Raritan Landing

Raritan Landing. . Beginning about 1720 a port named Raritan Landing existed at Landing Lane, the head of navigation on the Raritan River where seagoing sloops with a draft of five feet could come at high tide. There were docks at the waterfront; and warehouses, shops and dwellings lined Landing Lane and River Road. Across the river in New Brunswick, settlement extended downstream along George Street and upstream along the old road to Mile Run. Goods were transferred between seagoing vessels and flatboats from upriver or wagons travelling overland. From about 1730 to 1775 there was a flourishing trade in grain exported from British colonies on the Atlantic Coast and Caribbean Islands. Floods caused some merchants to build on higher ground: Peter Bodine's house (1728) built on River Road near Metlars Lane and Cornelius Low's house (1741) built on the bluff above River Road at Landing Lane are surviving examples of such dwellings. The first bridge built across the river at Raritan Landing was built in 1772., During the British occupation of New Brunswick in 1776-77, the settlement at Raritan Landing was looted and burned. Commerce returned after the Revolutionary War but shipping was hampered by water too shallow for large sailing vessels and by the coming of steamboats in 1807 to New Brunswick, where the water was deeper. Completion of the Delaware and Raritan Canal in 1834 and the New Jersey Railroad in 1838 gave New Brunswick overwhelming transportation advantages. By the 1870's Raritan Landing was abandoned. , The Low House (Ivy Hall) was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971; the Metlar-Bodine House was listed in 1973. In 1978 Landing Lane was designated a State and National Archeological District.