The land, which included the roadway through North Brunswick, was relatively flat and surveyors were able to lay out a straight route. In 1804, the Trenton and New Brunswick Company was formed. The first part of the 19th century has been deemed "the turnpike era" in New Jersey due to attempts to remedy the poor conditions of travel which were available until then and to meet the urgent need for additional road links with the expanding frontier.Īt first, factions within the state favored the raising of money by lotteries, but toll roads gained support quickly. References to this path are found as far back as 1675. The present-day Route 27 is on the approximate site of an original Indian path extending from present-day New Brunswick to the falls of the Delaware River, on which site Trenton now stands. It was the development of three main thoroughfares through the township which had the most profound affect on North Brunswick's development, however. Much of this same area off Livingston Avenue near How Lane also came to be known by the nickname of "frogtown" due to the dampness caused by drainage problems and the numbers of frogs which supposedly thrived in the resulting wet atmosphere. The land had been inherited by Henry Haw (How) who had it surveyed into lots and offered for sale at low prices. The section of town adjacent to the Trenton-New Brunswick Turnpike area (now Livingston Avenue) near How Lane was once Livingston Park, a small hamlet named in honor of William Livingston, first governor after New Jersey became a state. However, during the early part of the 19th century, the area was commonly referred to as the "north ward of New Brunswick" and the township is located north of the earlier organized Township of South Brunswick. The aptness of the name "North Brunswick" has proven a puzzle to many modern historians, since the township is actually situated south of New Brunswick and west of East Brunswick. The first permanent settlement came in 1761. Ira Condict, the Booream family, and Harle Farmer. Other early settlers were, John and Jeremiah Voorhees, James Bennit, John Ryder, Cornelius Tunison, Cornelius de Hart, the Rev. The area known as Maple Meade was formerly known as "Mapletown" in honor of the Maple family, another group of early settlers. Another family, the Adamses, came here about the same time and settled in the southern area off the present Route 130. "We all know of the immigration here of the earliest Bodine, Nicholas the blacksmith around 1683, and the gradual designation of the area around the current Georges-Hermann-Milltown Roads center as Bodine's (or the modern Berdine's) Corner. Edited excerpts from NORTH BRUNSWICK: A Township History by Ruth Mihalenko 1977
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