Caldwell, New Jersey, United States

🇺🇸 Caldwell is a borough located in north-western Essex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, about 16 miles (26 km) west of New York City and 6 miles (9.7 km) north-west of Newark, the state's most populous city. Caldwell was incorporated as a borough by an act of the New Jersey Legislature on February 10, 1892, from portions of Caldwell Township (now Fairfield Township), based on the results of a referendum held on the previous day. In 1981, the borough's name was changed to the "Township of the Borough of Caldwell", as one of seven Essex County municipalities to pass a referendum to become a township, joining four municipalities that had already made the change, of what would ultimately be more than a dozen Essex County municipalities to reclassify themselves as townships in order take advantage of federal revenue sharing policies that allocated townships a greater share of government aid to municipalities on a per capita basis. Effective January 26, 1995, it again became a borough.

Grover Cleveland, the 22nd and 24th President of the United States, and the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms, was born in Caldwell on March 18, 1837. His father, Rev. Richard Falley Cleveland, was pastor of the First Presbyterian Church. The Grover Cleveland birthplace—the church's former manse—is now a museum and is open to the public.

Though today the Caldwell area is considered to be a suburb of both Newark and New York City, the area originally developed as its own individual, self-contained community and economy rather than as urban sprawl from a larger city. When it was formed, miles of woods separated downtown Caldwell from Newark or any of its developing suburbs.

New Jersey Monthly magazine ranked Caldwell as its third-best place to live in its 2010 rankings of the "Best Places To Live" in New Jersey.

History In 1702, settlers purchased a 14,000 acres (57 km²) Horseneck Tract from the Lenape Native American tribe for goods equal to $325 (equivalent to $6,222.1 in 2022). This purchase encompassed much of western Essex County, from the First Mountain to the Passaic River at Pine Brook. Caldwell is located in the centre of the Horseneck Tract. Settlement began about 1740 by Thomas Gould and Saunders Sanders.

The Horseneck Tract consisted of present-day Caldwell, West Caldwell, North Caldwell, Fairfield, Verona, Cedar Grove, Essex Fells, Roseland, and portions of Livingston and West Orange. This land was part of the larger purchase and had been referred to as the Horse Neck Tract until February 17, 1787, when the town congregation voted to change the name to Caldwell, in honor of the Reverend James Caldwell who pushed for their organization's creation.

Caldwell Township included present-day West Caldwell and Caldwell. Soon after, the area of Caldwell Township just to the east of Caldwell Borough between Caldwell Borough and Montclair (present-day Verona and Cedar Grove) decided to follow Caldwell's lead and incorporated itself as its own borough, Verona. Some of the already developed eastern neighborhoods of Caldwell Township chose to become part of Montclair, as it was a rapidly developing suburb of Newark and Paterson. At around the same time, the area north of Caldwell Borough became its own town, North Caldwell. The wooded area directly to the south of downtown Caldwell Borough became Essex Fells. Meanwhile, the farmland to the south of the western portion of Caldwell township attempted to become its own municipality known as South Caldwell. This failed, as much of developed sections of that area lied on its southernmost and easternmost borders, along the expanding Newark suburbs of Livingston and West Orange respectively. Those areas were engulfed by those two towns once they became incorporated municipalities of several small villages and developments.

This left only the most rural farmland south of Caldwell Borough and Essex Fells to become its own township, Roseland. At this point, all that remained of the original Caldwell Township was 6,600 acres of rural farmland and meadows in the northwesternmost part of Essex County. In 1963, Caldwell Township changed its name to Fairfield in order to avoid being confused with Caldwell Borough.

Immediately following the separation of the original Caldwell, the western part of Caldwell Borough generally remained less developed than downtown Caldwell Borough and contained several farms and a large area of undeveloped swampland known as Hatfield Swamp. However, two individual settlements, known as Franklin and Westville, soon formed in the western part of Caldwell Borough. As development increased and population grew in the western part of Caldwell, the town's more rural western population and more urban east often could not reconcile their differences. This led to the areas of Franklin and Westville consolidating into their own township known as West Caldwell in 1904, leaving only the one square mile of original downtown Horseneck development as the borough of Caldwell. Lewis G. Lockward was elected the first mayor of Caldwell. In 1929, an attempt to consolidate the three Caldwells into a single municipality was rejected by voters.

This borough was one of the filming locations for the Columbia Pictures 1994 comedy film North.

