Hamilton Township: The Township Alexander Built
Near Trenton, New Jersey
Hamilton Township, the largest municipality in Mercer County, was incorporated in eighteen forty-two. It borders Trenton and is the capital's largest suburb. The township grew steadily through the nineteenth century as a farming and light-industrial area, then exploded after World War Two when hundreds of housing developments filled its fields.
The Nottingham section became famous in the nineteen fifties as a quintessential postwar suburb. By the nineteen eighties Hamilton was one of the most densely populated townships in New Jersey, with nearly ninety thousand residents. The Grounds for Sculpture, a forty-two-acre outdoor art museum that opened in nineteen ninety-two on the former State Fairgrounds, is today one of the region's most visited cultural destinations.
