Notable Bordentown Residents

Notable Bordentown Residents. Delaware River Heritage Trail. , Though never larger than a small village, a remarkable cross section of notable and influential people lived in Bordentown in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries., Leaders of the American Revolution who lived on Farnsworth Avenue included Joseph Borden, Joseph Kirkbride, and the multi talented Francis Hopkinson, signer of the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Paine, the influential writer who championed American independence, lived on Church Street., Hopkinson's son Joseph, a jurist and man of letters, was advisor to Bordentown's most unlikely resident, Joseph Bonaparte, elder brother of Napoleon. Bonaparte created one of the young nation's grandest estates between Park Street and Crosswicks Creek., Several artists have a Bordentown connection. Patience Lovell Wright (b. 1725), whose home is at this intersection, and her sister Rachel Wells were America's first female sculptors and international art entrepreneurs. Their popular wax figures were exhibited in America and abroad in the eighteenth century. Joseph Wright, son of Patience, was a successful portrait painter and engraver, maritime artist George Bonfield, folk artist Susan Waters and the Samuel Waugh family were among the artists living here in the nineteenth century., A prominent figure in New York's artistic and literary circles and a civic and educational reformer, Bordentown native Richard Watson Gilder was also a journalist, poet and one of the most influential magazine editors of the nineteenth century. Clara Barton launched her first charitable projet, one of the state's first free public schools, here in 1852. Barton later founded the American Red Cross.