Remarkable For His Industry: William Richards, Trade & Manufactory in Revolutionary Trenton
Trenton was the target of Washington's famous crossing of the Delaware on Christmas night, 1776. Occupied by British and Hessians on December 8th, 1776, it was, for perhaps a little over an hour, on the morning of December 26th, the scene of one of the most iconic events of the American Revolution. A week later, on January 2nd, 1777, it would see combat again before Washington skillfully withdrew around the British and successfully fell upon their rear guard at Princeton on the morning of January 3rd, 1777.
Other than brief mentions of it being a town of 1,000 souls and maybe 100 structures, little else is usually recorded in popular retellings of those battles. This exhibit will let you visit that little town at the head of navigation on the Delaware. Archeological digs required by the New Jersey Department of Transportation in anticipation of the construction of the Route 29 tunnel in 2000, provide us with a marvelous window onto the commercial life of Revolutionary Trenton through the businesses of one, previously little-known, middling businessman named William Richards.
From the mid-1760's to the mid-1780's, Richards, a decidedly "second tier" businessman behind more well known entrepreneurs like Furman, Coxe, Yard, and Hunt, operated a commercial fishery, stoneware pottery, cooperage, bread bakery, a large store, and a schooner that plied between Trenton and Philadelphia. He was also invested in ocean-going and coastal shipping operations, and apothecary shop in Philadelphia, and the overland carriage trade. He was also a small-scale owner of slaves. Although his relatives living in Bergen County had sided with the British, Richards himself supported the Revolution, serving as "Ships' Husband", responsible for the proper outfitting of the 57 vessels of the Pennsylvania Navy. As such he played a small and unwitting part in what would later become the "Betsy Ross" mythology.
Although his enterprises did not survive his death, through them, and our examination of the other Trenton businesses with which he interacted or competed, we can see how Trenton would earn its later motto, Trenton Takes, the World Takes.
With the generous financial assistance and encouragement of the New Jersey Historical Commission our exhibit is planned to run until July of 2008, allowing us to invite two semesters of New Jersey schoolchildren to explore the Trenton they've heard about simply as the setting for Washington's most famous battle. We have engaged the services of a practicing, middle-school teacher to help us prepare special student packets to challenge students to explore the exhibit while here, and pre-visit packets for their teachers that will help them incorporate their visit into their curriculum and lesson plans. We have already "tested" the basics of the associated school program with some 10 school groups, ranging from 4th through 8th grades.
Using excavated materials, they will note how healthy the fish population of the River was at the time, early Trentonians were taking sturgeon as long as 8 ft. out of the Delaware;
Using excavated materials visitors will note how as early as the 1770's, Trenton was producing world class ceramics. We have filled three large and one small exhibit cases with mended, recovered pottery shards as well as reproduced forms based on them. We have produced a line of 8 stoneware forms, from tankards to chamber pots for sale in our museum shop. The excavated pottery was made available to us through a generous loan from the New Jersey Department of Transportation.
To illustrate that late 18th century Trenton were trading with virtually the entire World , we have used a 1781 newspaper ad, listing nearly 100 different items for sale in Richards' s Lamberton store to recreate a semblance of that store and nearly all the items he offered for sale.
We engaged Hunter Research to help us create a 2 1/2' by 5' map of 18th century Trenton and Lamberton superimposed on a 21st century aerial photograph, and identifying virtually all businesses and manufactories extant in those two communities from approximately 1765 to 1785. This map is placed near the beginning of the exhibit and places Richards' businesses in their contemporary, commercial milieu.
To represent Richards' pair of large, masonry, bake ovens found nearly intact by Hunter research in 2000, we have constructed a highly detailed, 1" to 1' scale model of them for display along with enlarged photos of the excavated ovens in situ, along with text explaining (from our experience in large scale bread baking in our own, full scale, recreated, wood-fired bake oven) what it took to prepare and bake 100+ lbs. of bread in such ovens.
The exhibit is expected to run until July of 2008.
