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Union County, New Jersey

Historic newspapers, landmarks, and county history layers for genealogists and local historians.

—newspaper titles

—digitized titles

72historic places

—earliest paper

1857formed

575,345pop. 2020

21cemeteries

—CW battlefields

At a glance

Summary

The National Register of Historic Places includes 72 listed properties in the county, first listed in 1970; 3 are also National Historic Landmarks. Most listings are in or near Plainfield, Elizabeth, Scotch Plains.

Summary generated automatically from the source data on this page.

Newspapers

Library of Congress

Newspaper directory data for New Jersey is not yet loaded on this site. Browse Union titles at the Library of Congress.

National Register of Historic Places

NPS NRHP

43 of 72 listings mapped; some locations are restricted by NPS to protect sensitive sites.

72 listed properties

Property	City	Type	Listed
All Souls Church	Plainfield City	Building	2009
Badgley House and Site	Mountainside	Building	1976
Baltusrol Golf Club NHL	Springfield	District	2005
Belcher-Ogden House	Elizabeth	Building	1978
Belcher-Ogden Mansion-Price, Benjamin-Price-Brittan Houses District	Elizabeth	Building	1986
Boxwood Hall NHL	Elizabeth	Building	1970
Burial Ground of the Presbyterian Church in the West Fields of Elizabethtown	Westfield	Site	2007
Caldwell Parsonage	Union	Building	1982
Cedar Brook Park	Plainfield	District	2007
Central Railroad of New Jersey	Fanwood	Building	1980
Crane-Phillips House	Cranford	Building	1997
Crescent Area Historic District	Plainfield	District	1980
De Camp, John, House	Scotch Plains	Building	1973
Drake, Nathaniel, House	Plainfield	Building	1973
Droeschers Mill	Cranford	Building	1974
Elizabeth Station	Elizabeth	Building	1984
Evergreen Cemetery	Hillside	Site	1991
Fanwood Park Historic District	Borough of Fanwood	District	2004
Feltville Historic District	New Providence	District	1980
Firehouse No. 4	Plainfield	Building	1993
First Congregation of the Presbyterian Church at Springfield	Springfield	Building	1990
First Presbyterian Church of Elizabeth	Elizabeth	Building	1977
First Presbyterian Congregation of Connecticut Farms	Union	Building	1970
Fowler, Charles N., House	Elizabeth	Building	1986
Frazee, Elizabeth and Gershom, House	Scotch Plains	Building	2009
Grace Episcopal Church	Plainfield City	Building	2002
Green Brook Park	Plainfield	District	2004
Hetfield, Deacon Andrew, House	Mountainside	Building	1989
Hillside Avenue Historic District	Plainfield	District	1982
Homestead Farm at Oak Ridge	Clark	Building	1995
Hutchings Homestead	Springfield	Building	1977
Liberty Hall (Livingston, Gov. William, House) NHL	Elizabeth	Building	1972
Littel-Lord Farmstead	Berkeley Heights	Building	1979
Merchants' and Drovers' Tavern	Rahway	Building	1978
Mid-Town Historic District	Elizabeth	District	1995
Miller-Cory House	Westfield	Building	1972
Murray Hill Station	Murray Hill	Building	1984
Netherwood Station	Plainfield	Building	1984
Nitschke, Oswald J., House	Kenilworth	Building	2008
North Avenue Commercial District	Plainfield	District	1984
North Avenue Commercial Historic District	Plainfield	District	1984
Old Baptist Parsonage	Scotch Plains	Building	1973
Plainfield Central Fire Headquarters	Plainfield	Building	1993
Plainfield Civic District	Plainfield	District	1993
Plainfield Masonic Temple	Plainfield	Building	2024
Plainfield Station	Plainfield	Building	1984
Rahway Theatre	Rahway	Building	1986
Reeve, William Edgar, House	Westfield Town	Building	2006
Saint Mary's Catholic Church Complex	Plainfield	Building	1985
Sayre Homestead	Springfield	Building	1979
Scotch Plains Baptist Church, Parsonage and Cemetery	Scotch Plains	Building	2013
Scotch Plains School	Scotch Plains	Building	1978
Seventeenth Century Clark House	Rahway	Building	1974
Shady Rest Golf and Country Club	Scotch Plains Township	District	2022
Smith, Nathaniel, House	Berkeley Heights	Building	1989
St. John's Parsonage	Elizabeth	Building	1982
Stage House Inn	Scotch Plains	Building	1982
Stoneleigh Park Historic District	Westfield	District	1988
Strong, George A., House	Plainfield	Building	2012
Summit Downtown Historic District	Summit City	District	2011
Summit Playhouse	Summit	Building	2009
The Clearing	Summit	Site	1993
Townley, James, House	Union	Building	1979
Twin Maples	Summit	Building	1997
Union County Park Commission Administration Buildings	Elizabeth	Building	1985
Van Wyck Brooks Historic District	Plainfield	District	1985
Wallace Chapel AME Zion Church	Summit Town	Building	2007
Waring, Orville, T., House	Plainfield	Building	1979
Westfield Fire Headquarters	Westfield	Building	1980
Whyman House	Elizabeth	Building	1986
Woodruff House	Hillside	Building	1978
Young Women's Christian Association of Plainfield and North Plainfield	Plainfield	Building	1998

