New Brunswick, NJ news and local guide

Midway between New York and Philadelphia on the King's Highway and on the Raritan River, New Brunswick became an important stop for colonial travelers and traders. It was incorporated as a town in 1736 and chartered as a city in 1784. The British occupied it in the winter of 1776 to 1777. On July 9, 1776, Colonel John Neilson gave one of the first public readings of the Declaration of Independence there, an event marked by a statue dedicated in Monument Square in 2017. The trustees of Queen's College, now Rutgers University, founded in 1766, voted ten to seven in 1771 to locate the college in New Brunswick rather than Hackensack. Classes began that year with one instructor, one sophomore, Matthew Leydt, and a few freshmen at the Sign of the Red Lion tavern at Albany and Neilson streets, now the grounds of the Johnson and Johnson headquarters. Leydt became the college's first graduate in 1774, the only member of his class. Sources Wikipedia: New Brunswick, New Jersey