FitzRandolph Gate

Nathaniel FitzRandolph, a member of one of the first families to settle in Princeton, owned several thousand acres of land in the surrounding area. FitzRandolph was fundamental in raising funds to locate Princeton University permanently in the area, and he donated the four and a half acres on which Nassau Hall was built in 1756. FitzRandolph and several of his close relatives were slave owners. An announcement in the New-York Mercury on May 13, 1765, noted the sale of two plantations owned by FitzRandolph, with one “negro man” listed among the household items for sale.

FitzRandolph Gate is the main gate to the Princeton University campus. It was designed by the firm of McKim, Meade, and White and erected in 1905 with funds bequeathed by Augustus Van Wickle in honor of his great-grandfather, Nathaniel FitzRandolph. The gate was only opened on special occasions until the class of 1970 ensured that it would stay open as a symbol of the “university’s openness to the local and worldwide community.”