Hopewell Borough, with its community of 2,051, is small in size, but rich in history and charm. It is a quiet, attractive town that offers respite from the big cities, yet is close enough to take advantage of all the amenities they offer. Cultural and recreational opportunities are readily available, and it is part of one of the best school systems in the state. Hopewell is a unique and genuinely friendly community where people want to live, raise their families, work and visit.
Location
Hopewell is a Borough, located in Mercer County, New Jersey. It is an independent municipality totally surrounded by Hopewell Township.
Hopewell is located 12 miles north of Trenton, 46 miles southwest of New York and 37 miles northeast of Philadelphia.
Geography/Terrain
Hopewell is located in the rural, rolling hills of farmland, nestled in the foothills of the Sourland Mountains. The borough has a total area of 0.7 square miles, and none of the area is covered with water.
The township surrounding Hopewell Borough is a 60-square mile rural area of scenic rolling hills, parks, forests, rivers, and farmland.
Jobs
Hopewell is advantageously located in Mercer County, which is home to a number of dynamic businesses, and has both a skilled labor force and proximity to major markets. The County has become a center for business, research, technology and entrepreneurship.
Hopewell is home to more than 100 businesses, including modern communications, publishing, antiques, and manufacturing firms, and is centrally located next to the metropolitan centers of Princeton, Trenton, Philadelphia and New York. The major employers in Hopewell include Lucent Technologies, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Merrill Lynch, Trap Rock Industries, and Bristol-Myers Squibb.
Educational, health and social services provide 25.7%of the employment in the area, professional, scientific, management, and administrative provide13.0%, and retail trade provides10.4%. The average time to travel to work in the area is 27.7 minutes and the unemployment rate is a low 1%.
Housing
Real estate in the Hopewell area is varied and plentiful. This town has available housing at affordable prices. The housing options include charming vintage homes set back on quiet, tree-lined streets, single-family homes, large estates with long driveways, former summer-cottages along the Delaware, apartments and even a large planned community.
The community, Brandon Farms, with its town-homes, single homes, and community pool complex is very popular and most of its homes sell quickly. The price for a town-home ranges from $350,000 to $400,000, and single-family homes range from $450,000 to $700,000. The average price of homes in this area is $530,000.
Recreation
The Hopewell area has an abundance of public recreation sites for boating, fishing, picnicking and historic touring.
The Borough’s local Hopewell Park is a quaint neighborhood park, which boasts a gazebo, picnic tables, a playground, a stream and walking trails.
Adjacent to nearby Titusville is Washington Crossing State Park, an 850-acre national landmark.
The Stony Brook-Millstone watershed offers eight miles of nature trails and fishing.
The Lawrence Hopewell Trail provides over 20 miles of multipurpose, recreational trails that run through Lawrence and Hopewell Townships.
The recreational opportunities available in Hopewell are plentiful. You can hike the nearby Sourland Mountain Preserve or bike along one of the many area trails. You can bird watch or join one of the local swim, fitness, tennis or golf clubs. There are local baseball, softball and soccer leagues to join. There are tennis, ice-skating, and equestrian facilities available. Or, if you just want to watch, you can take in a minor league baseball game at Trenton Thunder's Waterfront Park.
Hopewell has two top-notch golf clubs to choose from. The Hopewell Valley Golf Club has a private, Thomas Winton-designed, 18-hole course. The golf and country club was founded in 1927 on a 190-acre country estate and horse farm. In addition to the golf course, the facilities include an Olympic size swimming pool, five tennis courts, and a clubhouse. The golf course has tree-lined fairways and small, fast greens. The second golf course in Hopewell is a public 18-hole course, located at Stonybrook Golf Club. This demanding, executive course features small and fast greens and narrow tree-lined fairways.
Special Attractions/Events
There are many traditional annual family events celebrated in Hopewell, such as the Memorial Day Parade, the Town-Wide Yard Sale, and the Hopewell Health Fair.
The Hopewell Harvest Fair is held on the last Saturday in September and is one of the biggest events of the year. The day begins with a treasure hunt and 10K run. There are a variety of contests in which locals enter such things as best recipes, biggest tomatoes and most elaborate Lego constructions.
Later in the year in Hopewell is the Halloween Parade, the Christmas Tea, and the festive mid-December Tree Lighting Event. On the Sunday nearest the winter solstice, the Night of Light is celebrated as hundreds of Borough homes participate in the lighting of luminaria candles.
In Hopewell, the final event of the year is the Live Nativity. For almost 50 years, the five Borough churches have participated in staging a live nativity scene on the lawn of the Calvary Baptist Church.
In the Township at Christmas, George Washington's historic crossing of the Delaware River on Christmas night in 1776 is re-enacted.
On the cultural side, the popular Off-Broad Street Theatre attracts visitors to the borough. You can also take an art course at the Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed Association. And of course, Princeton, which is a cultural, historical, and shopping mecca, is close by.
Hopewell is known as an active antique center. Some of the local antique shops are housed in historical wooden buildings in the center of town. Pennytown, a cluster of quaint shops and service businesses, and the bustling Pennington Shopping Center are the main nearby shopping hubs.
Interesting Facts/Historic Buildings and Places
Hopewell Valley Regional School System’s high school was voted in the top half of the best 75 public high schools in New Jersey.
Hopewell is considered to be the town to which George Washington crossed the Delaware River. From Hopewell, the army marched to Trenton on Christmas Day, 1776. The Battle of Trenton followed, and Washington Crossing State Park commemorates this important event.
Hopewell was a village originally referred to as "Hopewell Meeting House". It grew into existence gradually after Jonathan Stout brought his family here, to the area where he had earlier hunted with the Lenni Lenape Indians in 1706.
John Hart, one of the five New Jersey Signers of the Declaration of Independence, had donated the land on which the Baptist Meeting House was built.
For many years, the town was known both as Columbia and Hopewell. In 1825 the Post Office was established, and at that point Hopewell became the official name. The name came from the ship on which many settlers sailed for America.
When rail service arrived in1874, Hopewell began to develop. In 1891, Hopewell Borough was incorporated and by 1900 the Borough had a population of approximately 890 people.
Hopewell is rich with history. Some of the historic sites include the John Hart House and the Hart Monument in Cemetery Yard. There is also Hopewell House, which was a tavern owned by the Stout and then the Blackwell families in the early 19th Century.
The Old School Baptist Church and Cemetery on West Broad Street was built in 1822, and sits on the site of the original Hopewell Baptist Meeting House.
The Hopewell Museum is housed in a 19th century brownstone, and holds Colonial and Victorian rooms, with over 8,000 historic artifacts, including documents related to George Washington.
Another popular tourist destination in the area is Howell Living History Farm, which recalls nineteenth century rural life.
Hopewell was the town nearest to the estate owned by Charles Lindbergh. There was national attention regarding the 1932 kidnapping of the infant son of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh. They were living in a rented house in Hopewell while waiting for their estate to be built.
Hopewell was noted in New Jersey Monthly magazine as one of the "10 best small towns in NJ" and one of the "25 best places to call home in the Garden State”.
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