Newton, New Jersey, United States

🇺🇸 Newton, officially the Town of Newton, is an incorporated municipality located in Sussex County, New Jersey, United States. It is situated approximately 60 miles by road north-west of New York City. One of fifteen municipalities in the state organised as a town. As the location of the county's administrative offices and court system, Newton is the county seat of Sussex County.

One of 15 municipalities in the state organized as a town, the municipal government operates under a council-manager structure provided by the Faulkner Act, or Optional Municipal Charter Law. Newton was incorporated by an act of the New Jersey Legislature on April 11, 1864, from portions of Newton Township, which was also partitioned to create Andover Township and Hampton Township, and was then dissolved. Additional land was acquired from Andover Township in 1869 and 1927, and from Fredon Township in 1920.

History Newton is located near the headwaters of the east branch of the Paulins Kill, a 41.6-mile (66.9 km) tributary of the Delaware River. In October 1715, Colonial surveyor Samuel Green plotted a tract of 2,500 acres (1,000 ha) at the head of the Paulins Kill, then known as the Tohokenetcunck River, on behalf of William Penn. This tract, which would not be settled for approximately 30–35 years, was part of the survey and division of the last acquisition of Native American land by the West Jersey Board of Proprietors. At the time of Green's survey, north-western New Jersey was populated with bands of the Munsee, the northern branch of the Lenape Native Americans.

The first recorded European settler within the boundaries of present-day Newton was a German Palatine immigrant named Henry Hairlocker who arrived sometime before 1751 when he appears in Morris County records as receiving a tavern license. The Newtown Precinct, a large township, was created in 1751, and Sussex County was created from Morris two years later on June 8, 1753. The township would be named Newtown after the colonial village of Newtown in Queens, New York from where the Pettit family originated (the six Pettit brothers, all prominent landowners and influential figures in early local government, settled in north-western New Jersey in the 1740s) or from its status as a "new town".

In 1762, Jonathan Hampton, of Elizabethtown, surveyed the location for a county courthouse and town green at the intersection of a military supply road he built during the French and Indian War and a major north–south artery called the King's Highway (present-day New Jersey Route 94). The construction of the courthouse was completed in 1765 and the village that developed around it became known as Sussex Court House. The county courthouse was the site of a raid by British partisan Lieutenant James Moody during the American Revolution.

In 1797, the village's post office was renamed Newtown and later, in 1825, the spelling was altered to Newton. Newton Township would cede land to create new townships on several occasions in the eighteenth and nineteenth-centuries, until a final division dissolved the township on April 11, 1864, through a legislative act of New Jersey Legislature that created the village of Newton as an incorporated town and two rural townships—Hampton and Andover.

Historic district The Newton Town Plot Historic District is a 17-acre (6.9 ha) historic district encompassing the Town Plot section of Newton, along Church, High, Main, Moran, and Spring Streets; and Park Place. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on November 12, 1992 for its significance in architecture, commerce, community planning, settlement, and politics from 1762 to 1941. The district includes 51 contributing buildings, three contributing objects, and two contributing sites. It includes the Sussex County Courthouse, which was added individually to the NRHP in 1979 and the Hill Memorial, added in 1985. The Sussex and Merchants National Bank was built in 1927 with Georgian Revival style and some Beaux Arts ornamentation. The Old Newton Burial Ground, established 1762, is a contributing site. It features a bas relief of Father Time on the cast-iron entrance gates.

Geography Newton is located in the Kittatinny Valley, a segment of the Great Appalachian Valley. The Great Appalachian Valley is a gigantic trough—a 1,200-mile-long (1,900 km) chain of valley lowlands that stretches about from Quebec to Alabama and is the easternmost edge of Ridge and Valley Appalachians physiographic province. This physiographic province, one of five in New Jersey, occupies approximately two-thirds of the county's area (the county's western and central sections) dominated by Kittatinny Mountain and the Kittatinny Valley. This province's contour is characterized by long, even ridges with long, continuous valleys in between that generally run parallel from south-west to northeast. The features of the Ridge and Valley province were created approximately 300–400 million years ago during the Ordovician period and Appalachian orogeny—a period of tremendous pressure and rock thrusting that caused the creation of the Appalachian Mountains. This region is largely formed by sedimentary rock.

Newton's land area drains into the watersheds of the Paulins Kill and Pequest River—two rivers that are tributaries of the Delaware River. These watersheds are separated by slate ridges that are part of the Martinsburg Formation. These slate ridges were quarried for slate for roofs and other industrial purposes beginning with a quarry opened by Elijah Blackwell in 1859 that operated under a series of different owners and commercial entities until 1930.

Political geography According to the United States Census Bureau, the town had a total area of 3.38 square miles (8.76 km²), including 3.36 square miles (8.70 km²) of land and 0.02 square miles (0.06 km²) of water (0.65%).

The Town of Newton is bordered to the north and east by Hampton Township, to the west by Fredon Township, and to the south by Andover Township.

