To the Editor:

In my recently published booklet called the Story of Maxwell Lane, I showed that the name “Maxwell’s Field,” applied to a portion of the Institute for Advanced Study’s (IAS) land contested by the Princeton Battlefield Society (PBS), was historically impossible. Mr. Robert Maxwell bought and moved into the property in 1925. His purchase included the whole area housing the Battlefield and the Institute campus, from the southwest side of Princeton Pike down to the Delaware and Raritan Canal. This vast property was known as Mercer Manor, defined and named by Job Olden when he bought it from his father in the 1830s. As far as I know the term “Maxwell’s Field” was first used (invented, I believe) by the PBS in its polemics against the IAS. Happily the dispute between the IAS and the PBS is now resolved. However, the incorrect nomenclature lives on. In his statement announcing the territorial resolution, the Institute’s director used the discredited title “Maxwell’s Field,” and now the Town Topics article, “Surprise Accord Ended Battlefield Strife,” published on January 11, used it more than once. It is a small point, but then scholarship is comprised of small points brought together to make up historical truth.

Marilyn Aronberg Lavin

Maxwell Lane