HOPEWELL
VALLEY
HISTORICAL SOCIETY
These images are the property of the Hopewell Valley Historical Society and may not be reproduced without permission.
Valley Views - Town & Country
This gallery includes historic images from all over Hopewell Valley.
Images of Old Hopewell
This gallery contains a small fraction of our holdings relating to present day Hopewell Borough. These images tell the story of this small rural town, connected in 1876 to the outside world by the Delaware & Bound Brook Railroad. What had been a sleepy village since before the American Revolution, was now starting to come alive. Its ties to the War for Independent were strong. A Signer of the Declaration of Independence, John Hart, had called Hopewell home (then Hopewell Meeting House) and a critical Council of War had taken place nearby in 1778 to plan strategy for the Battle of Monmouth.
With the arrival of the railroad, farmers had a much wider market for their goods, and families could move
to the country and still have easy access to New York
& Philadelphia. The town grew as homes were built. As homes were built, more businesses opened to supply the demand for goods and services. The schools grew proportionally. The strongest bonds here have always been the churches. Hopewell Borough was created as
a separate municipality in 1891, yet the legal boundaries were expanded only once in 1915.
The town was surrounded by large farms that always made the transition apparent. Then, as now, you know when you’ve come into town, and you know when you’ve left. With the advent of “Green Acres” funding and the “green belt” concept, most of the property surrounding Hopewell Borough has now been preserved.
Glimpses of Yesteryear : Hopewell Valley
An important part of our mission is collecting photographic images from Hopewell Valley's past.
On this page we'll be creating galleries of pictures from our archives. The Society has several important
individual collections within their archives. They include the George H. Frisbie Collection, centered on the
Pennington area, between 1890 - 1910; the Theodore S. Snook Collection, centered on the Titusville area,
about 1900; and the Christopher Bannister Collection that includes images from all over Hopewell
Valley 1860 - 1925. Below you'll find the individual galleries we've created so far. Check back from
time to time as we create more "windows on the past". If you'd like to learn more about
Hopewell Valley Historical Society's collection follow the link below.
Pennington in the Past
For many years Pennington, originally called Queenstown, consisted of nothing more than a few dwellings near the crossroads of Main Street and Delaware Avenue. During the Revolutionary War, British General Cornwallis was stationed here with as many as six-thousand British and Hessian soldiers. Their reign of terror while here assured local support for independence.
The village expanded outward from the crossroads, and
by 1844 included two churches and sixty dwelling. Around that time two private schools, one male and one female, opened in town. At this point the village could only be reached by stagecoach. After the railroad was built in the 1870’s the village began to grow. Near the end of the century the Ketchem Farm was purchased, and soon
Eglantine and Franklin Avenue were created. In 1890,
the town was incorporated as a borough, and was
enlarged to the south shortly afterward.
The population grew as families moved from the city into this quiet suburb. Burd Street, West Welling and Lanning Avenues were created from the Sked Farm on the west, and Curlis, East Welling and Maple Avenues were cut out of the Curlis Farm on the east.
Please enjoy our latest gallery and check back soon to see what we’ve added. If you like what you see, please consider supporting the work we do by becoming a HVHS member today. JOIN NOW
