Penns Neck is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

located within West Windsor Township in Mercer County,

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

, United States. The community developed at the intersection of the Trenton-New Brunswick Turnpike (now U.S. Route 1) and Washington Road. The

Penns Neck Circle This is a list of traffic circles in New Jersey. The U.S. state of New Jersey at one point had a total of 101 traffic circles, 44 of which were part of State highway, state roads. However, the number has shrunk as traffic circles have been phas ...

and the historic Penns Neck Baptist Church (1812) are both located in Penns Neck. The

Princeton Branch The Princeton Branch is a commuter rail line and service owned and operated by New Jersey Transit (NJT) in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The line is a short branch of the Northeast Corridor Line, running from Princeton Junction northwest to Prin ...

rail line, known as the Dinky, has run through the area since 1865, and stopped at Penns Neck station until January 1971.

History

The 6500-acre tract of land that would become Penns Neck was initially purchased from the East Jersey Board of Proprietors by

William Penn William Penn ( – ) was an English writer and religious thinker belonging to the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania, a North American colony of England. He was an early advocate of democracy a ...

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of Christian denomination, denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belie ...

founder of

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

. In 1737, concurrent to the settlement of Dutch Neck, Garret Schenck 7 John Covenhoven purchased the land from Penn's sons. That same year is the first year that the name "Penns Neck" (named after Penn) appears - alongside an alternate name, "Williamsborough." Soon after, the area - bordered by the Stony Brook to the west, the

Millstone River The Millstone River is a tributary of the Raritan River in central New Jersey in the United States.Gertler, Edward. ''Garden State Canoeing'', Seneca Press, 2002. The Millstone River begins in western Monmouth County and flows westward throu ...

to the north, the

Assunpink Creek Assunpink Creek is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed April 1, 2011 tributary of the Delaware River in western New Jersey in the United States.Gertler, Edward. ''Garde ...

to the south, and Penn Lyle Road to the east - became settled by the Schenck and Covenhoven families. In the late 1730s/1740s, the Schenck-Covenhoven cemetery was constructed to house the settlers' dead. Following the chartering of

Brunswick Pike U.S. Route 1 (US 1) is a United States highway which parallels the East Coast of the United States, running from Key West, Florida in the south to Fort Kent, Maine at the Canadian border in the north. