West Orange Revisited

Book excerpt: On March 14, 1863, the New Jersey Legislature created the township of West Orange by combining all of the land of the existing Fairmount Township, formed only a year earlier, with a section of neighboring Orange. It created West Orange with its present-day boundaries and gave the new town a separate and distinct identity. It became home to the laboratories of world-famous inventor Thomas Edison in 1887, and he lived here until his death in 1931. But there is so much more to the town's history. Four former New Jersey governors also lived here, including Civil War general George McClellan, who, as a town resident, unsuccessfully opposed Abraham Lincoln in the presidential election of 1864. The fertile farmland that attracted the early settlers left behind an enduring legacy of rich history still interwoven into the community of today.