Princeton University. Property of the Trustees of Princeton University.
Witherspoon could do little to protect his College from the depredations of war, and the American Revolution treated Princeton cruelly. Troops, both British and Continental, were quartered at various times in Nassau Hall, and they ransacked the building and the library. Most calamitous of all was the damage sustained during the Battle of Princeton on 3 January 1777.
Nassau Hall was the scene of a fierce rearguard fight with the retreating British during the battle and it suffered severely. Colonel Alexander Hamilton's battery of New York artillery caused the most spectacular destruction, firing a cannonball that smashed through a window in the prayer hall and destroyed a portrait of King George II
Witherspoon could do little to protect his College from the depredations of war, and the American Revolution treated Princeton cruelly. Troops, both British and Continental, were quartered at various times in Nassau Hall, and they ransacked the building and the library. Most calamitous of all was the damage sustained during the Battle of Princeton on 3 January 1777.
Nassau Hall was the scene of a fierce rearguard fight with the retreating British during the battle and it suffered severely. Colonel Alexander Hamilton's battery of New York artillery caused the most spectacular destruction, firing a cannonball that smashed through a window in the prayer hall and destroyed a portrait of King George II