REVOLUTIONARY WAR SITES IN HAMILTON, NEW JERSEY

John Abbott II House
2200 Kuser Rd.
Map / Directions to the John Abbot II House
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(609) 585-1686

Hours:
Saturday and Sunday: Noon - 5 p.m.


The John Abbott II House was built circa 1730. The house has a very interesting Revolutionary War story.  The following is from Helen Almy West's history of Hamilton Township:

"It was in the latter part of the year 1776, and the British were advancing upon Trenton. Samuel Tucker, the State Treasurer, hearing of the British advance, wanted to save the State's money and his own. On November 30, 1776 he took his personal effects and those of the estates of which he was executor, along with the unsigned public money, to the home of John Abbot. The British arrived in Trenton on December 3, 1776, and on that day Mr. Tucker took the signed public money amounting to more than fifteen hundred pounds, and a thousand pounds he held in trust, and secreted it with other moneys in the Abbott home.
The British were told of the hiding place by a Mrs. Mary Pointing, of Trenton, and she led a detachment of British troops, about five hundred strong, to the house of John Abbott. They raided the house and captured Tucker's black trunk, containing deeds, etc. and the unsigned paper money.
When the British arrived at the house, the family pretended they were getting ready to move, and they had placed the money in the bottom of tubs, and over it placed dishes and broken household utensils of various kinds and carried them to the cellar. The soldiers ransacked the house from top to bottom, found the tubs, but were heard to mutter that they contained nothing but 'old trumpery' and did not search them. The soldiers took Tucker's trunk with his papers and the unsigned 'shin plasters' but did not get the money.
Several days after this raid Samuel Tucker was returning to his family Trenton when, near White Horse, he was met by twenty mounted Tories. Their leader, John Leonard, pointed a pistol at Tucker's breast and told him he had orders from the British to take him prisoner. Robert Pearson, twin brother of Isaac Pearson, appeared at the scene and gave his parole that Tucker should stay with him until he was wanted by the British." [1]

The plaque on the house reads:
"Isaac Pearson House - Built 1773. Elected Nottingham Tax Collector in 1763, Isaac Pearson later served as a justice of the peace, freeholder, township clerk and delegate to the NJ Provincial Congress. Two days after the Battle of Trenton, in 1776, Isaac Pearson was murdered. Some accounts say he was murdered during a robbery; others say he was murdered for not fully supporting the cause of Independence." [2]
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The sign reads:
"Sandtown Road - using a ruse, on the night of January 2, 1777, the patriot army stole away from Trenton and marched to Princeton by this road." [3]
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