A list of important historic sites in New Jersey.
Location: Atlantic City, Atlantic County
Relevant issues: Cultural history
Statement of significance: This hall is the remaining edifice that best recalls the city’s historic heyday as a seaside resort. It is the largest structure on the Boardwalk and is significant in the history of large-span structures, containing, when it was built, the largest room with an unobstructed view and the largest pipe organ in the world. It is also the scene of the Miss America pageant.
Location: 83 Norwood Street, Haledon, Passaic County
Relevant issues: Business and industry, political history, social reform
Statement of significance: On January 27, 1913, eight hundred workers at one of the largest silk mills in the silk manufacturing capital of the country walked off the job, in a dispute over job security, low wages, long hours, and poor working conditions. Soon, twenty-five thousand men, women, and children who worked in the mills also rebelled. From the balcony of this two-story rectangular block stone house, leaders of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, the “Wobblies”) rallied workers during the Paterson Silk Strike (1913), a salient event in the American labor movement.
Location: Elizabeth, Union County
Relevant issues: Political history
Statement of significance: Elias Boudinot (1740-1821), president of the Continental Congress (1782), purchased Boxwood Hall in 1772 and owned it until 1795. In that year, he sold it to Jonathan Dayton (1760-1824), the youngest signer of the Constitution, who was then Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. Dayton resided here until his death.
Location: Princeton, Mercer County
Relevant issues: Political history
Statement of significance: From 1897 until his death, Westland was the residence of Grover Cleveland (1837-1908), president of the United States (1885-1889, 1893-1897). Cleveland retired to this stucco-covered stone house at the end of his second term.
Location: Parsippany, Morris County
Relevant issues: Art and architecture
Statement of significance: Craftsman Farms is the former home and school of Gustave Stickley (1858-1942), one of the leaders of the Arts and Crafts movement in America. Established in 1908, the farm-school was in operation until 1915. Stickley produced a new architectural style and a strikingly simple kind of furniture that profoundly influenced taste at the beginning of the twentieth century. His belief in a simple design, natural materials, and careful craftsmanship gave a lasting legacy to American architecture, interior design, and aesthetics.
Location: Princeton, Mercer County
Relevant issues: Science and technology
Statement of significance: From 1936 until his death, this was the home of Albert Einstein (1879-1955), German-born theoretical physicist and Nobel Prize winner (1921). Einstein is best remembered for his achievements in three theoretical directions: the special theory of relativity, the general theory of relativity, and unified field theory.
Location: Red Bank, Monmouth County
Relevant issues: African American history, social reform
Statement of significance: From 1901 to 1915, this was the home of T. Thomas Fortune (1856-1928), the crusading African American journalist who articulated the cause of black rights in his newspapers at the turn of the twentieth century.
Location: Jersey City, Hudson County
Relevant issues: Business and industry
Statement of significance: From its beginnings in 1859 as a leather and tea importing business in New York to its position as the nation’s largest retailer by the mid-twentieth century, A&P outstandingly symbolizes every major phase of chain-store history in America. The A&P Warehouse is a little-altered, nine-story, reinforced concrete structure that between about 1900 and 1929 formed part of a manufacturing and distribution center for the New York-New Jersey-Long Island area.
Location: Haddonfield, Camden County
Relevant issues: Science and technology
Statement of significance: Discovered by William Parker Foulke in October, 1858, Hadrosaurus foulkii Leidy was the first relatively complete dinosaur skeleton found in North America, and, in fact, anywhere in the world. Realizing the spectacular nature of his find, Foulke called upon Dr. Joseph Leidy and Isaac Lea of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia for assistance in evaluating the fossils. Presentation of this discovery to the scientific world revolutionized the understanding of dinosaurs.
Location: Manchester Township, Ocean County
Relevant issues: Aviation history, disasters and tragedies
Statement of significance: Commissioned in 1921, Lakehurst Naval Air Station became the hub of naval lighter-than-air activity; it was the home port for the Navy’s rigid airships Shenandoah, Los Angeles, Akron, and Macon. In addition, it was the only stopping place in the country for commercial airships, and, in 1937, was the scene of the crash of the German zeppelin Hindenburg.
Location: Princeton, Mercer County
Relevant issues: Science and technology
Statement of significance: This was the home of Joseph Henry (1797-1878), who did important research in the field of electromagnetism and served as the first secretary of the Smithsonian Institution (1846-1878) and president of the National Academy of Sciences (1868-1878). Henry lived in this two-story brick house while he taught (1832-1846) at what became Princeton University.
Location: Holmdel, Monmouth County
Relevant issues: Science and technology
Statement of significance: The Horn Antenna, at the Bell Telephone Laboratories, is associated with the research work of two radio astronomers, Dr. Arno A. Penzias and Dr. Robert A. Wilson. In 1965, while using the Horn Antenna, Penzias and Wilson stumbled on the microwave background radiation that permeates the universe. This discovery–the most important in modern astronomy since Edwin Hubble demonstrated in the 1920’s that the universe was expanding–provided evidence that confirmed the big bang theory of the creation of the universe. In 1978, Penzias and Wilson received the Nobel Prize in Physics.
