Charles Conrad Abbott, Archaeologist and Naturalist

Charles Conrad Abbott
ca.1900

Charles Conrad Abbott (1843-1919) was educated at the Trenton Academy and obtained his medical degree at the University of Pennsylvania. He never practiced medicine, however, and instead engaged in archaeology and natural history.

Abbott made his home along the bluff overlooking the marshlands south of Trenton and it was here that he unearthed man-made implements in the "glacial gravels" of the marsh. In The Stone Age in New Jersey, published in 1872, and Primitive Industry: or, Illustrations of the Handiwork, in stone, bone and clay, of the Native Races of the Northern Atlantic Seaboard of America, published in 1881, he noted that a cache of stone axes had been unearthed during the excavation of the receiving vault at Riverview Cemetery in 1859 and elsewhere along the bluff about the same time.

As "assistant in the field" of Harvard University's Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, his collection of stone implements was placed in the museum in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and added to yearly until it reached some 20,000 specimens. The journal Science observed at the time that it was "one of the most important series of its kind ever brought together, and one which archaeologists will consult for all time to come."

James Francis Armstrong, Revolutionary War Soldier, Chaplain

Ledger marking the grave of
James Francis Armstrong (1750-1816)

James Francis Armstrong was born on April 3, 1750, in West Nottingham, Maryland. His father, an elder in the Presbyterian church, sent him to the academy of Rev. John Blair at Fagg's Manor near New Londonderry, Pennsylvania, for his preparatory education. He subsequently entered the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) from which he graduated in 1773, then pursued theological study under the college's president, Rev. Dr. John Witherspoon.

He was accepted as a candidate for the ministry by the Presbytery of New Brunswick at the beginning of the American Revolution, but the presence of British troops near the town necessitated his examination being transferred to the Presbytery of New Castle. Even so, he took up a musket and joined as a private in the First Regiment, Hunterdon County, New Jersey Militia, but was shortly thereafter ordained a minister and appointed a chaplain assigned to the Continental Army's Second Brigade, Maryland. He served to the end of the war.

Armstrong was minister to the church at Elizabethtown in 1782 and 1783, and it was there that he met and married Susannah Livingston, the service being conducted by Witherspoon. He became pastor for thirty years of the First Presbyterian Church in Trenton in 1786.

The Pen-and-Ink Drawings of George A. Bradshaw

A view of Riverview Cemetery
by George A. Bradshaw,
ca.1935

George A. Bradshaw (1880-1968), a Trenton native, was a noted etcher whose work focused on historic sites in Trenton and elsewhere in New Jersey, and city, land and seascapes in the northeastern United States and Canadian Maritimes. He began his studies at Trenton's School of Industrial Arts in 1915 and quickly mastered the art of drawing and etching. After graduating in 1921 he became an instructor there until his retirement in 1945.

He was a member of the Brooklyn Society of Etchers and its successor, the Society of American Graphic Artists, as well as the Chicago Society of Etchers, the North Shore Artists Association, and the Salmagundi Club.

Bradshaw provided the illustrations for, among others, A History of Trenton, 1629-1929, Two Hundred and Fifty Years of a Notable Town with Links in Four Centuries, a two-volume work published under the auspices of the Trenton Historical Society. The preface noted that in Bradshaw "Trenton possesses an artist whose pen-drawings and etchings have served to make his work favorably known beyond the confines of this locality."

He received many awards for his works which were widely exhibited across the nation, and was also recognized in "Fine Prints of the Year, 1929" for an interior of the chapel at Princeton University, and again in "Fine Prints of the Year, 1935" for an arch of the library of Princeton University.

Ginkgo biloba, or the Maidenhair Tree

Ginkgo biloba, a colored plate by
Philipp Franz von Siebold and
Joseph Gerhard Zuccarini, published
 in Flora Japonica in 1870

Highly regarded for its unusual foliage and brilliant fall color, the Ginkgo biloba, or the Maidenhair Tree, has been aptly described as an "ancient wonder." They disappeared from fossil records some two-and-one-half million years ago in Europe and seven million years ago in America, and were long thought to be extinct in the wild until two small populations were recently located in southwestern China. They were cultivated in China's temple gardens by monks for thousands of years, however, and were eventually brought to Japan about 800 years ago.

Engelbert Kaempfer, a German physician and botanist in the employ of the Dutch East India Company as a ship's surgeon, first observed the Ginkgo in Japan in 1690. His findings were published in Amoenitatum Exoticarum in 1712 and they provided the first extensive description of Japanese flora.

The tree was introduced to Europe at the Botanic Garden in Utrecht, Netherlands, in 1730, and the Kew Gardens in London in 1754, and later to America by William Hamilton who planted several specimens on the grounds of his country estate "The Woodlands" in Philadelphia in 1784. They were first offered for sale by American nurserymen David and Cuthbert Landreth in their 1811 catalogue as Salisburia adiantifolia, or Japanese Maidenhair Tree.

October 29, 2012: Hurricane Sandy

Trees felled by Hurricane Sandy
at Riverview Cemetery

One year ago today, October 29, 2012, Hurricane Sandy passed by Trenton, felling many trees and toppling or damaging numerous monuments here at Riverview Cemetery.

The storm made its trek up the Eastern Seaboard, making landfall south of Atlantic City and devastating the Jersey Shore. The effects of the storm were felt 500 miles from the storm's center, with Trenton reporting a record-setting barometric pressure low of 958 mb, and the accompanying heavy rains and strong winds easily felled trees that were still in full leaf.