Metuchen: The Brainy Borough

Metuchen has been calling itself the Brainy Borough since the late eighteen hundreds, and the nickname stuck because it was mostly true. The borough incorporated in nineteen hundred, carved out of Raritan Township, which is now Edison, and from the start it attracted professors, writers, and professionals riding the Pennsylvania Railroad into New York. The name itself comes from the name of a Native American chief, recorded as Matouchin or Matochshegan.

Edgar Rice Burroughs, creator of Tarzan, lived here briefly, and the town's Main Street literary and civic culture made it a magnet for the middle-class intelligentsia of Middlesex County. Today Metuchen is a walkable, transit-friendly borough of about fifteen thousand, still anchored by its commuter rail station and a downtown that has held onto its small-town character.