thirty-six. In a line with this stands the coach and chaise house, fifty
feet by thirty-six. This is joined to the barn by a shed seventy feet in
length--the barn is two hundred feet by thirty-two. Very elegant fences
are erected around the mansion-house, the outhouses, and the garden.
When we view this seat, these buildings, and this farm of so many
hundred acres under a high degree of profitable cultivation, and are
told that in the year 1776 it was a perfect wilderness, we are struck
with wonder, admiration, and astonishment. Upon the whole, the seat of
Judge Gill, all the agreeable circumstances respecting it being
attentively considered, is not paralleled by any in the New England
States: perhaps not by any this side the Delaware."

Judge Gill was a very benevolent and enterprising man, and did much to
advance the welfare of the town in its infancy. During the first thirty
years of its existence, it increased rapidly in wealth and population,
having in 1790 one thousand and sixteen inhabitants. For the next
half-century it increased slowly, having in 1840 thirteen hundred and
forty-seven inhabitants. Since then, like all our beautiful New-England
farming-towns, it has fallen off in population, having at the present
time but little over one thousand people dwelling within its limits. Yet
neither the town nor the character of the people has degenerated in the
last century. Persevering industry has brought into existence in this
town some of the most beautiful farms in New England, and in 1875 the
value of farm products was nearly a quarter of a million dollars.
Manufacturing has never been carried on to any great extent in this
town. "In Princeton there are four grist mills, five saw mills, and one
fulling mill and clothiers' works," says Whitney in 1793. Now lumber and
chair-stock are the principal manufactured products, and in 1875 the
value of these, together with the products of other smaller
manufacturing industries, was nearly seventy thousand dollars.