Trenton Makes
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Before Europeans came to the Falls of the Delaware, the land on which the Trent House now stands was the site of the production of tools and other items of everyday use by the Lenape and their ancestors. They made axes, knives, scrapers, and projectile points for spears and arrows from stone by a process now known as flintknapping as well as pottery from clay. While clay was found locally, trade with other native peoples brought stone for tool making to the area. Stones that were sourced from Maryland have been found in New Jersey sites, showing that groups of people from each region traded with each other. Click on the image to the right to read a booklet on making stone tools by the process of flintknapping. |
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Trenton's history as a center of machine-powered industry began with the grist mill built by Mahlon Stacy on Assunpink Creek at the Falls of the Delaware where he settled in 1679. Mahlon Stacy was the first European colonist to establish production powered by mechanics here. After Trent bought property that extended on both sides of the Creek after Stacy’s death, he expanded the grist mill and added a saw mill, fulling mill, bakehouse, and iron works. He also acquired 200 acres south along the Delaware River for ease of transporting his products to the Philadelphia market.
During the colonial period Trenton included tanning, metal toolmaking, and pottery and brickmaking among its industrial enterprises. By the middle of the 19th century, other industries were added, including rubber, steel, and porcelain production and Trenton experienced its heyday of economic growth in the 1880s into the early 20th century. By the 1950s the industrial sector in Trenton had dwindled.
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While a number of economic and social factors led to the decline of manufacturing in Trenton in the second half of the 20th century, Trenton still proudly displays its iconic slogan on the Lower Trenton Bridge. “Night view west toward the Trenton Makes Bridge from the east bank of the Delaware River in Trenton, Mercer County, New Jersey,” September 19, 2023 (Famartin, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons). |
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RESOURCES:
A History of Trenton 1679 to 1929: Two Hundred and Fifty Years of a Notable Town with Links in Four Centuries
CHAPTER X Industries and Trades by John H. Sines
https://trentonhistory.org/trenton-history/a-history-of-trenton-1679-1929/
www.mercercounty.org/community/history/beginning-of-an-industrial-giant
Social History of Economic Decline: Business, Politics, and Work in Trenton (1989) by John T. Cumbler
"The Social Cost of Deindustrialization: Postwar Trenton, New Jersey" (2024) by Patrick Luckie
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