Mercer Oak

According to legend, he was unwilling to abandon his troops, and rested on the tree's trunk while they stood their ground.

[1] After a lightning storm in 1973 dropped a large branch of the original "Mercer Oak," Ned Brown, a local artisan cabinet fabricator from Skillman, NJ, had the insight to preserve some of the lumber.

The balance of the fallen branches were left in the hands of Princeton's Historical Society.

For public safety reasons, arborists cut off the remnants of the trunk the day after the tree fell.

In May 2000, an 8-foot sapling grown from a Mercer Oak acorn was planted inside the stump of the former tree.