TRENTON, the capital city of New Jersey, U.S.A., and the county seat of Mercer county ; on the Lincoln highway and the east bank of the Delaware river, 3o m. N.E. of Philadelphia and 55 m. S.W. of New York city. It has a county airport, and is served by the Pennsylvania and the Reading railways, 4 inter urban electric lines, numerous motor-bus and truck lines and small steamers and barges on the Delaware river and through the Delaware and Raritan canal to the Raritan river at New Brunswick. Pop. (1920) 119,289 (25% foreign-born white) ; and 123,356 in 1930, with 35,00o more in contiguous suburbs.
Trenton is at the head of navigation on the Delaware, which falls 8 ft. at this point. Three miles of the water front is occupied by Riverside park, and there are municipal docks, wharves and warehouses, with which a public roof-garden is combined. The city has an area of 8.5 sq.m., of which 266 ac. are in public parks; an assessed valuation for 1928 of $248,089,324; and commission form of government, adopted in 1911. It is the seat of a State normal school (1855), the State library, the State school for the deaf, the State home for girls, a State hospital for the insane (1848), the State prison (1836) and the State arsenal, occu pying the old prison. The State House stands on high ground not far from the river. In Mahlon Stacy park, adjoining the Capitol grounds, are the "Hessian" barracks, erected by the Colony in 1758 to mitigate the evils of billeting, and occupied by British troops during the Seven Years' War, and at different times during the Revolution by British, Hessian and American troops. Washington's crossing of the Delaware on Christmas night, 1776, took place 8 m. above Trenton, and in the centre of the city stands a granite column 15o ft. high, marking the spot where he planted his guns in the Battle of Trenton on the follow ing day. Among the interesting old houses are "Woodland" (formerly called "Bloomsbury Court"), built early in the 18th century by William Trent, "The Hermitage," and "Bow Hill," a quaint colonial mansion in the suburbs, which for some time before 1822 was the home of Joseph Bonaparte. Trenton is the
see of Roman Catholic and Protestant Episcopal bishops. There are 100 churches in the city, 33 public and 17 parochial schools, hospitals with about 90o beds and a number of homes and other charitable institutions under religious auspices. The Trenton Municipal Colony, on the outskirts of the city, is an assemblage of the city's institutions for the care of the sick and the aged, in connection with a farm of 25 acres. There are two daily papers: the State Gazette, established in 1792, and the Times (1882).
Trenton is an important industrial city, with 284 manufacturing establishments in 1927, producing goods valued at of which $16,047,334 represented pottery (14% of the total pro duced in the United States) and $1,662,818 other clay products. Bank debits in 1927 aggregated $905,187,000.
In 168o Mahlon Stacy, a Quaker of Burlington, erected a mill on the Delaware here, at the mouth of the Assanpink creek, and by 1685 a small settlement had grown up around it. In Stacy sold his plantation at "The Falls" to William Trent, later chief justice of New Jersey, after which the village came to be known as Trent-town, or Trenton. In 1745 Trenton was incorpo rated as a borough by a royal charter, but in 1750 the citizens voluntarily surrendered this privilege, deeming it "very prejudicial to the interest and trade" of the community. In 1783 Trenton was proposed by the New Jersey delegates in Congress for the seat of the Federal Government, and in Nov. 1784, while it was under consideration, Congress met here for a brief period. It became the capital of the State in 1790 and was chartered as a city in 1792. The modern pottery industry dates from 1852. In 186o the population was 17,228; in 188o, 29,910; in 1900, 73,307; and in 1910, 96,815. There have been no annexations of territory since 190o.