BigDaddyData.Com: New Jersey Trenton

{tren'-tuhn}

    Trenton, the capital of New Jersey since 1790 and the seat of Mercer County, lies at the head of navigation on the Delaware River, about 48 km (30 mi) north of Philadelphia. The city's population is 88,675 (1990 census). A port and transportation hub in the New York-Philadelphia corridor, the city is also a major industrial center. Ceramics, rubber, cables, plastics, textiles, plumbing and bathroom fixtures, linoleum, dies, and automobile parts are manufactured there. The state museum, Rider College (1865), and a planetarium are located in Trenton. The gilt dome of the state house (1792) is a city landmark.

    In 1679, Mahlon Stacy, an English Quaker, built a log mill and a house on the site of the modern city. The settlement was first known as The Falls, then as Stacy's Mills, and finally, in 1721, it was named Trenton for William Trent, a Philadelphia merchant who laid out the town. The city was the scene of a December 1776 battle between George Washington's soldiers and Hessian mercenaries during the American Revolution. In 1784 and again in 1799, Trenton served as the capital of the United States. The construction of the Delaware and Raritan Canal and the arrival of the railroad in the 1830s stimulated the city's growth.