Source: National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Property links open NRHP nomination files at the National Archives.

County formation

Newberry AHCB

Union was formed in 1857 (1857-03-19) from Essex.

UNION created from ESSEX.

Source: Newberry Library, Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

Population by decade

Census

Union County population from 1860 to 2020 (Census historical series).

1860	1880	1900	1920	1940	1950	1960	1980	2000	2020
27,780	55,571	99,353	200,157	328,344	398,138	504,255	504,094	522,541	575,345

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau historical county population (Forstall 1790–1990) and public-domain / CC0 county population series through 2020.

National Park Service sites nearby

NPS

Park units within about 40 km of the county centroid (from NPS Public POIs; no API key).

Site	Type	Dist.
Thomas Edison National Historical Park	National Historical Park	15.2 km
Morristown National Historical Park	National Historical Park	20.8 km

Source: NPS National Datasets / Public POIs. The NPS Developer API requires a free key and was not used.

Cemeteries & historical places

USGS GNIS

21 cemeteries and 0 historical populated places (ghost towns / former settlements) recorded in USGS GNIS for this county.

Cemeteries — 21 of 21 listed

Name	Lat	Lon
B'Nai Abraham Memorial Park	40.68748	-74.30598
B'Nai Jeshuron Cemetery	40.69009	-74.21014
Beth - David Cemetery	40.68003	-74.28078
Fairview Cemetery	40.66709	-74.32985
Graceland Memorial Park	40.68176	-74.27403
Hazelwood Cemetery	40.60915	-74.30477
Hillside Cemetery	40.60509	-74.39265
Hollywood Cemetery	40.71002	-74.25678
Hollywood Memorial Park Cemetery	40.70832	-74.26528
Linden Park Cemetery	40.63455	-74.24181
Mount Calvary Cemetery	40.63371	-74.23459
Oheb Sholem Cemetery	40.69537	-74.21236
Rahway Cemetery	40.6176	-74.28625
Revolutionary Cemetery	40.65375	-74.34852
Rose Hill Cemetery	40.62851	-74.23475
Rose Hill and Rosedale Cemetery	40.6301	-74.23515
Rosedale Cemetery	40.63563	-74.24159
Rosemont Memorial Park	40.68648	-74.19514
Saint Mary of the Assumption Cemetery	40.65427	-74.21931
Saint Marys Cemetery	40.62731	-74.41099
Saint Teresa Cemetery	40.72259	-74.38654

Source: USGS Geographic Names Information System (public domain). Cemeteries from the 2021 NationalFile archive; historical places from GNIS HistoricalFeatures topical extract.

Historical markers

HMdb link

Marker text and photos from the Historical Marker Database (HMdb) are not embedded here. HMdb allows non-commercial reuse with attribution, but commercial/compensated use needs written permission; this is a commercial site, so we only link out.

Search HMdb for Union County, New Jersey

Terms: hmdb.org/copyright.asp. Linking is encouraged by HMdb.