Trenton, New Jersey: The Trader Behind "Trent's-town"

New Jersey’s capital was first written “Trent’s-town,” after William Trent, a Philadelphia trader who bought the land on the Delaware in 1714. Before that, according to an 1834 gazetteer, the site was called Littleworth.

Littleworth, by the falls

Thomas F. Gordon’s Gazetteer of the State of New Jersey says the site of Trenton, “before it bore his name, was significantly called Littleworth.” That word “significantly” is Gordon’s, and you can tell he thought the name said something about the place.

John O. Raum, who wrote the city’s history in 1871, wasn’t so sure it was ever the town’s name. He’d read that the settlement got called Littleworth because floods in the river could wipe it out, but his “impression” was “that the inhabitants never recognized it as the name of the town.” Mahlon Stacy, one of the first buyers of land there, dated his letters of 1680 from “the Falls of Delaware.” The only paper trail Raum could point to was a record of two lots “being in Littleworth.” His best guess was that the name covered the low ground north of the Assunpink Creek, part of Stacy’s purchase.

A trader from Philadelphia

In August 1714, Stacy sold his 800-acre plantation on both sides of the Assunpink to “Col. Wm. Trent, of Philadelphia.” That’s how John W. Barber and Henry Howe tell it in their 1844 Historical Collections of the State of New Jersey. Trent had been speaker of Pennsylvania’s assembly for several years, and in September 1723 New Jersey’s assembly chose him as its speaker too.

Gordon calls him “an enterprising trader” who founded the town “a few years prior to 1720.” Henry Gannett’s 1905 government book on American place names boils it down to one line: Trenton was “named for Col. William Trent, speaker of the assembly.”

How it became Trent’s town

Raum’s account comes with an honest hedge. Trent bought the lot where the county later had its courthouse, and he supposedly gave it to the county, “though by what authority I know not, except it be tradition.” From there Raum makes a guess, and he labels it as one: “It is probable” that Trent made the gift around 1720, “and that as a compliment to him for the gift, the place was called Trenton, or as it was first written, Trent’s-town.”

So the man is clear and the name is clear. The exact moment people started calling the place after him isn’t written down anywhere Raum could find. The federal place-names database lists Trenton as the state capital since 1790, long after Trent was gone.

Three dates for one death

As it turns out, the old books can’t even agree on when Trent died. Barber and Howe say he died at Philadelphia on May 29, 1724. Gordon says December 29, 1724. Raum says December 25, 1724. If you ever need the date for a school project, you’ll have to pick a book, because each one states its date flatly.

Sources & further reading

• Henry Gannett, The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States, 2nd ed. (USGS Bulletin 258, 1905), p. 304. “Trenton; city in Mercer County, New Jersey, named for Col. William Trent, speaker of the assembly.”
• Thomas F. Gordon, A Gazetteer of the State of New Jersey (1834), pp. 250-254. The Trenton entry: founded “a few years prior to 1720, by William Trent, an enterprising trader,” speaker in both provinces; the site “before it bore his name, was significantly called Littleworth”; death on December 29, 1724.
• John W. Barber and Henry Howe, Historical Collections of the State of New Jersey (1844), p. 283. Stacy’s sale of 800 acres to “Col. Wm. Trent, of Philadelphia” in August 1714; Trent as speaker in Pennsylvania and, from September 1723, in New Jersey; death at Philadelphia, May 29, 1724.
• John O. Raum, History of the City of Trenton, New Jersey (1871), pp. 39-40, 44, 61, 68-69. Doubts about Littleworth as the town’s name, Stacy’s letters from “the Falls of Delaware,” the courthouse lot, the “Trent’s-town” spelling, and a death date of December 25, 1724.
• GNIS feature 884540 (U.S. Geological Survey). The federal record: capital of New Jersey since 1790.