Museums, galleries, and libraries Newton is home to the Sussex County Historical Society's Hill Memorial Museum, the oldest continuously operating museum building in the state. The society, founded in 1904, offers a research and genealogical collection, and displays focused on the region's history, from Mastodon bones and Native American artifacts and from the Revolutionary War to World War II. • Newton Fire Museum on Spring Street • Sussex County Arts & Heritage Council operates a gallery on Spring Street. • Dennis Library, founded as a private library association in the mid-19th century, now part of the Sussex County Library System.

Performing arts The Newton Theatre is a former Reilly and Hall movie theater originally constructed in 1924 that has been converted into a 605-seat performing arts center.

Drama Geek Studios is a non-profit community theatre group, based in Newton, NJ by the Newton Theatre. They offer classes, workshops, and performances to people of all ages in Sussex County.

Religion Newton's community offers a range of Christian houses of worship and one Jewish synagogue. These include: • Christ Church, founded in 1769, an Episcopal parish within the Episcopal Diocese of Newark • First Presbyterian Church of Newton, founded in 1786, and affiliated with the PCUSA. • The First United Methodist Church • Covenant Reformed Church • First Baptist Church of Newton, established in nearby Augusta in the 1750s, moved to Newton in 1810. • St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church, a parish of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Paterson. • Temple B'Nai Shalom, a Jewish synagogue and headquarters of Drama Geek Studios. • Christ Community Church of the Christian Missionary Alliance (located in the old train station plaza)

Sport Skylands Park in nearby Frankford Township, is the home of the Sussex County Miners, who play in the Frontier League.

Parks and recreation Memory Park, established with 10 acres (4.0 ha) of land donated by Newman E. Drake in 1928.

Education: University Sussex County Community College (commonly referred to as SCCC) is an accredited, co-educational, two-year, public, community college located on a 167-acre (68 ha) campus in Newton. The SCCC campus was formerly the site of Don Bosco College, a Roman Catholic seminary operated by the Salesian Order from 1928 until it was closed in the early 1980s and its campus sold to the Sussex County government in June 1989 for $4.2 million.

SCCC was authorized as a "college commission" in 1981 and began operations the following year. It became fully accredited in 1993 by the Commission on Higher Education of the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools. SCCC offers 40 associate degree and 16 post-secondary professional and health science certificate programs available both at traditional classes at its campus, through hybrid and online classes, and through distance learning. Many students who attend SCCC transfer to pursue the completion of their undergraduate college education at a four-year college or university. The college also offers programs for advanced high school students, community education courses, and programs in cooperation with the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development. The school had an enrollment of 3,012 students of which half attended full-time and half attended part-time.

Points of interest • Newton Cemetery • Newton Town Green • Old Newton Burial Ground is a historic cemetery that was the primary burial ground in the town for a century after its establishment in 1762. • Spring Street • Sussex County Courthouse – The original courthouse was constructed in 1765 and destroyed by fire in 1847. The structure was rebuilt in 1848. • Sussex County Community College ◦ Horton Mansion on the SCCC campus.

Transport: Road As of May 2010, the town had a total of 28.75 miles (46.27 km) of roadways, of which 21.18 miles (34.09 km) were maintained by the municipality, 4.47 miles (7.19 km) by Sussex County and 3.10 miles (4.99 km) by the New Jersey Department of Transportation.

Newton is located at the intersection of U.S. Route 206 (known within Newton as Woodside Avenue, Main Street, and Water Street), New Jersey Route 94 (known within Newton as High Street and Water Street), and County Route 519 (known within Newton as West End Avenue and Mill Street) and County Route 616 (known within Newton as Spring Street and Sparta Avenue). Interstate 80 is accessible approximately 13 miles (21 km) to the south.

Transport: Public The nearest NJ Transit rail station is Netcong, approximately 12 miles (19 km) to the south.

Lakeland Bus Lines provides limited service between Newton and the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Midtown Manhattan.

Local bus service is provided by the Skylands Connect bus, which connects to Sparta, Hamburg, and Sussex.

Transport: Air Newton Airport was a public-use airport located 3 miles (4.8 km) south of the central business district. The airport closed in 2013.

Health care Newton Memorial Hospital opened in the early 1930s during the Great Depression. The medical centre was established using funds from a willed gift of $35,000 from Thomas Murray (to be specifically used to establish a hospital in Newton) and a $100,000 bequest from Clarence Linn. The hospital "is a short-term, fully accredited, 146-bed acute care, not-for-profit hospital serving more than 250,000 people in Warren and Sussex counties in New Jersey, Pike County in Pennsylvania and southern Orange County in New York". Newton Memorial Hospital was bought by Atlantic Health System and changed its name to Newton Medical Center in 2011.

Media: Print Newton is home to the editorial offices of New Jersey Herald, the state's oldest newspaper, founded in 1829.

Radio and television The town of Newton has three radio stations within its borders: WNNJ, on 103.7 FM, with a format of Rock, WRSK-LP on 95.7 FM from Sussex County Community College with a format of oldies/big band/country/polka and WTOC (AM), which serves Newton in Spanish at 1360 AM.

WMBC-TV is licensed to Newton, but its studios are in West Caldwell, New Jersey and its transmitter is near Lake Hopatcong.