Your History Tour Guide to Basking Ridge, and Yes, We Know It’s Bernards Township (officially).
Let’s start with the elephant in the room. Although the municipality’s official name is Bernards Township, most people have embraced Basking Ridge as the name for the community as a whole.
First off, welcome to our history share for Basking Ridge, where nearly every road, neighborhood, old building, and familiar landmark has a story waiting to be discovered. George Washington walked here, Revolutionary War soldiers camped nearby, grand estates rose from rolling farmland, and generations of local families helped shape the community we know today. Consider this your personal tour guide to the people, places, legends, and surprising little details that make Basking Ridge history so much fun to explore.
You may not have known this either, but Basking Ridge residents founded the Mr. Local History nonprofit project because they share a passion for preserving and promoting our local heritage. We bring history to life through stories, photographs, maps, tours, events, and a little humor because history should never be boring. That is what we mean by “Jersey history with a social twist.”
Have you taken the quiz? Are you a True Local? A fun look at things locals would know…..
If you see something that interests you, be sure to click it now, because if you come back, you’ll get a new serving of local history.
Our Mr. Local History website has hundreds of researched history pieces and thousands of photos, so we’ve put together a random sampling below of some of our great local history stories.
Enjoy.
What Can You Learn With These 15 Posts with This Visit…
Come Back Again, And You’ll Get 15 more!
The Paula Grossman Story – 50+ Years Later Forever in Basking Ridge History
Views: 3,748 Paula Grossman’s dismissal from the Bernards Township school system in the early 1970s is widely regarded as one of the first public cases of transgender discrimination in American public employment. A tenured music teacher removed not for misconduct…
Lord Stirling- Basking Ridge’s Most Famous Resident
Views: 24,015 Is William Alexander, aka The Earl & Lord of Stirling, Basking Ridge’s Most Famous Resident? Our researchers think so. Let’s see if we can answer that question. William Alexander (1726 – Jan 15, 1783) was the son of…
Saving the Great Swamp- The Fight to Defeat the Jetport – Filmmaker Scott Morris
Views: 6,263 DID YOU KNOW OVER A DOZEN JERSEY TOWNS WERE ALMOST LOST to a super-regional airport in the 1960s? The concept of an airport, which started at 10,000 acres, ballooned to 25,000–30,000 acres, affecting over 45 square miles in Somerset…
Project Local History Ambassador Flags for Students in Bernards Township
Views: 6,223 UPDATE / Donor Special: The 2026 Ambassador Giving Campaign to Support Project Local History Ambassador for 5th Grade Students is underway: five schools and almost 500 Bernards Township official flags to be distributed. See our special offer to…
Brush’s Deli Served the Community for Three Generations and Now It’s Just a Memory
Views: 12,930 Brush’s Deli has a long history in Basking Ridge and is the longest-standing deli in the community. Located at 35 S. Finley Avenue in the same building, the P.C. Henry general store opened in 1869 and remained until…
Cricket in the Somerset Hills isn’t New – But it’s New Again
Views: 1,441 HELP NEEDED: CROWDSOURCING HISTORYBERNARDSVILLE CRICKET CLUBSWe’re on a mission to locate any families or someone who might possess anything related to cricket clubs in Bernardsville back in the early 1900s – a trophy, a program, a sweater, a…
Happenings On Christmas Eve: Our Hometown of Basking Ridge is Buzzing!
So much is going on around our beautiful home base in the Somerset Hills of New Jersey, especially in Basking Ridge. Come check it out.
MLH Honors Back to School with Historic School Images From the Somerset Hills
Views: 9,165 Schools in the Somerset Hills area of northern Somerset County have been a mainstay back to the mid-1700s. We honor the history of these memorable facilities in images from various sources now in our digital research archives. For…
Honoring Volunteers Who Make The Basking Ridge Christmas Eve Carol Happen
Views: 2,375 ARCHIVED: ONE NIGHT ONLY! Join the community with friends, neighbors, and volunteers for a holiday celebration of what will be the 100th running of the Basking Ridge Christmas Eve Sing on the Green. The special gathering will be…
Bernards Township/Bernardsville Historic Wooden Village Keepsake Collectibles
Views: 6,738 Congratulations, Basking Ridge and Bernardsville, on being the foundation for the New Jersey Historical Wooden Village collection, a group of over 40 Jersey collectibles. Each keepsake brings to mind historic area icons created by the world-famous Cat’s Meow…
Honoring WW2 Veterans Book In Service – 1941-1944 Now Online
Views: 3,184 Mr. Local History’s “Operation Honor Roll” Celebrate America’s 250th anniversary, honoring ALL those Bernards Township residents who have served in our military. We’re seeking volunteers to undertake this ambitious endeavor “In Service 1941-1944”: The Somerset Hills Military Service…
Basking Ridge’s Rushmore 5 in the Modern Era
Views: 5,206 MLH Mini-Series: The Basking Ridge Rushmore 5 of the Modern Era in our CommunityMeet John Packo, Bill Hine, Irwin Richardt, Nick Sant Foster, and Bobby Thomson. Okay, so I live in Basking Ridge, which is part of Bernards…
‘Beautiful Bernards’ Honors Bernards Township History and Community
Views: 4,989 “Beautiful Bernards” is a perfect example of “sharing local history with a social twist!” Mr. Local History Project’s mission – the red and gold have a tie to Bernards Township history. Three years ago, Mr. Local History donated…
Bardy Farms: From a Russian Immigrant’s Fields to a Somerset County Farming Dynasty
Views: 980 Walk into Bardy Farms on Washington Valley Road in Warren Township, and you are entering one of New Jersey’s increasingly rare family farm businesses. Fresh produce still fills the market, plants crowd the greenhouses in Spring, pumpkins arrive…
Bernards Plateau and the Bernards Commons Community – Every Home Faces a Shared Park
Views: 2,135 1930s: Bernards Plateau and the 60-acre Bernards Commons & Decker’s Park Community Project The Bernards Plateau was named for the broad upland just west of the Basking Ridge village center, located just across Route 287 today, an area…
