The home towns of Rutgers and Princeton even competed on the playing field of history before their colleges ever met on a football field on November 6, 1869. The September 30, 1946 Daily Home News reported, “Princeton’s original charter was granted by John Hamilton, acting governor of New Jersey, on October 22, 1746 [as the College of New Jersey]. The college did not immediately settle in Princeton. Its first sessions were held in the parsonage of its president in Elizabethtown; then it moved to Newark [in 1747]. Seeking a more rural location, it asked both New Brunswick and Princeton what inducements would be given for a change of location. But Princeton made a most generous offer and the college went there. The foundations of Nassau Hall were laid there in 1754, the beginning of the first college building in the state.”
For Rutgers, after a charter was granted in 1766 for “Queen’s College,” towns put in bids to host the new school. This time around, New Brunswick won with its land offer and was chosen over its other main competitor, Hackensack. Princeton is the fourth, and Rutgers the eighth, oldest of the nine Colonial Colleges in America.
