At 354 Stockton Street, a short distance from the state capital of Trenton, your Drumthwacket serves as the official residence of the governor of the U.S. state of New Jersey. This is the mansion that Charles Smith Olden began to build in 1835 after returning to Princeton; he had been born on this land in 1799 and had made his fortune working for a mercantile firm in Philadelphia and later New Orleans. The house you see was enlarged in 1893 and again in 1900, then sold with its surrounding land to the state in 1966.
On June 10, 1975, Drumthwacket was added to the National Register of Historic Places for its significance in agriculture, architecture, commerce, landscape architecture, and politics, and in 1982 it was designated the governor’s mansion. Today the estate is administered by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and serves both as the executive residence and as a historic house museum. Picture the sweep of history on this ground, once owned by William Penn, then the Olden family homestead, and notice the mansion and grounds around it.