Bordentown City

Lock #1 (Bordentown Outlet Lock) of the D&R Canal at the mouth of Corsswicks Creek, c.1910.

Bordentown, NJ  |  View Map Although its total area is less than one square mile, the small city of Bordentown holds a significant place in the cultural and commercial history of New Jersey. Located between Trenton and Philadelphia on a bluff overlooking a bend in the Delaware River, Bordentown has long been a transportation hub. […]

Burlington & Transportation History

Steamboat Twilight leaving the docks at Burlington. Credit: Herman T. Costello Collection

Burlington, NJ The recreational boats and commercial barges moving up and down the Delaware River offer little hint of the important role that the river has played in the life of Burlington. Long before the first rudimentary roads or railroads were established, the Delaware River was the primary conduit for trade and settlement, and the […]

Griffin Pipe Products Company, Florence Twp.

Circa 1890 photograph of original pipe foundry at Florence N.J. Credit: Hagley Museum and Library

1100 West Front Street, Florence, NJ  |  View Map The Griffin Pipe Products Company site has a long history. Since the late 1850s, this location has been home to leading iron product manufacturers. These iron products, especially pipes, were necessary for the safe, reliable handling of drinking water and sewage. These pipes have played a […]

Roebling Village Historic District

Main (#1) gate to Kinkora Works, c.1920 The gatehouse has been restored as part of the environmental remediation at the plant site and is now a museum. Credit: The Blue Center, Trentoniana Collection, Trenton Public Library

Roebling, NJ  |  View Map Roebling Village In 1904, the Trenton-based John A. Roebling’s Sons Company launched two ambitious projects—a large new steel and wire manufacturing plant and the creation of a new town adjacent to the plant. They chose a site along the Delaware River near the small railway village of Kinkora. The lack […]

Point Breeze Historic District, Bordentown City

View of Bordenton, from the Gardens of the Count de Survillers. Credit: Special Collections and University Archives, Rutgers University Libraries

Bordentown, NJ  |  View Map Bordentown was once home to an exiled king who built one of the most famous gardens in pre-Civil War America along the banks of the Delaware River. In 1815, after the final defeat of French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, his elder brother Joseph left Europe to make a new home in […]

The Bordentown School, Bordentown Twp.

Vocational training included woodworking. Credit: New Jersey State Archives, Department of State. Credit: New Jersey State Archives, Department of State

New Jersey Manual Training and Industrial School for Colored Youth307 West Burlington Sreet, Bordentown, NJ  |  View Map The New Jersey Industrial and Manual Training School for Colored Youth, which was known as The Bordentown School, is one of the most important secondary schools for African Americans in the northern United States. The Bordentown School […]

Borough of Palmyra

A 1914 postcard view of Broad Street, Palmyra. Credit: Historical Society of Riverton

Palmyra, NJ  |  View Map The compact borough of Palmyra is strategically situated at the confluence of Pennsauken Creek and the Delaware River at the southern tip of Burlington County. The first European settlers were Swedes who established a colony along the Delaware River in the seventeenth century. English Quakers succeeded the Swedes, and in […]

Bordentown Township

Union Steam Forge, Mac Pherson Willard & Company, Bordentown Township, White Hill Station

Bordentown Township was incorporated in 1852, twenty-five years after the village of Bordentown became a borough. The township was formed from portions of neighboring Chesterfield and Mansfield Townships. The early European settlers were farmers, and the township remained primarily agrarian until well into the twentieth century. Farmers here grew field corn and soybeans and operated […]

Tacony-Palmyra Bridge

Tacony-Palmyra Bridge

Palmyra, NJ  |  View Map By the early 1920s, America’s love affair with the automobile was already well established. There were nearly 350,000 registered vehicles in New Jersey in 1922 and the number grew dramatically each year. Despite the rapid increase in auto ownership, there were no bridges across the Delaware below Trenton and just […]

Borough of Riverton

The steamer Columbia at Riverton pier.

Riverton, NJ  |  View Map By the 1850s, new villages were springing up along the Delaware between Burlington and Camden. Riverton, just 15 miles upriver from Philadelphia, is one of the country’s earliest and most prestigious “steamboat suburbs”. Unlike neighboring towns that began as land speculation ventures, Riverton was a carefully planned residential community. Its […]