Hopewell Valley History Project

A volunteer effort to collect, digitize, organize, and freely share the history of the Hopewell Valley in Mercer County, New Jersey.

== Latest Updates: Titusville 1956 July 4th Parade and Water Show Video ==

Recent News:
History Project book released: Hopewell Borough History Briefs, 2022 Edition
Digital Edition of Pennington Profile Book Released

Recent Presentation Videos and References
The Story of the Hopewell InnHoproco – Hopewell’s 1920s Toy Company
Life in 1900s Hopewell With the Arrival of the Railroad
Discovering Local History OnlineSeminary Avenue Historic Tour
Hopewell Train StationsIndustrial Hopewell: Railroad Place


Site Tour


The Hopewell Valley History Project is a volunteer effort to collect and organize the important sources of our local heritage in digital form, and share them online for open and convenient access.

We are posting curated copies of materials already in digital format, including historic ebooks and scanned maps, and also seeking out paper documents and images to manually photograph and scan for the site.

Visit the Site Index to explore the organization of the site by different types of materials. Scroll down for previews of the major sections of the site.

Site Organization (scroll down for an overview of each section):

Recent Updates

Contribute

Help share our local history with the community – for more information, email info@hopewellhistoryproject.org.

  • Collect and organize historical material on interesting topics
  • Digitize and transcribe historical materials
  • Write summaries on important people, places, houses, etc.

Hopewell Valley Places – Indexes By Municipality

See Hopewell Valley Places for quick links to information on this site for specific local communities – Hopewell Borough, Pennington Borough, Titusville / Washington Crossing, and Hopewell Township – including images, property documents, maps, and related materials.

See Historic Town Maps for galleries of historic town maps and aerial imagery.

See the Historic Property Reports archive for two sets of documentation on historic properties: Hopewell area Cultural Resource Survey documentation, and Historic Property Briefs documented using research by the History Project.

See Hopewell Borough History Briefs for historical information and chronologies on Hopewell Borough organizations, businesses, and properties, and the people that made them.


Hopewell History Map – Properties and Images

The interactive Hopewell History Map provides a map interface for exploring information and images on historical properties in Hopewell Borough.

Browse the street addresses in the Map or Table, and click a property to view the available information in the other panels, including photo and postcard views in the Info Panel, and documentation on selected properties.

See also the Aerial Panoramas archive to pan and zoom in large aerial and panoramic imagery.


The Image Gallery is focused on photos and postcards of buildings and streets for each of the towns in the Hopewell Valley region. It also includes albums on Artwork and Photography collections, and Mementos.

The town files are named by street address and year for convenient searching and sorting – and to compare images along the same street, at the same address in different years, or from different sources.


Pamphlet Collection – Local Organizations

The Pamphlet Collection includes scans of leaflets and pamphlets distributed by local municipalities and organizations within the last 40-some years (e.g., “ephemera”). These are typically short informational handouts that capture interesting information on towns and businesses and people. See the Books Archive for longer-form historical material.


Reference Guides

The Books and Maps Reference Guides include several types of printable guides (PDF), including Galleries with images and catalogs of available sources and materials, Chronologies with listings of all the materials in the archives with additional information, and Sources Guides with references for further investigation.

See Hopewell Valley Town References for an archive of the key reference books to consult for historical information on Hopewell Valley places, buildings, and people.


Book and Map Archives – Tables of Resources

The Book and Map Archives contain copies of the available resource files for convenient browsing. Browse all materials, or specific types:

  • Full Archives – All Document and Map materials
  • Document Archives – Historic documents, including books and pamphlets, back to the early 1900’s (large PDFs)
  • Map Archives – Maps of the Hopewell Valley region, including historic maps covering the region, municipal maps (e.g., tax and zoning), and other formats.

Recent Blog Posts – Site Updates

Searchable listing of all Blog posts with updates on new additions.