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History of Plainfield NJ Plainfield's earliest settlers, like many others who pioneered this country, were seeking religious and political freedoms denied them in their own countries, By 1685, seven families (whose name identify them as "all good Scots") established farms a long the Cedar Brook. But long before the arrival of the first settlers, Indians had frequented the area in their travels between the Hudson and Delaware rivers. Those living in the Plainfield area were the Watchungs, part of the Lenni-Lenape tribe (commonly call Delaware). They encamped along the Green Brook and in the areas of the Watchung and Park avenues, and Grant and Clinton avenues. The trails they marked out hundreds of years ago ran through the heart of our city. When the railroad was built in the 1800's, it followed that old Indian cut-off to the sea. The new settlement was named Milltown, a reference to the grist mill which was built in 1760 on the Green Brook, near what is now Watchung Avenue. In 1788, the Quakers moved their Friends Meeting House from the original site near what is today the Plainfield Country Club, to the corner of Watchung Avenue and East Third Street where it remains as one of the historical landmarks of the city. Although the Plainfield area was mostly open farm land with a population of only about 50, it was considered of sufficient military importance during the Revolutionary period to warrant a large militia post. This was built along the east bank of the Green Brook River between what are now Clinton and West End avenues. The post, which consisted of 95 acres and a large fort, guarded the main road to Quibbletown (today's New Market area) and the mountain pass. Somerset Street is an extension of that mountain pass. The
Village of Plainfield Plainfield, a large and thriving village of Westfield t-ship, Essex Co., on Green Brook, the line between that and Somerset co. .. 65 miles from Philadelphia, 45 from Trenton . . . 16 from Elizabethtown, 25 from New York . . . on a plain of very level land, between 2 and 3 miles wide, and about 11 long: contains 1 Presbyterian, 1 Baptist and 1 Methodist church, 2 Friend's meeting houses (Hicksite and Orthodox), 2 grist mills, 1 saw mill, 4 stores, 13 master hatters, who manufacture about $74,000 worth of hats annually; 5 master tailors, employing 70 hands, who work for the southern market; a fire engine, and company, a mutual insurance company, established in 1832, which in a few months, executed policies to the amount of more than $150,000; and 120 dwellings; a ladies' library, an apprentices' library, A four-horse mail stage to New York, three times a week, and as often to Philadelphia, on alternate days, runs through the village. The country around the town is rich, well cultivated, and healthy; and the water good and the society moral and religious and ambitious of improvement. The neighboring mountain, about a mile N. of the town, affords an abundant supply of cheap fuel, and screens the valley from the violence of the N. and N.W. winds; and gives a very pleasing prospect to the S. and E. over a space of 30 miles. Union County was created from Essex County on March 19, 1857. Plainfield became a part of the new county.
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