Old Barracks Museum

I’d like to continue on with our New Jersey visit as there just wasn’t enough room the last time:). So here’s the details for our tour of the Old Barracks Museum. For those of you who missed my last post, my mom and I attended The Association for Living History, Farm, and Agricultural Museum’s (ALHFAM) Mid-Atlantic Skills Workshop in downtown Trenton, NJ. Quite the mouthful. While there, we were introduced to some places that definitely deserved a return visit.

One of the spots we spent the most time at was the the Old Barracks Museum. This u-shaped building was constructed with local stone in 1758 as housing for soldiers during the winters of the French and Indian War. Prior to its creation, the residents of Trenton, along with other major population centers, were required to host soldiers themselves.

But this new building was designed to hold 300 men in its 20 rooms. An officers’ house was added onto one side, providing much more spacious accommodations for the higher-ups. While participating in the workshops, we actually spent the night in one of the bunk rooms! As an aside, the top bunks are rather high, with no ladders. Getting up either requires some height, strength, or a window ledge. But we were told that there wouldn’t have been ladders there originally.

After we had spent the night, we took a workshop that included a tour of the Old Barracks. We began on one of the porches that run along the front of the building. Our guide gave us some pointers on how to make a site tour memorable, then proceeded to give us a background on the stone structure.

Then we filed into one of the squad rooms (not the one we slept in!), that was furnished with various period items. Straw ticks (mattresses) lay on the beds, while guns were lined up at the end of a bed. Coats, satchels, and hats we draped over bunks and pegs, with a small card table squeezed into the space as well.

There were three bunks with two beds apiece. Twelve to eighteen men would have shared the room! But compared to their quarters the rest of the year, the soldiers were living in luxury: walls, floor, ceiling, warmth, and good food were all included. 

You might look at the wooden beds and think they appear a little short for our modern standards. However, lie down and they are pretty comparable to what we sleep in now. Our guide wanted to point out that people weren’t necessarily shorter then. Height is directly related to how well fed people have been over the generations. In 18th America, the population as a whole (going back to Britain as well) had access to the food they required. As an example, George Washington himself was 6’4″! If you’d like to learn more about this, check out my link at the bottom of the post.

Continuing on, we found ourselves in the officers’ quarters, moving through a more modern fire door to avoid the rain. Immediately, it becomes apparent that the officers were living in much better conditions than the soldiers. Each had a room to himself, along with a communal dining room.

Here our guide took a moment to remind us what it was like to be a colonial British subject before the American Revolution occurred. As British subjects, they would have considered themselves some of the freest people in the world. Discussing politics was completely permissible, newspapers with wildly varying ideas and opinions were published daily, and citizens ate meat no matter if they were rich or poor.

Colonists celebrated the king’s birthday how we celebrate the 4th of July now. They viewed themselves as happy, loyal, English citizens. Compared to France and Spain, England was definitely the superior nation of liberty.

Prior to the French and Indian War, the colonists lived in a state of salutary neglect. But the war caused the British Empire to go into debt, and they wanted the colonies to help pay it back. So they imposed taxes on the colonists. However, there was no representation for them in parliament.

An uproar of British subjects fighting for their rights of representation as citizens of the crown succeeded. Before the Declaration of Independence, there was no war for independence, but that document completely changed the course of the revolution. Now it was Whigs against Tories, and Continentals against Redcoats.

At its beginning, the Old Barracks were utilized by the English, who stayed there until around October/November of 1776. In 1777, the Barracks became a recruitment center and medical hospital for the Continentals. Medical treatments included small pox inoculations, which sickened the patient with a weak strain of the disease, protecting them from the deadly strain. Our guide reminded us that though some of their methods may seem primitive or horrific (e.g. bloodletting) to us now, we must remember that they were just doing the best they could with what they had. We do the same in the 21st century. Future generations may look back on chemo with disgust, but it’s the best we have at the moment. Making sure we don’t view the people of the past as just stupid is important.

Finishing the tour in one of the museum’s exhibit galleries, we were told the structure’s latter history. When the war was over, all the furniture was sold in 1783. The next year, the building was auctioned off for apartments. Then in 1792, the Barracks was cut in two, in order to allow Front Street to pass through the middle. This act also was symbolic, as it destroyed a building that was an emblem of the old empire’s power.

Later on, the Barracks hosted different crowds during its service as a boarding school, mayor’s residence, women’s society, and more. 1902 marked the year that the Daughters of the American Revolution purchased the building for historic purposes. In 1914, the state of New Jersey bought half of the structure. Eventually, the Barracks was restored, with a new mid-section, and opened as a museum.

Today, the Old Barracks Museum is a wonderful place to visit. Explore their detailed representations of what a bunk room would look like while in use, multiple exhibits, and living history interpreters, including a skilled tailor! The beautiful, stone and red-trimmed barracks are certainly a delightful destination.