Part of Kingston Mill District.

This house is the earliest European settlement in the Princeton area, built in 1683 by the surgeon Henry Greenland. Greenland, a notorious political agitator, was widely known for starting brawls. Before he purchased 400 acres here on the Millstone River, he had also lived in Massachusetts and Maine, and his antics once got him banished from a community in the latter state.

Greenland and his wife Mary ran a tavern out of this house and kept a hog farm on the property. Also listed among their possessions was one “Engen [Indian] gal.” It was not uncommon for colonial Americans to hold enslaved native people as property. It is estimated that between 2 and 5.5 million Native Americans were captured and sold into slavery in New England and elsewhere in the colonies.

After Greenland and his son-in-law Daniel Brinson (see The Barracks) both died within a year, the property went to Brinson’s 10-year-old son Barefoot, in care of Barefoot’s mother and Greenland’s daughter, Frances. Barefoot was named for Greenland’s equally disruptive close friend from Massachusetts, who at one time helped Greenland escape prison after a fight. Barefoot Brinson grew up to be Sheriff of Somerset and Middlesex Counties and lived here until his death. In 1797, Major John Gulick purchased the property and started his own farm.

Original Sections: portions of the western wing, originally built at one-and-a-half stories, now largely hidden by the Victorian bay window

Present Use: private residence