New Brunswick Barracks

During the winters of 1756 and 1757, the Crown forced colonists to house British troops. The soldiers were often ill and required more than just food and shelter.  In the winter of 1757 over 600 sick troops lived in private homes between Perth Amboy, Newark, and Elizabeth.  In 1756, the mayor, recorder, and alderman of New Brunswick petitioned the General Assembly for relief of the “difficulties involved in quartering troops in their homes.”  In April 1758, the New Jersey General Assembly voted to construct five barracks.  These facilities were in Perth Amboy, Elizabeth, New Brunswick, Burlington, and Trenton.  Only the Trenton barracks survived to the present.  

The 26th Regiment, known as the Cameronians, quartered in the New Brunswick barracks from 1767 to May 1779.  The New York Gazette and Weekly Mercury reported on July 3, 1769 that, “The troops made a fine appearance and went through their exercise with the greatest exactness and dexterity to the entire satisfaction of his Excellency [General Gage] and a number of Gentlemen assembled on the occasion.” The Trenton barracks features 24 small plastered rooms 16ft square, each with two windows and an open fireplace.  Twelve to sixteen soldiers occupied each room.  The New Brunswick barracks likely had similar living quarters.    

Several prominent travelers noted the location of the New Brunswick barracks. In 1759 Reverend Andrew Burnby stated New Brunswick was “…a small city of about a hundred houses…where there [is] also a very neat barracks for three hundred men.” In 1774, John Adams described the barracks as “…tolerably handsome.” 

The barracks were no longer needed after the Revolutionary War, and the General Assembly sought a new purpose for the buildings.  In June 1783, citizens of Middlesex County asked the General Assembly to renovate and occupy the barracks as a county courthouse and jail, “…until such time as the publick shall require use of them.”  The Assembly granted their petition, and by November, the Sheriff of Middlesex County became the Assembly’s appointed barracks commissioner.  In 1786, the state sold all five barracks to help settle accumulating war debt. Middlesex County purchased the building to continue using it.  By 1796, the county rented rooms out of the barracks.  In the fall of 1796 a fire, reportedly started in some flax, destroyed the New Brunswick barracks.  The local newspapers reported that an arsonist potentially started the fire.  The replica at the East Jersey Old Town Village stands as a memorial to the critical regional role the barracks played.