New Village, NJ

New Village is a Warren County census-designated place within Franklin Township, New Jersey, with 399 residents in the 2020 census. Route 57 runs through the village near the township’s western side, between the Pohatcong and Musconetcong valleys and the ridges that frame this part of northwestern New Jersey. New Village is one of Franklin Township’s three named villages, alongside Asbury and Broadway. The road, farmland, and old industrial parcels still share the same small map.

New Village was first settled in the early 1800s and grew with the Morris Canal, completed through the region in 1831, and a trolley line that later ran from Port Colden to Phillipsburg. Thomas Edison found cement rock beneath the valley in 1898, bought 1,262 acres, and built the Edison Portland Cement Company plant, which operated from 1902 into the 1930s and employed as many as 600 people in 1918. Edison cement helped build Yankee Stadium, and a one-mile stretch of Route 57 became the first concrete highway in New Jersey in 1912. Electric lights arrived in 1925, adding another turn to the village’s industrial growth. New Village is a New Jersey place where canal, trolley, cement, and farmland history meet.