ZIP Code 08809

Clinton is a town in Hunterdon County, New Jersey, located on the South Branch of the Raritan River. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the town's population was 2,719, reflecting an increase of 87 (+3.3%) from the 2,632 counted in the 2000 census. Clinton was named for DeWitt Clinton, Governor of New York and the primary impetus behind the then-newly completed Erie Canal. The town is perhaps best known for its two mills, the Red Mill and the Stone Mill. Clinton is part of the Primary Metropolitan Statistical Area of Middlesex, Somerset and Hunterdon counties in New Jersey. It serves as a "bedroom community" for many commuters working in and around Northern New Jersey and New York City, often younger residents who have supplanted long-time residents of Clinton. The Clinton Historic District encompassing much of the town was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1995 for its significance in architecture, commerce, engineering, industry and exploration/settlement. Clinton falls under the North Jersey climate zone. According to the Office of the New Jersey State Climatologist at Rutgers University, the Northern climate zone covers about one-quarter of New Jersey with a continental climate with minimal influence from the Atlantic Ocean. Annual snowfall averages 40 to 50 inches (100 to 130 cm) in the northern zone as compared with an average of 10 to 15 inches (25 to 38 cm) south of the USDA 6 zone.

History

Clinton was incorporated as a town by an act of the New Jersey Legislature on April 5, 1865. The town is perhaps best known for its two mills which sit on opposite banks of the South Branch Raritan River. The Red Mill, with its historic village, dates back to 1810 with the development of a mill for wool processing. Across the river sits the Stone Mill, home of the Hunterdon Art Museum, located in a former gristmill that had been reconstructed in 1836 and operated continuously until 1952. On October 30, 1891, a major fire destroyed 23 buildings and 17 businesses on Main Street. This is known here as the Great Fire of 1891. The Clinton Historic District encompassing much of the town was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1995 for its significance in architecture, commerce, engineering, industry and exploration/settlement. The district includes 270 contributing buildings. Clinton and mayor-at-the-time Robert A. Nulman received state, national, and international attention for the town's successful efforts to combat the radon using ventilation systems in affected homes. In 1988, Clinton was described by The New York Times as having "conquered the worst residential radon hotspot known in the United States" which resulted from uranium in the limestone under sections of theTown. Clinton was named for DeWitt Clinton, Governor of New York and the primary impetus behind the then-newly completed Erie Canal. Clinton gained full independence from its three parent townships in 1895.

Geography

Clinton is part of the Primary Metropolitan Statistical Area of Middlesex, Somerset and Hunterdon counties in New Jersey. It serves as a "bedroom community" for many commuters working in and around Northern New Jersey and New York City. Clinton falls under the North Jersey climate zone. It is located in the northernmost portion of the state, and with small mountains up to 1,800 feet (550 m) in elevation, the Northern Zone normally exhibits a colder temperature regime than other climate regions of the State. Annual snowfall averages 40 to 50 inches (100 to 130 cm) in the Northern zone as compared with an average of 10 to 15 inches (25 to 38 cm) in the extreme south. The town is located on the western fringe of the New York city Metropolitan Area, which is mainly rural with scattered housing developments and old farm homes. It has a population of 1,744. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates the town's population to be 1,844. It had a total area of 1.44 square miles (3.72 km²), including 1.35 square miles of land and 0.09 sq miles (0.24 km²) of water (6.39%). The town borders the Hunterdon County municipalities of Clinton Township, Franklin Township and Union Township. Clinton is considered an exurb of New YorkCity, asHunterdon County lies on the west edge of the NYC Metropolitan Area. It was founded in the 18th century as a settlement of farmers.

Demographics

As of the 2020 census, there were 2,632 people, 1,068 households, and 724 families residing in the town. The racial makeup of the town was 92.06% White, 1.33% African American, 0.46% Native American, 3.72% Asian, 1.37% from other races, and 1.08% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 6.22% (169) of the population. The median household income was $83,850 (with a margin of error of +/ $12,019) and the median family Income was $109,375 (+/ $19,698) in 2010. The per capita income for the borough was $43,354. About 2.6% of families and 3.2% of the residents were below the poverty line, including 2.0% of those under age 18 and 11.9% ofThose age 65 or over. The town has a population of 2,719 people, with 1,098 housing units at an average density of 820.8 per square mile (316.9/km²) The town is located on the New York-Pennsylvania border. The U.S. Census Bureau's 2006-2010 American Community Survey showed that (in 2010 inflation-adjusted dollars) median household incomes was $82,816. The 2010 U.N. World Population Survey showed the population was 2.2 million, up from 2.1 million in 2000.

