In the stagecoach days, Kingston, being on the great thoroughfare between New York and the South, was a favorite stopping place. In olden times in front of Withington's Inn and the Vantilburgh Tavern, there were seen halted at the same time nearly 50 stages loaded with about 400 passengers. Vantilburgh's Tavern was long known as a favorite stopping place for Washington and the governors of New Jersey in passing from the eastern towns to the State capital. It was at this village that Washington and his army, the day of the battle of Princeton, eluded the enemy in pursuit by filing off the main road to the left of the church while the British continued on to the New Brunswick Road thinking the American army had gone to that place to destroy their winter stores. Cranbury, partly in Monroe Township, was a village built on a single street, containing two Presbyterian churches, two academies, 73 dwellings, and about 600 inhabitants. Crossroads and Plainsborough were hamlets, the former containing 2 taverns, 2 stores, and about 15 dwellings; later, a store, a tavern, a grist mill and a few dwellings. [1]
John P. Wall and Harold E. Pickersgill, editors, History of Middlesex County New Jersey, 1664-1920, Volume I, Lewis Historical Publishing Company, Inc., New York, 1921