PRINCETON, a borough of Mercer county, New Jersey, U.S.A., on the Lincoln highway about equally distant (5o m.) from New York and Philadelphia; served by the Pennsylvania railroad. Pop. (1920) 5,917 (17% negroes and 15% foreign-born white) ; 1930 Federal census 6,992. During the school year this is increased by some 4,000 students and teachers, and at commencement or on the occasion of a big ball game there are frequently 50,000 visitors.
Princeton is on high land (210 ft. above sea-level) surrounded on three sides by Stony brook. Lake Carnegie (3.5 m. long and 800 ft. wide), the gift of Andrew Carnegie, was constructed in 1905 o6. The borough is a beautiful academic and residential corn munity, with no factories. It is the seat of Princeton university (q.v.), Princeton Theological seminary (Presbyterian), St. Jos eph's college (Roman Catholic ; 1914) and several preparatory schools for boys and for girls. The Lawrenceville school for boys (1882) is 5 m. west. Princeton Theological seminary, established by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in 1812, has had many theologians among its professors and presidents and has trained more than 7,000 men for the ministry. At times there have been as many as 3o denominations represented in the student body. It is well endowed and has a fine campus near the university. On the eastern shore of Carnegie lake, in the township of Plainsboro, are the laboratories of the department of animal pathology of the Rockefeller Institute. Several model dairies are located in the environs of Princeton, including the 4,000 ac. farm of the Walker Gordon Milk Company, with a herd numbering 2,000. There are many beautiful modern estates, and a number of colonial build ings still stand. Nassau inn dates from 176o, also the Quaker meeting-house adjoining the battlefield which replaced one built in 1726. "Morven," the homestead of the Stocktons, built between.
1701 and 1709, has entertained many presidents and other promi nent persons. "Rockingham," at Rocky Hill, a village 3 m. north, was occupied by Washington for three months in the autumn of I 783, and it was here that he wrote his farewell orders to the army. It is now maintained as a historical museum.
Settlement here began in 1696 and the name was adopted in 1724. Princeton was incorporated as a town in 1813 and as a borough in 1873. Among the early settlers was Richard Stock ton, grandfather of the signer of the Declaration of Independence who bore the same name, and John Olden, great-grandfather of New Jersey's Civil War governor. The College of New Jersey (now Princeton university) moved here from Newark in 1756. On Aug. 27, 1776, the first legislature of New Jersey met in Princeton.
On Jan. 3, 1777, near Stony brook about a mile west of Princeton, Washington won an important victory over part of Cornwallis's troops, both sides losing many brilliant officers. A battle monu ment by MacMonnies, which has as the central figure an equestrian statue of Washington, was dedicated in 1922. In old Nassau hall, the largest building in the Colonies when it was erected in 56, the Continental Congress sat from June 3o to Nov. 4, receiving here on Oct. 31 the news that peace had been signed. PRINCETON, a city in the mountains of southern West Vir ginia, U.S.A., the county seat of Mercer county; on the Virginian railway and Federal highway 21, 10 m. N.E. of Bluefield. Pop. 6,224 in 1920 (93% native white) ; 6,955 in 1930 by the Federal census. Coal-mining and lumbering are the principal industries, and there are several textile and garment factories. The city was founded in 1826 and incorporated in 1862.