Preserving Trenton's Connection to Our Colonial Past

When Edward A. Stokes gave his family's home, "Woodlawn," to the City of Trenton in 1929, he stipulated that it should be restored to its colonial appearance and used as a public institution. Fulfilling this condition required removing additions and exterior features that had made the house a Gilded Age Mansion. 

The October 6, 1929, Trenton Times Advertiser article reporting the gift was headlined "Trenton Historic Shrine Will Be Given to City for Museum or Library." 

The Architecture of Trent's House

William Trent had his country home built north of Philadelphia, in what was known as West Jersey, at what was known as the Falls of the Delaware in about 1719. It was a large, imposing brick structure, built in the newest fashion, and is an excellent example of an early Georgian house.  This architectural style is based on classical forms of the Italian Renaissance period and was the first architect-inspired style built in America, reflecting a period of growth and prosperity and a desire for more formally designed buildings. Construction followed building manuals called “pattern books” that began arriving in the colonies around 1700. Common features of Georgian style buildings include: a symmetrical form and window placement; multi-paned sliding sash windows; five bays with center doors and hall; hipped or side-gabled roof with dentilated or modillioned cornices; brick or stone walls with a water table and/or belt course; and a transomed window over a paneled front door.  These features are all found on the Trent House.

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​The interior has a central floor plan, with a large entry and staircase and four rooms on each floor, and is little altered, retaining its the original stairway and floor boards. The nine fireplaces and cellar kitchen hearth are all in good condition, with one fireplace on the second floor surrounded by its original Delft tiles.  ​

Analysis of building materials used in the Trent House indicates that the exterior walls are made of locally produced brick conforming to 1683 regulations on a foundation of fieldstone.  The dentilated roof is crowned by a hexagonal cupola with weather vane. Segmental arches over the main windows are of imported Dutch brick and pointing was sand and lime mortar. Structural and trim woodwork, both interior and exterior, is of oak and pine, with exterior paint in two layers – a reddish brown primer with high oil content on which was a white lead-in-oil finish paint. 

​The interior walls were plastered over oak plank and lath and then whitewashed. Window sashes and most hardware were imported. Wood paneling and trim were finished with a yellow/white semi-gloss oil, with baseboards and baseboard height accents on trim and doors painted in gloss black made of lamp black and linseed oil.

Substantial elements of the original house remain today, including this staircase, about 90 percent of the floors, brickwork in the fireplaces, Delft tiles around a second floor fireplace, and hand-hewn beams supporting the house. 

Existing examples of shutters, window seats, doors, and door hardware were used as models to replace missing features.

Using Trent's Probate Inventory

An inventory of a decedent’s property was typically taken within thirty days of a death in order to determine the estate.  Trent's probate inventory was conducted in April 1726, more than a year after his death, with an addendum one year later.  Click here to download a complete printer-friendly transcription of the inventory. The inventory itself is on file in the office of the Superior Court of New Jersey, State House Annex, contained in a bound volume filed as 1211-1216C, 1433-1448C.

When a greater period of time has elapsed between an individual’s death and the inventory (16 months, in Trent’s case), it suggests that the estate was contested – which was certainly the case of William Trent. Since William Trent died without a will, his estate was contested between his eldest son, James, and his widow, Mary Coddington Trent. Mary Trent’s possessions were inventoried separately by others and are listed at the end of the inventory.  Mary’s suit was successful and she received income in rents and mortgage payments from Trent’s mills and other property.  Click here to read more under "After Trent's Death". ​

​Eighteenth century inventories included household goods and personal possessions such as clothing and jewelry, real estate, cash, or bonds, tools of trade, shop inventories in the case of a merchant, livestock, outbuildings, farm implements, as well as people who were enslaved by or indentured to the decedent.  Trent’s probate inventory included information on eleven enslaved people of African descent - six adult men (Yaff, Julius, Bossin, Harry, Cupid, and Pedro), one adult woman Joan, two boys Bob and Dick, a girl Nanny, and a child Tom.  ​