Bloomsbury: Named for the Iron Bloom

The small Hunterdon County borough of Bloomsbury sits on the south bank of the Musconetcong River, and its name carries the memory of an early American industry. The place was once called Johnson's Iron Works, after Robert Johnson who ran a forge on the north bank of the river. When the community needed a proper name, two stories emerged: some said it honored the Bloom family, prominent in local history; others said it came from the iron process itself, the raw lumps of wrought iron pulled from a furnace were called blooms, and this was a town built on making them. In nineteen oh five the community formally incorporated as Bloomsbury Borough, carved out of the surrounding Bethlehem Township, a quiet acknowledgment of the industrial roots beneath its pastoral surface.