Where the College of New Jersey, as Princeton University was officially known until 1896, erected its first building at Princeton, the far-sighted trustees arranged what was long ago the largest stone structure in the Colonies. The records of early travellers on the road between Philadelphia and New York tell of their amazement at the wonderful building.

In 1756 the college abandoned its rooms in the First Presbyterian Church of Newark, New Jersey, and occupied the ambitious quarters in Princeton, which had cost about £2,900.

Originally the halls extended from end to end of Nassau Hall, a distance of one hundred and seventy-five feet. These long, brick-paved halls afforded students inclined to mischief wonderful opportunity to make life miserable for the tutors who were charged with their oversight. “Rolling heated cannon balls, to tempt zealous but unwary tutors, was a perennial joy,” writes Varnum Lansing Collins, in his book, “Princeton.” Then he adds the statement that at a later epoch there were wild scenes, “ when a jackass or a calf was dragged rebelliously up the narrow iron staircase, to be pitted in frenzied races with the model locomotive purloined from the college museum.” There was no provision for lighting the long halls, so the rollicking students were accustomed to fix candles to the walls with handfuls of mud. When a tutor was heard approaching, the candles would be blown out and he would be foiled in his attempt to identify the offenders. Sometimes barricades of cordwood were built hastily on the stairs or across the entrance to one of the halls.

In vain the authorities tried to correct these abuses by the passage of strict regulations. “No jumping or hollowing or any boisterous Noise shall be suffered, nor walking in the gallery in the time of Study,” was a regulation which could be made known far more easily than it could be enforced. Lest there be breaches of decorum inside the rooms, tutors were directed to make at least three trips a day to the quarters of the students, to see that they were” diligent at the proper Business.” They were to announce their coming to a room “by a stamp, which signal no scholar shall imitate on penalty of five shillings.” Should the occupant of the room refuse to open the door, the tutor had authority to break in. At a later date, students in Nassau Hall liked to have double doors to their rooms, so that the obnoxious tutor might be hindered in his efforts to force an entrance, long enough to give them opportunity to hide all evidence of wrongdoing.