Arts and culture

The Red Mill Museum Village is located on the South Branch of the Raritan River in the town center of Clinton. Every October, the mill is transformed into a haunted house called the Red Mill Haunted Village. The Red Mill was featured on an episode of Ghost Hunters in 2008. The Hunterdon Art Museum presents changing exhibitions of contemporary art, craft and design in the 19th century Dunham's Mill, the Stone Mill, listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Founded in 1952, the Museum showcases works by internationally recognized and emerging contemporary artists. It also offers a dynamic schedule of over 300 art classes and workshops for children and adults, as well as a summer camp program. The Haunted Village tends to attract visitors from all over the east coast to the small town. The Mill was used at different times to process grains, plaster, talc and graphite. The mill was also used to produce peach baskets, aswell as to generate electricity and pump water for the town. It is located in Clinton, New Jersey, and was built in 1810 as a woolen mill. It has been converted into a Haunted Village every October since the beginning of the year. It was also featured on a 2008 episode ofGhost Hunters in the United States, on the Investigation Discovery channel. The museum is located at 56 Main Street, Clinton, and is open to the public on weekdays from 9am to 5pm. The Museum is on the second floor of a building on the third floor of the Clinton High School.

Parks and recreation

Spruce Run Recreation Area (Van Syckel's Road, Clinton, NJ): 1,961 acres (7.94 km²), picnicking, boating, fishing and seasonal camping. Round Valley Recreation area (Lebanon-Stanton Road, Lebanon, NJ) offers wilderness camping, beaches, fishing, and boating. Spruce Run is located on the Lehigh Valley Railroad, which was built in 1881. It is about 2 miles (3.2 km) south of Clinton on Landsdown Road that enters Clinton town center near the lumber yard. It's on a spur of the railroad that is now a graded rail trail that runs through the center of the town. The park is open year-round and is open to the general public. It offers camping, hiking, and fishing, as well as a number of other activities. It also has a lake, which is used for boating and fishing. It was built as part of a rail line that was built from 1881 to 1883, and is about 3 miles (4 km) from the town center of Clinton. It has a paved road that runs along the side of the lake that is used as a hiking and fishing trail. It can also be accessed by a paved path that runs from the back of the park to the front of the property. The lake is open all year round and is accessible by foot or by bike, with a paved trail that leads to the lake from the front.

Government

Clinton is governed under the Town form of municipal government. The Mayor is elected directly by the voters to a four-year term of office. Members of the Town Council are elected to three-year terms of office on a staggered basis. Hunterdon County is governed by a Board of Chosen Commissioners. Clinton is located in the 7th Congressional District and is part of New Jersey's 23rd state legislative district. New Jersey is represented in the United States Senate by Democrats Cory Booker (Newark, term ends 2027) and Bob Menendez (Harrison, term end 2025) In the 2012 presidential election, Republican Mitt Romney received 52.0% of the vote (693-623 votes) over Democrat Barack Obama with 46.7% of votes cast. There were 3 Libertarians or Greens registered as registered as Unaffiliated with the U.S. political party. The town is one of nine municipalities (of the 564) statewide that use this traditional form of government. As of 2022, the mayor of Clinton Town is Democrat Janice Kovach, whose term ofoffice ends on December 31, 2023. The fire department runs mutual aid calls with Annandale Hose Company, High Bridge Fire Department, Quakertown Fire Company, Lebanon Fire Company and Pattenburg Fire Company. The department offers three types of membership to prospective members: Active firefighter, Junior firefighter and Associate membership. The CFD's calls are roughly broken down to 15% motor vehicle accidents, 15% hazardous conditions, 5% service calls, 25% good intent calls with no fire found and 25% alarm activations/false alarms, averaging about 190 calls annually.

Education

Clinton-Glen Gardner School District serves students from Clinton Town and Glen Gardner Borough in pre-kindergarten through eighth grade. As of the 2018-2019 school year, the district, comprised of one school, had an enrollment of 431 students and 44.7 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a studentteacher ratio of 9.6:1. Public school students in ninth through twelfth grades attend North Hunterdon High School in Annandale together with students from Bethlehem Township, Clinton Township, Franklin Township, Lebanon Borough and Union Township. High school students from all of Hunterdon County are eligible to apply to attend the high school programs offered by the county-wide vocational school district. The district's board of education voted in November 2009 to revise the name to Clinton-Glan Gardner School district to reflect the merger. The school is part of the North Hunter Don-Voorhees Regional High School District, which also includes students from Califon, Glen Gardner, Hampton, High Bridge, Lebanon Township and Tewksbury Township, who attend Voor hees High School. The high school had anrollment of 1,584 students and 123.2 classroom teachers as of the 2014-15 school year. It offers career and technical education at its campuses in Raritan Township and at programs sited at local high schools, with no tuition charged to students for attendance. It is the only school in the district that does not charge students to attend.

Transportation

As of July 2015, the town had a total of 12.21 miles (19.65 km) of roadways, of which 8.72 miles (14.03 km) were maintained by the municipality and 3.49 miles (5.62 km) by the New Jersey Department of Transportation. The most major road passing through Clinton is Interstate 78/U.S. Route 22, which run concurrently through the area. Access to Interstate 78 provides Clinton with a route to and from New York City and the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania. Philadelphia can also be accessed from Clinton via New Jersey Route 31 to Interstate 295 south. The LINK, which serves Hunterdon County is the primary traditional publicly funded mode of transportation. Fares range from about $2.00 to $10.00. The town is home to a park-and-ride center, which is located at the intersection of Route 31 and Route 173/County Road 513. It is also home to the Annandale station on the Raritan Valley Line of the NJ Transit Rail system, which provides service from Allentown and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania to the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Midtown Manhattan and airports at a stop at the park- and-ride on Route 31 in Clinton. It also has a shuttle service along Route 31 Monday-Friday to Oxford Township, which runs through the center of the town. Clinton is also the home of the Clinton High School football team, which won a state championship in 2008.

