Built in 1772, the Thomas Clarke House is the only surviving building in the park dating to the Battle of Princeton. After the battle, the Clarke family turned their home into a field hospital, giving aid and comfort to soldiers from both sides. The Clarkes were a third-generation Quaker farming family who owned much of the land around the battlefield. Thomas Clarke lived there with his sister Sarah and Susannah, a Black woman enslaved by the family, while his brother William Clarke lived on the adjacent farm. Though Quakers were peace-loving and many, including the Clarkes, believed in non-violence, the family sheltered in their root cellar on January 3, 1777, as fighting swept around the house. American reinforcements under Colonel John Cadwalader rushed past to support Brigadier General Hugh Mercer in the battle’s opening stage. On its small hill, the house and its outbuildings provided cover and served as an observation post and rallying point after Mercer’s retreat from the William Clarke Farm. As the fighting subsided, the property became a makeshift field hospital, and Hugh Mercer was among those treated there before dying of his wounds nine days later. Although Quakers were early advocates of abolition because of their belief in human equality, many communities were divided over slavery, and some families, including the Clarkes, continued enslaving people through the 18th century. Susannah was at the Thomas Clarke House during the battle and helped care for wounded soldiers afterward, and the Clarkes manumitted her in 1779.
