Colonial and Revolutionary Bridges

Editor of The Weekly,

Princeton, N.J.

Dear Sir: On a beautiful, cool, crisp day last August (the kind of a day one would naturally expect in the frosty month of October rather than August), my wife and myself visited the famous Concord Bridge in Massachusetts, made famous by the splendid and spirited fight the American farmers put up against the trained British soldiery. 

Before visiting the bridge we took our lunch at the same inn where the British Major Pitcairn stopped to mix his toddy, and, while engaged in stirring his toddy, he also remarked, “To-day we will stir the Yankee blood.”

Well! I do not think that any of the descendants of the brave Major will deny that the Yankee blood was effectually stirred, for hardly a man of his original command reached Boston alive and, had it not been for Lord Percy, with a heavy reinforcement and considerable artillery, there would probably not have been left a single man to tell the tale. As it was, the survivors all came in with swollen tongues hanging out of their mouths, pretty much the same as a pack of exhausted hounds. 

The first time I saw this bridge the original timbers, or a portion thereof, were still standing, but they have now replaced the old bridge with an exact model in concrete to be preserved for all time. 

Just across the bridge and facing it stands the Minute Man in bronze, one hand on his plow and the other grasping his trusty flintlock. It makes a fine picture, and the bridge and scene are preserved. 

Now I have seen quite a number of Colonial and Revolutionary bridges, but I have yet to see a finer specimen than the one at our very door.

I refer to the fine stone arched bridge over Stony Brook, on the threshold of the Princeton Battlefield. It is a splendid bridge and equally worthy of fame with the Concord Bridge. Instead of the Minute Man we could have a Continental Soldier in bronze kneeling and firing at the approaching British. It would look just as well as the other, and he has just as good a right to be there.

So much for the bridges–now about the Revolutionary moment in town.

I do not know yet if they have settled upon a design, but what could possibly be grander or more in keeping with the spot than an equestrian statue of General Mercer, in full Continental uniform, who gave up his life on this very battlefield. One monument, more or less, will not add one jot or title to the reputation of General Washington, and besides, General Mercer was killed at Princeton. 

The only thing I know of in his honor at Princeton is a little street and an engine company named after him–not much to get killed for.

Those who have visited the battlefield at Gettysburg and seen there the splendid equestrian statues in bronze of Reynolds, Slocum and Hancock could ask for nothing better,

Or you can go nearer home and see Slocum in bronze on horseback in front of Prospect Park, Brooklyn, making a magnificent sky-relief at the head of the street. This would be the effect, if General Mercer were placed on horseback at the head of Nassau Street.

Yours sincerely,

W. A. Coursen ‘81