The University Archivist often gives tours of Mead Hall.
You Tube video here
(matthew insert his script here)
Much of the recent research into Mead Hall/ the Gibbons mansion has come out of the Theological School. A 2020 class session of Race, Place, and Privilege had an entire group of students research materials from the Gibbons Collection. Among those students, the one whom I've had the most contact with is Karen Mancinelli-Paige (kmancinellipaig@drew.edu), cc'd here. She shared some of her research:
1840 Census - 14 "free colored persons"
The 1840 Census has a page listing the inhabitants on the Gibbons Estate in Madison, NJ that year. The Internet Archive has a digitized version of this Census, from which the image below was taken
The entry for the Gibbons has a red rectangle around it. William Gibbons is the head of the family. There is a section in the right where "Free colored Persons" are to be numbered. In the entry, there are 6 males ages 10 to 23, one female under 10, 4 females aged 24-35, 1 female aged 36 to 54, and 2 females aged 55 to 100 [rather amazing, that]. That equals 14. People who aren't "free colored persons" are listed out the same way.