Bridgewater Township is a township in Somerset County in the U.S. state of New Jersey, located within the heart of the Raritan Valley region. Situated within Central New Jersey and crisscrossed by several major highways, the township is known for being both the regional commercial hub for Somerset County (home to Bridgewater Commons and different corporate headquarters) and as a suburban bedroom community of New York City within the New York Metropolitan Area.The township is located roughly 32 miles (51 km) away from Manhattan and about 20 miles (32 km) away from Staten Island.

Bridgewater Township was created by Royal charter on April 4, 1749, from portions of the Northern precinct. It was incorporated as one of New Jersey’s initial group of 104 townships by the New Jersey Legislature on February 21, 1798, under the Township Act of 1798. During the nineteenth century, portions of the township were taken to form Warren Township (March 5, 1806), Branchburg Township (April 5, 1845), Somerville (March 25, 1863), Raritan (April 3, 1868) and Bound Brook (March 24, 1869).

As of the 2020 United States census, the township’s population was 45,977, an increase of 1,513 (+3.4%) from the 2010 census count of 44,464, which in turn reflected an increase of 1,524 (+3.5%) from the 42,940 counted in the 2000 census.

History

Thirteen Star Flag at the site of the Middlebrook encampment in Bridgewater is displayed continuously
Bridgewater is a relatively large, suburban township located in the center of Somerset County. The area of the present Township of Bridgewater was originally purchased from a local Lenape Native American tribe. Bridgewater was chartered by George II of Great Britain in 1749, and incorporated on February 21, 1798, as one of New Jersey’s 104 original townships. It is named after the town of Bridgwater in the English county of Somerset.

Tradition holds that it was at the Middlebrook encampment the first official flag of the United States was unfurled, after law to adopt a national flag had been passed by Congress on June 14, 1777. By special order of Congress, a Thirteen Star Flag is flown 24 hours a day at the Washington Camp Ground, part of the former Middlebrook encampment, in Bridgewater. Since 1889, the first hoisting of the flag is commemorated annually each July 4 with a changing of the flag, a reading of the Declaration of Independence, and the delivery of a historical address.

Until the 1960s, Bridgewater was largely known as a farming community. In the 1970s its population began to grow when residents of larger cities such as Plainfield and Newark started to migrate into Bridgewater as a result of the 1967 Plainfield Riots and 1967 Newark riots. Subsequently, Bridgewater started to receive an influx of residents who worked in the strong pharmaceutical, telecommunications, and financial industries in Bridgewater and the Raritan Valley. More recently, there has also been growth as Bridgewater has become more popular with New York City commuters who use the Bridgewater Station on New Jersey Transit’s Raritan Valley Line or Interstate 78 East to commute to New York City. Bridgewater is now a fairly developed suburban community, with only a few traces of its rural past still evident in the town (particularly in its northwestern section). Bridgewater is now Somerset County’s second-most populous municipality, after Franklin Township.