Newton, officially the Town of Newton, is an incorporated municipality in and the county seat of Sussex CountyNew Jersey County Map, New Jersey Department of State. Accessed July 10, 2017. in the U.S. state of New Jersey, situated approximately northwest of New York City.Directions from New York City Center, 131 W 55th St, New York, NY 10019 to 23 Maple Ave, Newton, NJ 07860, Google Maps. Accessed July 11, 2017. As of the 2020 United States census, the town's population was 8,374, its highest decennial population ever, an increase of 377 (+4.7%) from the 2010 census count of 7,997, which in turn reflected a decrease of 247 (−3.0%) from the 8,244 counted in the 2000 census.Table 7. Population for the Counties and Municipalities in New Jersey: 1990, 2000 and 2010, New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development, February 2011. Accessed May 1, 2023.
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.Snyder, John P. The Story of New Jersey's Civil Boundaries: 1606-1968, Bureau of Geology and Topography; Trenton, New Jersey; 1969. p. 231. Accessed May 30, 2024.
History
In the eighteenth century Newton is located near the headwaters of the east branch of the Paulins Kill, a tributary of the Delaware River.Geographic Names Information System (GNIS), United States Geological Survey, Geographic Names Information System Feature Detail Report: Paulins Kill, entered September 8, 1979. Accessed May 11, 2015. In October 1715, Colonial surveyor Samuel Green plotted a tract of 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, northwestern 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 northwestern New Jersey in the 1740s) or from its status as a "new town".Hutchinson, Viola L. The Origin of New Jersey Place Names, New Jersey Public Library Commission, May 1945. Accessed September 10, 2015.
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 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. With
Geography
Geological features Newton is located in the Kittatinny Valley, a segment of the Great Appalachian Valley. The Great Appalachian Valley is a gigantic trough—a 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 southwest 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.Hatcher, Robert D. Jr. "Tracking lower-to-mid-to-upper crustal deformation processes through time and space through three Paleozoic orogenies in the Southern Appalachians using dated metamorphic assemblages and faults" in Abstracts with Programs (Geological Society of America), Vol. 40, No. 6, 513. Accessed August 28, 2012.Bartholomew, M.J., and Whitaker, A.E., 2010, The Alleghanian deformational sequence at the foreland junction of the Central and Southern Appalachians in Tollo, R.P., Bartholomew, M.J., Hibbard, J.P., and Karabinos, P.M., eds., From Rodinia to Pangea: The Lithotectonic Record of the Appalachian Region, GSA Memoir 206, p. 431-454. This region is largely formed by sedimentary rock.Lucey, Carol S. Geology of Sussex County in Brief. (Trenton, NJ: New Jersey Geological Survey, November 1969), 21pp. Accessed August 28, 2012.Dalton, Richard. New Jersey Geological Survey Information Circular: Physiographic Provinces of New Jersey (Trenton, NJ: Department of Environmental Protection, State of New Jersey, 2003, 2006). Accessed August 28, 2012.
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.Kevin W. Wright, "Newton Industries", Newton NJ: Pearl of the Kittatinny (newtonnj.net). Accessed May 12, 2015.
Political geography According to the United States Census Bureau, the town had a total area of , including of land and 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.Master Plan August 2008, Town of Newton. Accessed August 2, 2016. "Newton is located in the approximate geographic center of Sussex County and shares borders with Hampton Township to the north and east, Fredon Township to the west and Andover Township to the south."Sussex County Map, Sussex County, New Jersey. Accessed March 1, 2020.New Jersey Municipal Boundaries, New Jersey Department of Transportation. Accessed November 15, 2019.
Climate and weather
Because of its location in the higher elevations of northwestern New Jersey's Appalachian mountains, Newton, as well as the rest of Sussex County, has a cooler humid continental climate or microthermal climate (Köppen climate classification Dfb) which indicates patterns of significant precipitation in all seasons and at least four months where the average temperature rises above The determination of Dfb (warm summer subtype) region is from Peel, M. C., Finlayson, B. L., and McMahon, T. A. (University of Melbourne). Updated world map of the Köppen-Geiger climate classification from Hydrology and Earth System Sciences (2007), 11:1633–1644, doi:10.5194/hess-11-1633-2007. Accessed August 3, 2011.Thornthwaite, Charles Warren. Atlas of Climatic Types in the United States 1900-1939: U.S. Department of Agriculture Miscellaneous Publication 421. (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1941); and Thornthwaite. "The Climates of North America: According to a New Classification" in Geographical Review (October 1931), 21(4):633-655.Climate Summary for Newton, New Jersey, Weatherbase.com. This differs from the rest of the state which is generally a humid mesothermal climate, in which temperatures range between during the year's coldest month.See also: Hare, F.K. "Climatic classification" in Stamp, L.D., and Wooldridge, S.W. (editors). The London Essays in Geography (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1951), 111-134. Sussex County is part of USDA Plant Hardiness Zone 6."What is my arborday.org Hardiness Zone?", Arbor Day Foundation. Accessed March 31, 2013.2012 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map (USA), United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service and Oregon State University. (2012). Accessed August 3, 2013.
During winter and early spring, New Jersey in some years is subject to "nor'easters"—significant storm systems that have proven capable of causing blizzards or flooding throughout the northeastern United States. Hurricanes and tropical storms, tornadoes, and earthquakes are relatively rare. The Kittatinny Valley to the north of Newton, part of the Great Appalachian Valley, experiences a snowbelt phenomenon and has been categorized as a microclimate region known as the "Sussex County Snow Belt." This region receives approximately of snow per year and generally more snowfall that the rest of Northern New Jersey and the Northern Climate Zone.The Climate of New Jersey, Office of the New Jersey State Climatologist. Accessed September 10, 2015. This phenomenon is attributed to the orographic lift of the Kittatinny Ridge which impacts local weather patterns by increasing humidity and precipitation.Carney, Leo. H. "Weather; Microclimates, Big Variations.", The New York Times, January 30, 2005. Accessed August 1, 2018. "In places like Hidden Valley and throughout the snow belt of northwestern Sussex County, a condition known as orographic lifting can increase humidity and precipitation."
In recent years, average temperatures in the county seat of Newton have ranged from a low of in January to a high of in July. Average monthly precipitation ranged from in February to in June.Monthly Averages for Newton, New Jersey, The Weather Channel. Accessed October 13, 2013.