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Stories
“Let the Southerns Come Here”: Letters of a Slaveholding Father and Son
by Paris Amanda Spies-Gans | Antebellum (1820-1861)
The extensive correspondence between antebellum Princeton student Henry Kirke White Muse and his slave-owning father illustrates the College of New Jersey’s appeal to southern students as well as its conservatism on the issue of slavery.
Princeton and South Carolina
by Lesa Redmond | Antebellum (1820-1861)
Princeton alumni from South Carolina owned successful plantations, large numbers of slaves, and served as leaders in the Confederate cause during the Civil War.
Betsey Stockton
by Gregory Nobles | Colonial & Early National (1746-1820), Antebellum (1820-1861)
Betsey Stockton (1798?-1865), enslaved as a child in the household of Princeton president Ashbel Green, became a prominent and respected educator in Princeton, Philadelphia, and the Sandwich Islands (present-day Hawai'i).
Princeton and the Civil War
by W. Barksdale Maynard | Civil War (1861-1865)
The Civil War divided Princeton as well as the United States along regional lines, complicating the university’s patriotic history of wartime service as students and alumni fought in both the Union and Confederate forces.
Navigating Slavery: Robert F. Stockton and the Limits of Antislavery Thought
by Craig Hollander | Antebellum (1820-1861), Civil War (1861-1865)
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.
Primary Sources
"Letters on the Colonization Society"
1832 | Antebellum (1820-1861)
Pamphlet supporting the American Colonization Society, published in response to "the ardent opposition" of "some of our white citizens, and by a number of the free coloured population."
President Harold Dodds to Mrs. Harvey S. Firestone Jr.
December 30, 1946 | Reconstruction to Present (1865-)
1946 letter from Princeton President Harold Dodds to Harvey Firestone Jr.'s wife, thanking her for the "generous Christmas present" of Firestone Company shares that she and her husband donated to Princeton that year.
Letter from Joseph T. Crawford to the Captain-General of Cuba
May 16, 1859 | Antebellum (1820-1861)
Documents that reveal the simultaneous demand for cargo ships and slaves.
"Rebellion at Princeton"
January 31,1817 | Colonial & Early National (1746-1820)
A letter from Princeton detailing the 1817 riots, published in an Alexandria newspaper.
Letter from Robert Jefferson Breckinridge
September 1, 1864 | Civil War (1861-1865)
Letter from Robert Jefferson Breckinridge (class of 1820, non-graduate) to his son William Campbell Preston Breckinridge, discussing the capture of Joseph Breckinridge by the Confederate Army.