Prospect Heights elementary was renamed the Alfred Reed School in 1920.
Remembering Alfred Reed: Ewing native and mayor of Trenton
The next name in our survey of “the name behind the school” is that of Alfred Reed, another Ewing native who rose to prominence in the 19th century.
He was born in December of 1839 on (Old) Ewingville Road, on the old Reed family homestead. The farm consisted of approximately 150 acres that had been passed down through the family since 1700, the time of his great-great-grandfather William Reed, and the first settlers to the area.
The original building on the land dates to c. 1705, and still stands nearby. The larger family homestead, which came to be known as Reed Manor, was built several hundred yards away in the late 1700’s, and had several additions made to it during the 1800s.
Young Alfred attended the best schools in the area — the Lawrenceville School and the Trenton Academy. He briefly attended Rutgers College in 1859, but soon decided to attend Poughkeepsie Law School in NY State. In 1862 he was admitted to the NY State Bar.
Two years later in 1864, he returned to the Trenton area, and was admitted to the NJ Bar Association as an attorney, and in 1867 as a counselor. He lived and maintained a law practice in Trenton for several years. Both Rutgers and Princeton universities eventually bestowed upon him honorary doctorate degrees in law.
Reed was evidently a man respected for his leadership and decision-making by both colleagues and the electorate. Shortly after his return to the Trenton area, Reed became a member of the Common Council (or city council) of Trenton. In 1866 he was selected to be the president of the council, and in 1867, at the ripe old age of 27, he was elected as mayor of the City of Trenton! In the same year, he was appointed as a lay judge in Mercer County. He served in the office of Mayor of Trenton for only one year, declining further nominations.
However, his service to the community was far from over. In 1869, he was appointed as the first president of the Mercer County Court of Common Pleas, serving the residents of Mercer County in this capacity for five years. In 1875, at age 35, he was appointed to serve for a full term of seven years as an associate justice on the New Jersey Supreme Court, becoming the youngest justice to serve. At this point he gave up his law practice, and continued to serve the state as judge of the First District Supreme Court via reappointment for the next 20 years.
In 1895, Justice Reed became vice chancellor within the Court of Chancery. He served as vice chancellor for nearly 10 years, resigning in 1904 to serve once again on the bench of the N.J. Supreme Court, where he served until 1911.
Judge Reed was a popular and eloquent speaker, and was active in the community as a member of various organizations and social clubs. He married Rosalba Souder of Trenton in August of 1878, and they had two children, Edyth Hepburn and Alfred Donald.
A few years later in 1881, upon the death of Judge Reed’s uncle, Levi, the Reed Manor in Ewing was bequeathed to Judge Reed. It had previously passed to his father’s brother in 1849 upon the death of Alfred’s father, George. Alfred Reed was back home.
But Reed’s life had its personal trials, too. His father had died when he was young, and his son, Alfred Donald, was tragically killed in an automobile accident on River Road near the Ewing/Trenton border in January of 1912, at the age of 22.
It is possible that this tragedy contributed to Judge Reed’s decision to sell the family homestead, because in April of 1912 he sold it to Harriet Fisher (the Trenton woman who had just made history driving around the world — see July’s column!), who soon renamed the property “Bella Vista.” Sadly, that home was demolished a few years ago.
Judge Reed died in December of 1918, just days shy of his 80th birthday, and is buried in the Ewing Church cemetery. In 1920, the Ewing Board of Education decided to rename the Prospect Heights elementary school, located not far from the former Reed Manor, the “Alfred Reed School,” in honor of this Justice, Trenton mayor, and respected Ewing son.
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