Location: Lawrenceville, Mercer County
Relevant issues: Art and architecture, education
Statement of significance: A rare, surviving example of the successful collaboration of architects and landscape planners, this school, which pioneered progressive education, retains its historic appearance as almost no other private school in the country. Designed by Peabody and Stearns of Boston and landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted on the English system of classrooms, residences, and dormitories placed around a central green, the campus effectively blends into and enhances the town that surrounds it.
Location: Freehold, Monmouth County
Relevant issues: Military history, Revolutionary War
Statement of significance: The Battle of Monmouth (June 28, 1778) marked the combat debut of the American Army after the hard winter’s training at Valley Forge. Here, on a hot summer day, George Washington’s troops attempted to disrupt British General Henry Clinton’s march to Sandy Hook following the British evacuation of Philadelphia.
Location: Princeton, Mercer County
Relevant issues: Political history
Statement of significance: Morven, a mid-eighteenth century Georgian residence, was the birthplace and home of Richard Stockton (1730-1781), a signer of the Declaration of Independence, lawyer, and judge. It served as the official residence of New Jersey’s governors between 1954 and 1982.
Location: Princeton University, Princeton, Mercer County
Relevant issues: Colonial America, education, military history, Revolutionary War
Statement of significance: Completed in 1756, Nassau Hall was the first important collegiate building of the Middle Colonies and served as the prototype of many subsequent colonial college structures. During the Revolution, it was used as a barracks and hospital and was the scene of the last British stand during the Battle of Princeton.
Location: Trenton, Mercer County
Relevant issues: Colonial America, military history, Revolutionary War
Statement of significance: This two-and-a-half-story fieldstone structure is the only surviving barracks of five erected by New Jersey’s colonial legislature to house troops during the French and Indian War. At different times during the Revolution, American and British soldiers and Hessian mercenaries were quartered here; Hessians were here on Christmas, 1776, when George Washington crossed the Delaware and surprised the Trenton garrison.
Location: Mt. Laurel Township, Burlington County
Relevant issues: Social reform, women’s history
Statement of significance: Paulsdale was the childhood home of Alice Paul (1885-1977), a leader in the woman suffrage movement and advocate of women’s rights. Paul’s strong Quaker upbringing influenced her views on the equality of the sexes and molded her for work she was to accomplish: securing passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920; drafting the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1920’s and working for its passage; and including the sex equality clause in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights.
Location: Princeton, Mercer County
Relevant issues: Military history, Revolutionary War
Statement of significance: George Washington’s victory here helped raise the morale of the colonists at a time when the Continental army had suffered a series of defeats. It is now a State Park.
Location: Princeton, Mercer County
Relevant issues: Political history
Statement of significance: From 1902 to 1911, this house, built in the Tuscan villa style, was the residence of Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924). Wilson lived at Prospect during a period significant both for his presidency of Princeton University and the beginning of his political career.
Location: National Park, Gloucester County
Relevant issues: Military history, Revolutionary War
Statement of significance: On October 22, 1777, Fort Mercer, an earthen fort erected to guard the river approach to Philadelphia, was successfully defended by Americans in the Battle of the Red Bank. Their victory delayed the opening of the Delaware River as a route of supply for General William Howe’s army, which had occupied Philadelphia on September 26.
Location: Sandy Hook, Monmouth County
Relevant issues: Naval history
Web site: www.nps.gov/history/maritime/sandyhk .html
Statement of significance: When erected in 1764, the tall, white structure at Sandy was the fifth lighthouse built in America, and today is the oldest standing light tower in the United States. Built of brick on a masonry foundation, it rises eighty-eight feet above the water.
Location: Rumson, Monmouth County
Relevant issues: Sports
Statement of significance: Seabright Lawn Tennis and Cricket Club (organized in 1877 and incorporated in 1886) is the among the oldest continuously active tennis clubs in the country. Over the years, Seabright has been host to many of the best-known American and international amateur tennis players. The Seabright Invitational Tournament, held annually from 1884 to 1950, became a major event on the eastern U.S. tennis circuit and the traditional prelude to the national championships.
Location: Tenafly, Bergen County
Relevant issues: Social reform, women’s history
Statement of significance: From about 1868 to 1887, this two-story, white Victorian frame house was the residence of Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902), an early proponent, philosopher, and leader of the women’s rights movement. Stanton delivered the call for female suffrage at the Seneca Falls (New York) Convention of 1848.
Location: Camden, Camden County
Relevant issues: Literary history
Statement of significance: From 1884 until his death, this two-story, plain frame house was the home of Walt Whitman (1819-1892), the “Poet of Democracy.”