Dr. William Bryant, who owned and lived in today’s Trent House from 1769 to 1778, is usually identified as a Loyalist. But was he? His story, and the stories of people he knew in Trenton, tells us much about how people in Trenton grappled with difficult decisions about which side to support in the American Revolution and how public and vigorous their support would be. This talk will explore Dr. Bryant’s life and examine the evidence often cited about his political affiliation?/stance?. Researching Dr. Bryant’s story illustrates how a “fact” sometimes requires reconsideration and how historians act as “detectives,” sorting through partial and often conflicting evidence to shed new light on a mystery.

Larry Kidder is well-known as an historian of the Revolutionary War and frequent speaker on the subject. His books include A People Harassed and Exhausted: The Story of a New Jersey Militia Regiment in the American Revolution, Crossroads of the Revolution: Trenton 1774-1783, Revolutionary Princeton 1774-1783: The Biography of an American Town in the Heart of a Civil War, and most recently, The Revolutionary World of a Free Black Man: Jacob Francis 1754-1836.