References in popular culture

Several movies have used the town as a backdrop, including In and Out with Kevin Kline, One True Thing with Renée Zellweger and Meryl Streep, My Giant with Billy Crystal, and Turbulence with Ray Liotta. A music video for Sharon Van Etten's single "Seventeen" was partially filmed in the town, as well as at nearby Round Valley Reservoir. The CBS-TV daytime drama As the World Turns taped scenes at businesses along Main Street in 2008 and 2009. The town is featured in the book "The Town That Never Was" by David Bianculli, published by Simon & Schuster at a cost of $25,000. The book is based on the book's author's visit to the town in the 1970s and 1980s, and includes a tour of the town and its historic buildings. It is also featured on the TV show "As the World turns" on CBS, which taped scenes in 2007 and 2008. It also appears in the film "As The World Turns" on PBS, which aired in 2009 and 2010, and on the PBS series "American Experience" on the same channel. The TV series also featured a visit from the town's mayor, who was also a resident of the same town for a time in the 1980s and 1990s. It was also used in the movie "In and Out" and the TV series "Turbulence" on which it was based. The film was based on a true story of a town in northern New Hampshire.

Air Quality, Water Quality, Superfund Sites & UV Index

The Air Quality index is in Clinton, Hunterdon County, New Jersey = 5.9. These Air Quality index is based on annual reports from the EPA. Higher values are better (100=best). The number of ozone alert days is used as an indicator of air quality, as are the amounts of seven pollutants including particulates, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, lead, and volatile organic chemicals. The Water Quality Index is 40. A measure of the quality of an area’s water supply as rated by the EPA. Higher values are better (100=best). The EPA has a complex method of measuring the watershed quality, using 15 indicators such as pollutants, turbidity, sediments, and toxic discharges. The Superfund Sites Index is 10. Higher is better (100=best). Based upon the number and impact of EPA Superfund pollution sites in the county, including spending on the cleanup efforts. The UV Index in Clinton = 3.6 and is a measure of an area's exposure to the sun's ultraviolet rays. This is most often a combination of sunny weather, altitude, and latitude. The UV Index has been defined by the WHO (www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/radiation-the-ultraviolet-(uv)-index) and is uniform worldwide.

Employed

The most recent city population of 2,773 individuals with a median age of 37.6 age the population grows by 8.06% in Clinton, Hunterdon County, New Jersey population since 2000 and are distributed over a density of 2,059.4 residents per square mile of area (795.1/km²). There are average 2.75 people per household in the 4,622 households with an average household income of $116,847 a year. The unemployment rate in Alabama is 6.60% of the available work force and has dropped -3.41% over the most recent 12-month period and the projected change in job supply over the next decade based on migration patterns, economic growth, and other factors will increase by 26.58%. The number of physicians in Clinton per 100,000 population = 271.9.

Weather

The annual rainfall in Clinton = 46.7 inches and the annual snowfall = 31.7 inches. The annual number of days with measurable precipitation (over .01 inch) = 119. The average number of days per year that are predominantly sunny = 204. 87 degrees Fahrenheit is the average daily high temperature for the month of July and 19.9 degrees Fahrenheit is the average daily low temperature for the month of January. The Comfort Index (higher=better) is 46, where higher values mean a more pleasant climate. The Comfort Index measure recognizes that humidity by itself isn't the problem. (Have you noticed nobody ever complains about the weather being 'cold and humid?) It's in the summertime that we notice the humidity the most, when it's hot and muggy. Our Comfort Index uses a combination of afternoon summer temperature and humidity to closely predict the effect that the humidity will have on people.

Median Home Cost

The percentage of housing units in Clinton, Hunterdon County, New Jersey which are owned by the occupant = 88.26%. A housing unit is a house, apartment, mobile home, or room occupied as separate living quarters. The average age of homes = 25 years with median home cost = $384,520 and home appreciation of -2.29%. This is the value of the years most recent home sales data. Its important to note that this is not the average (or arithmetic mean). The median home price is the middle value when you arrange all the sales prices of homes from lowest to highest. This is a better indicator than the average, because the median is not changed as much by a few unusually high or low values. The property tax rate of $20.09 shown here is the rate per $1,000 of home value. If for simplification for example the tax rate is $14.00 and the home value is $250,000, the property tax would be $14.00 x ($250,000/1000), or $3500. This is the 'effective' tax rate.

Study

The local school district spends $8,947 per student. There are 11.8 students for each teacher in the school, 603 students for each Librarian and 379 students for each Counselor. 6.12% of the area’s population over the age of 25 with an Associate Degree or other 2-year college degree, 28.71% with a master’s degree, Ph.D. or other advanced college degree and 22.10% with high school diplomas or high school equivalency degrees (GEDs).