Historical facts • George Washington and his staff made their way through the community during the Revolutionary War. They stopped for lunch at the old stone house of Saunders Sanders, located near present-day Brookside Avenue, one of the two original settlers of Caldwell. • Marquis de Lafayette visited in 1824, featuring a celebration party at the Crane Tavern. • About 1816, Elias B. Caldwell and family, Presbyterians, helped found Liberia, a nation for free blacks, and the town of Caldwell, Liberia. • During the 1928 Presidential campaign, Herbert Hoover visited the Grover Cleveland Birthplace with his wife. • Grover Cleveland lived the first four years of his life in Caldwell. • In October 1897, a severe fire ripped through a large portion of Bloomfield Avenue, destroying buildings in its wake. These buildings were replaced, in part, by the Hasler Building, opposite the Presbyterian Church. This became Caldwell's first brick building. • In, 1908 the Caldwell Public Library opened. It is one of 20 remaining Carnegie libraries in New Jersey. In 2022, Preservation New Jersey listed the library on its list of the state's ten most endangered historic properties. • In 1914, during a Fourth of July fireworks celebration, a bomb fell, injuring 20 people. Local churches raised funds to defray the medical bills of the injured. • In 1968, Caldwell's ornate historic bronze dolphin handle cannon was stolen off the town green. The cannon had been given to the borough by Marquis de Lafayette, who was a friend of Caldwell. A poorly cast rusting iron replica cannon was constructed and was placed at the site. • On July 14, 1974, the landmark Park Theatre was destroyed by fire.

Geography According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the borough had a total area of 1.18 square miles (3.05 km²), including 1.18 square miles (3.05 km²) of land and <0.01 square miles (<0.01 km²) of water (0.08%).

Caldwell is part of "The Caldwells", the group of three Essex County municipalities which all have the word Caldwell in their name. Together with North Caldwell and West Caldwell, these communities are named after the Reverend James Caldwell, a Patriot who played an active role supporting the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, most notably his actions at the Battle of Springfield, where he gave the soldiers pages from hymn books to use as wadding for their rifle bullets. While each community has its own independent government, and the three municipalities have no shared governance (other than Essex County), the term is often used to refer to the area, including on highway exit signs. Signage for Exit 47B and 52 on Interstate 80 refer to "The Caldwells" as a destination. Fairfield Township was known as Caldwell Township until it abandoned its original name in 1963 in an effort to avoid confusion of mail distribution in the various Caldwells.

The borough borders the Essex County municipalities of Essex Fells, North Caldwell and West Caldwell, New Jersey.

Demographics In a report performed by the United Way of Northern New Jersey based on 2012 data, around 34% of Caldwell households were classified as "Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed" households (below a threshold of $50,000 for households below 65, below $35,000 for those over 65), struggling with basic necessities, such as housing, childcare, food, health care, and transportation, compared to 38% statewide and 47% in Essex County.

Education The Caldwell-West Caldwell Public Schools is a public school district that serves students in pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade from Caldwell and West Caldwell. The roots of the district date back to 1872, though formal consolidation of the districts was established in 1904. As of the 2020–21 school year, the district, comprised of seven schools, had an enrollment of 2,669 students and 226.4 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a student–teacher ratio of 11.8:1. Schools in the district (with 2020–21 enrollment data from the National Center for Education Statistics) are Harrison School (West Caldwell; 23 students; grades K-PreK), Jefferson Elementary School (West Caldwell; 266; K-5), Lincoln Elementary School (Caldwell; 260; K-5), Washington Elementary School (West Caldwell; 374; K-5), Wilson Elementary School (West Caldwell; 252; K-5), Grover Cleveland Middle School (Caldwell; 626; 6-8), and James Caldwell High School (West Caldwell; 829; 9-12).

The Essex County Vocational Technical Schools offers magnet school and vocational programs to students in eighth through twelfth grades from Caldwell and all of Essex County.

Mount Saint Dominic Academy for grades 9–12 operates under the auspices of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark. Private schools in Caldwell include Trinity Academy for grades PreK–8 which was founded in 1991 and which was closed by the Newark Archdiocese in the wake of falling enrollment. In 2015, Trinity Academy was one of 15 schools in New Jersey, and one of six private schools, recognised as a National Blue Ribbon School in the exemplary high performing category by the United States Department of Education.

The borough is home to Caldwell University, a catholic liberal arts college with 2,200 students. The West Essex Campus of Essex County College is located in West Caldwell.

Transport: Road As of May 2010, the borough had a total of 18.41 miles (29.63 km) of roadways, of which 14.77 miles (23.77 km) were maintained by the municipality and 3.64 miles (5.86 km) by Essex County.

County Route 506 is the most significant roadway in Caldwell.

Transport: Public NJ Transit offers bus service to and from Caldwell on the 29 and 71 routes.

Commuter train service was offered historically at Caldwell station on the Caldwell Branch, which ran from Great Notch to Essex Fells, with service offered starting in 1891. The borough of Caldwell bought the station in 1965 from the Erie Lackawanna Railway and demolished it later that year. Service at Caldwell station ended in October 1966, when Erie Lackawanna discontinued several commuter lines, in the face of unsuccessful legal action in the courts to keep the service operating. In 1979, the tracks on the Caldwell Branch were torn up.