Hampton, NJ

Hampton is a Hunterdon County borough on the Musconetcong River, where the river valley meets the roads running between Lebanon, Glen Gardner, and the surrounding townships. It began as a settlement around 1800 and was incorporated in 1895 as Junction Borough, a name tied to the rail lines that crossed here. The borough became Hampton in 1909. By 1880, the village had a store, hotel, cabinet maker, blacksmith, wheelwright, gristmill, schoolhouse, and roughly 25 homes; that old mix still helps make sense of Hampton’s compact form.

Hampton Public School serves children through fifth grade, and the borough’s small municipal footprint sits inside the larger Musconetcong watershed. The river has shaped both work and recreation across the valley, with historic bridges, mill sites, and fishing access appearing in the regional landscape. Hampton Junction remains an unincorporated section within the borough, a reminder that the railroad-era settlement and the municipal name are not quite the same thing. State Route 31 and nearby Interstate 78 connect Hampton to the Lehigh Valley and the New York–Newark orbit, while the borough itself remains a river town with a school, older homes, and a handful of local streets.