Tlie House from the Lane 
A RESIDENCE OF JOSEPH BONAPARTE’S 
By Edwin Bateman Morris 
A T the very southern end of Trenton, New Jersey, 
^ where the higher ground of the city suddenly 
falls away to the meadows beyond, there is a most 
curious promontory, locally known as Bow Hill, which 
juts out into the marsh-lands like a huge horseshoe. 
Right in the middle 
of this plump penin¬ 
sula is a veteran 
house which is a spec¬ 
imen of very divert¬ 
ing Colonial archi¬ 
tecture, whose chief 
claim to public atten¬ 
tion has been not so 
much on that account 
as by reason of hav¬ 
ing been for some 
time the residence of 
that ubiquitous 
Frenchman, Joseph 
Bonaparte, King of 
Spain, King of Na¬ 
ples, member of the 
Legion of Honor, 
Count de Survilliers, 
and numerous other 
things rather too or¬ 
namental and florid 
for New Jersey. The 
house was built in 
1785 out of bricks 
brought, as was the 
necessary custom in 
those days, from Eng¬ 
land and with sand 
(and this is an illustration of the fact that coals 
are sometimes carried to Newcastle) from Penn¬ 
sylvania. Bonaparte, who did not occupy the house 
until more than thirty years after it was built, kept it 
up then for the comfort and convenience of a certain 
Annette Savage, a 
pretty shop-girl, with 
whom he fell in love 
while in Philadelphia. 
He and Annette lived 
there for a long while 
and left many marks 
of their occupancy. 
One cannot help feel¬ 
ing the romance of 
the house on going up 
the winding stair and 
seeing scratched on 
one of the little square 
window-panes, “ Oh 
(rood niirht. ” Bona- 
parte was not an 
exemplary person, 
and the romance was 
by no means glori¬ 
ous; but it is inter¬ 
esting to see the wri¬ 
ting on the window- 
panes that Annette 
wrote with her ring— 
for there is more— 
in one place, “God 
is love,” in another, 
“Trust in the Lord,” 
scrawled up-hill 
THE BOX HEDGE AND THE FRONT DOOR 
243 
