The Bow Hill mansion was built by Barnt De Klyn, (often written D'Klyn), a Boston-born descendant of French Huguenot nobility and his wife Mary van Zant, a Knickerbocker from Pearl Street, Manhattan.

De Klyn became wealthy selling textiles to the Continental Army during the American Revolution, and in the 1780s, acquired a large tract of land along the Delaware River outside of Trenton, New Jersey at a time where speculation was that Trenton, being midway between Philadelphia and New York City would be the nation's capital.

De Klyn and other speculators were crushed financially when the capital was decided to be built in what became Washington, DC, but by the time he had heard the news, he had finished constructing this mansion.

Among De Klyn's circle of friends was King Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon's older brother, who rented Bow Hill from De Klyn to house his American wife Annette Savage, while he was living in exile at Point Breeze in nearby Bordentown, New Jersey.

[3] Bonaparte rented Bow Hill for Annette, a Quaker from Philadelphia, until 1822, when they moved to another property in New York.