Bernards Township, New Jersey

• 1. Introduction

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  Bernards Township sits at the eastern end of the Somerset Hills in New Jersey, and on the 24th of May 1760, a royal charter brought it into existence under a slightly different name: Bernardston Township. That founding document set in motion more than two and a half centuries of growth, subdivision, and reinvention for a place that would eventually become home to nearly 28,000 people and earn a reputation as one of the most affluent bedroom suburbs in the New York metropolitan area. Who was the township named after, and why did residents later vote to keep a version of their own community from seceding? What draws Fortune 500 companies to a place that most people outside New Jersey have never heard of? And what does a solitary oak tree on Mountain Road have to do with any of it? Those are the threads this documentary will follow.

• 2. Royal Charter to Modern Township

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  Sir Francis Bernard, 1st Baronet, served as governor of the Province of New Jersey, and it is his name the township carries today. When the New Jersey Legislature formally incorporated the place as Bernards Township on the 21st of February 1798, it was counted among the state's initial group of 104 townships. Pieces of that original territory were carved away over the following century and a half. Warren Township separated on the 5th of March 1806. Far Hills broke off on the 7th of April 1921. Bernardsville followed on the 6th of March 1924. The 1921 separations nearly went further. A set of referendums held in June of that year could have reduced the township to just Liberty Corner and Lyons had all three proposals passed. The vote to create a borough of Basking Ridge was rejected by a margin greater than four to one. The township celebrated 250 years since its original royal charter in May 2010.

• 3. Geography and Boundaries

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  The United States Census Bureau measured the township at 24.33 square miles in total, with 24.20 square miles of land and just 0.13 square miles of water. Natural features define much of its perimeter: the Second Watchung Mountain rises to the southwest, the Dead River swamp lies to the south, and the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, the Passaic River, and Millington Gorge mark the eastern edge. Within those boundaries sits a constellation of named communities that are unincorporated, meaning they have no separate government of their own. Basking Ridge, Liberty Corner, Lyons, Franklin Corners, and more than half a dozen others all share the address of Bernards Township. The Hills is split between Bernards Township and the neighboring Bedminster municipality. A ZIP code quirk connects the township to Martinsville, which is technically in Bridgewater Township but whose 08836 postal code covers portions of Bernards as well.

• 4. Wealth, Demographics, and Growth

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  Between the 2000 and 2020 censuses, the township's population grew from 24,575 to 27,830, a gain of more than 3,200 residents across two decades. The 2010 count of 26,652 already placed Bernards among the more prosperous municipalities in New Jersey: the median household income that year was $123,285, and the median family income reached $153,906. Per capita income stood at $67,809. Only about 2.1% of families fell below the poverty line at the time of that count. The racial composition shifted between 2000 and 2010: the Asian population grew from 7.85% to 13.80% of residents, while the White share fell from 89.20% to 81.83%. Hispanic or Latino residents made up 3.95% of the 2010 population, compared with 2.63% a decade earlier. The median age in 2010 was 43.1 years, and nearly a third of the population fell in the 45-to-64 age bracket.

• 5. Corporate Addresses and Economy

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  Verizon Wireless maintains its headquarters in the township, occupying buildings that were formerly AT&T's world headquarters. Verizon Communications itself keeps its global headquarters in New York City, but major business units operate from the Bernards Township campus. Fedders and Hitachi Power Systems USA are also headquartered there. The township's position in the Raritan Valley, accessible via Interstate 78, Interstate 287, and U.S. Route 202, makes it practical for large employers who need proximity to both New York and the broader mid-Atlantic region. NJ Transit's Gladstone Branch provides train service at two stations within the township, Basking Ridge and Lyons, linking commuters to Hoboken Terminal. Lakeland Bus Lines operates rush-hour service on Route 78 from Bedminster all the way to the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Midtown Manhattan.

• 6. Schools and Academic Recognition

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  Ridge High School received the National Blue Ribbon School Award of Excellence from the United States Department of Education during the 2009-10 school year, which the department considers the highest honor an American school can receive. The school had also won that designation for the 1986-87 school year. Newsweek ranked Ridge 194th nationally in 2010, placing it second-highest in New Jersey, and by 2015 the magazine had elevated it to 37th best in the country. Mount Prospect Elementary School was one of 11 schools statewide recognized by the National Blue Ribbon Schools Program in 2014. Liberty Corner School followed in 2015, named one of 15 New Jersey schools and one of nine public schools in the exemplary high-performing category that year. As of the 2020-21 school year, the Bernards Township School District enrolled 4,874 students across six schools with a student-teacher ratio of 10.7 to 1. Saint James School, a parochial elementary operated under the Roman Catholic Diocese of Metuchen, earned its own Blue Ribbon recognition in 2024, joining 11 other schools statewide that year.

• 7. Notable Residents and Local Lore

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  Scott Fischer, who was born in 1955 and died in 1996, was the first American to climb Lhotse, the fourth-highest mountain in the world. He died during an attempt on Mount Everest in the 1996 Everest disaster. Tobin Heath, born in 1988, won a gold medal as the youngest member of the United States women's soccer team at the 2008 Olympics. Jared Isaacman, born in 1983, became a commercial astronaut. Philip Lindsley, born in 1786, served as acting president of what is now Princeton University from 1822 to 1824. William Alexander, known as Lord Stirling, was a Continental Army major general during the American Revolutionary War; he lived from 1726 to 1783. Among the more unusual entries on that list is William Henry Johnson, born around 1842 in Liberty Corner. Johnson performed under the name Zip the Pinhead in the sideshow circuit and died in 1926 after decades as one of the most recognizable figures in that world. The township also harbors a landmark that has drawn its own following: a solitary oak tree in a field off Mountain Road in the southern corner of the township, known as the Devil's Tree, which has been the subject of several stories in Weird NJ magazine.

• 8. Justice, Politics, and Community Ties

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  On the 22nd of November 2016, the United States Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Bernards Township, alleging the township violated the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act when it denied zoning approval for the Islamic Society of Basking Ridge to build a mosque on land the society owned. In January 2017, the township hired the Trenton-based firm Burton Trent Public Affairs for up to $45,000 to help manage the negative publicity surrounding those allegations. Politically, the township has leaned Republican in presidential races: Mitt Romney received 59.2% of the vote in 2012, and George W. Bush took 60.6% in 2004. Republican Chris Christie received 77.1% of the vote in the 2013 gubernatorial race. As of March 2011, registered Republicans and unaffiliated voters together far outnumbered registered Democrats among the township's 18,377 registered voters. A different kind of political story emerged in 2005. After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck the Greater New Orleans area, the Bernards Township Regional Chamber of Commerce organized truckloads of supplies for residents of Houma, Louisiana. In 2007, Terrebonne Parish returned the gesture by sending the Terrebonne High School Marching Band on a 26-hour bus ride to perform in the township's Holiday Parade and give a Christmas concert at a local church.