowledge of the late-18th and early-19th century’s changing legal and political landscape when they planned their escapes, forcing slave-owners to acknowledge their resourcefulness and determination to liberate themselves.