Virginia Gazette before this arrives. The letter to the merchants in Philadelphia, requesting their concurrence, was lately burned by the students of this place in the college yard, all of them appearing in their black gowns and the bell tolling. . . . There are about 115 in the College and in the Grammar School, all of them in American cloth."
"Last week, to show our patriotism," wrote
in 1774 another Princeton student, Charles
Beatty,
"we gathered all the steward's winter store of tea, and
having made a fire in the campus we there burnt near a
dozen pounds, tolled the bell, and made many spirited
resolves. But this was not all. Poor Mr. Hutchinson's
effigy shared the same fate with the tea, having a tea-canister
tied about his neck."
With such a nursery of patriotism at its very
hub, the temper of the surrounding community
can easily be pictured. The proposition
for a provincial congress came from Princeton.
John Hart, a farmer from the neighboring
township of Hopewell, and Abraham
Clark, a farmer's son from the neighboring
county, were associated with graduates from
Princeton College and delegates from Princeton
town in conducting its deliberations. Both
were made delegates to the Continental Congress
and both, along with Witherspoon and
