Editing High Bridge, New Jersey (section)

==History==
[[File:2023-04-19 11 39 20 View north along Hunterdon County Route 513 (Main Street) at Bridge Street in High Bridge, Hunterdon County, New Jersey.jpg|thumb|left|Main Street, 2023]]
High Bridge was originally incorporated as a [[township (New Jersey)|township]] by an act of the [[New Jersey Legislature]] on March 29, 1871, from portions of [[Clinton Township, New Jersey|Clinton Township]] and [[Lebanon Township, New Jersey|Lebanon Township]]. On February 19, 1898, the borough of High Bridge was incorporated from portions of the township, with the remainder returned to Clinton and Lebanon Townships five days later.<ref name=Story>Snyder, John P. [https://nj.gov/dep/njgs/enviroed/oldpubs/bulletin67.pdf ''The Story of New Jersey's Civil Boundaries: 1606-1968''], Bureau of Geology and Topography; Trenton, New Jersey; 1969. p. 155. Accessed May 28, 2024.</ref>

The borough is located on the [[South Branch Raritan River|South Branch of the Raritan River]] in the north central part of Hunterdon County. Water from the South Branch was a valuable power source for one of the first [[ironworks]] in the United States, established in the 1740s by [[William Allen (loyalist)|William Allen]] and [[Joseph Turner (loyalist)|Joseph Turner]] of [[Philadelphia]].<ref>Lawlor, Julia. [https://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/23/realestate/if-you-re-thinking-living-high-bridge-nj-steel-town-reborn-family-community.html "If You're Thinking of Living In/High Bridge, N.J.; Steel Town Reborn as Family Community"], ''[[The New York Times]]'', December 23, 2001. Accessed September 1, 2015. "In 1742, two Philadelphia businessmen, William Allen and Joseph Turner, leased a 3,000-acre tract from the King of England in what is now High Bridge. They began operating an iron forge, mining iron from the surrounding hills and cutting down the forests to fuel the forge. The business was eventually purchased by Robert Taylor, who supplied cannonballs for the Revolutionary Army."</ref> Allen was the [[mayor of Philadelphia]], a Chief Justice of Pennsylvania, and a prominent landowner in New Jersey. In 1859, the [[Central Railroad of New Jersey]] began a five-year construction project of a {{convert|112|ft|m|adj=mid|-high}}, {{convert|1300|ft|m|adj=mid|-long}} bridge across the river from which structure the locality ultimately took its name.<ref>[[Henry Gannett|Gannett, Henry]]. [https://books.google.com/books?id=9V1IAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA156 ''The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States''], p. 156. [[United States Government Printing Office]], 1905. Accessed April 21, 2015. "Highbridge; borough in Hunterdon County, New Jersey, named for its remarkable railroad bridge."</ref><ref>[http://highbridge.org/about-high-bridge/history-of-high-bridge/ History of High Bridge], High Bridge Borough. Accessed September 1, 2015. "High Bridge was named for a 1,300 foot-long, 112 foot-high bridge built by the Central Railroad Company across the South Branch of the Raritan River. It was too costly to maintain and was subsequently filled in with an earthen embankment, leaving a double-arch culvert through which the River and Arch Street pass through. Construction of the embankment began in 1859 and took five years to complete."</ref>