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Erkuries Beatty (1759-1823), the second mayor of the Borough of Princeton, was one of a tight network of local elites who presided over college, church, and borough governance while continuing to benefit financially from slavery during an era of gradual emancipation.

Between 1832 and 1863, more than 1,000 students lived in off-campus boarding houses while attending the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University). Certain boarding houses catered to large numbers of southern students.

Jonathan Edwards Jr. (1746-1801), the son of early America’s preeminent theologian and Princeton’s third president, strongly opposed slavery throughout his life and career as a minister—becoming a leading antislavery activist of the 18th century and one of the few abolitionists Princeton ever produced.

James Collins Johnson, a fugitive slave freed after an 1843 trial in Princeton, became a prominent figure in town and on campus over the course of his many decades working at the College of New Jersey.

A firm majority of Princeton's founding trustees (sixteen out of twenty-three) bought, sold, traded, or inherited slaves during their lifetimes.