Gallery
The Gallery at the Old Barracks offers periodic exhibits that relate to Colonial New Jersey and the American Revolution. Past gallery exhibits have focused on the Battle of Trenton, Hessians in America, women's roles in historic preservation, and on selections from the museum's collection of antiques and artifacts.
Gallery Exhibit Tours are designed to supplement school tours and other programs at the Old Barracks. The process of viewing and discussing the exhibit triggers critical thinking about the objects and the time in history in which they were made and used.
Exhibits
Old Barracks Museum Announces
"All Is Threatened and Endangered...:
New Jersey and the French & Indian War"
The Trenton Barracks was built in 1758 by the colony of New Jersey and served as winter quarters for British "regulars" returning from fighting in campaigns in the frontier regions of the French and Indian War in response to colonists' discontent with the forced quartering of troops in private homes. Celebrating the 250th anniversary of the building of the Barracks, the Old Barracks Museum is mounting an exhibit exploring New Jersey's little known, yet, extraordinary role in the vast conflict for empire. The exhibit will examine the building of the five barracks to house British "regulars" during the winters in Perth Amboy, Elizabethtown, Trenton, New Brunswick and Burlington. Petitions of New Jerseyans to their colonial Legislature requesting barracks to be built and photographs from the early 20th century of the Trenton Barracks before its restoration and the Perth Amboy Barracks before its destruction will be displayed.
The exhibit examines the role of the Lenape/Delaware people of New Jersey and nearby Pennsylvania in the French & Indian War. An original Lenape dugout canoe and excavated Lenape tools and pipes will be displayed. Trentonian, William Trent's relationship with the Delawares will be examined. His embroidered waistcoat made for him for an appearance at the Court of St. James after his defense of Fort Pitt in 1763 will be presented.
The far-flung campaigns of the New Jersey regiment, the famous "Jersey Blues", who were engaged in more fighting than virtually any of the many Provincial regiments, including Washington's, will be detailed. Exhibited will be an original powder horn, an engraved "Zophar Ephraim Squier, Oswego, 1756"; the portrait of Jersey Blues' Colonel Peter Schuyler; an original woven red silk officer's sash along with an original officer's fusil and red wool officer's waistcoat with rich silver trim similar to that worn by Schuyler in his portrait; reproduced paintings, by artist Domenic Serras, of the Jersey Blues 1762 expedition against Havana, Cuba; and a Spanish bronze, 4 pounder cannon that was captured at Havana.
Additional displays include: maps showing the locations of numerous forts in the Upper Delaware county; examples of original weapons, ceramics and period NJ ephemera; the only surviving "Pine Tree Flag" which is among the third or fourth oldest surviving flags of any type in North America or the British Isles; lifelike mannequins depicting a private soldier of the Jersey Blues, a private soldier of the 2nd Battalion, 1st Regiment of Foot, and a Delaware warrior; and the individual names of the many Jersey Blues killed or captured at Oswego in 1756, Sabbath Day Point and Fort William Henry (depicted in the "Last of the Mohicans") in 1757.
The French & Indian War Exhibit was made possible due to a Special Project grant awarded to the Old Barracks from the New Jersey Historical Commission, a division in the Department of State; a Special Project grant in part by the Mercer County Cultural and Heritage Commission through funding from the Mercer County Board of Chosen Freeholders; and generous donations from the Society of Colonial Wars in New Jersey along with private individual donations.
