Bridge over Assunpink Creek
A bridge has existed at the South Broad Street crossing of Assunpink Creek since around 1700. This location, the site of Mahlon Stacy's gristmill erected in 1679, is where historic Trenton first took root as an economic and industrial center. The first bridge, probably built of timber on stone abutments, was repaired numerous times before being entirely rebuilt in stone in the mid-1760s. That structure, the scene of intense fighting during the Second Battle of Trenton, suffered major damage from floods in the 19th century. The current bridge comprises an early 19th-century core, possibly with remnants of the mid-18th-century structure, flanked by masonry added in 1870. In the later 19th and early 20th centuries the bridge supported rows of three- and four-story residential/commercial buildings on either side of the street so that the stream crossing was all but invisible. This view, looking upstream shortly after 1870, shows a paper mill at right on the site and incorporating parts of the 18th-century gristmill. The large arch, partly visible at the far right, spanned the raceway carrying water power to a pair of textile mills further downstream; the smaller arch spanned the tail race from the paper mill. Upstream, beyond the main span of the bridge, is the mill dam.
[credit: photograph courtesy Trentoniana Collection, Trenton Public Library]