Trenton, NJ

For nearly eight weeks in 1784, Trenton served as the United States capital; today it is New Jersey’s capital and the Mercer County seat. A 2022 federal estimate placed the city’s population at 89,661. The area’s earlier inhabitants included the Lenape’s Axion band along the Delaware River. On December 25–26, 1776, George Washington’s army crossed the river and defeated Hessian troops at Trenton. The city later became a major manufacturing center for rubber, wire rope, ceramics, and cigars, adopting its industrial slogan in 1917. Surviving civic sites include the state’s last colonial barracks, used by both Continental and British forces, and the 1848 Italianate Ellarslie Mansion, home of the Trenton City Museum since 1978. Shiloh Baptist Church, founded in 1888, is the city’s oldest African American church. The Trenton Transit Center is also the northern terminus of the River Line to Camden.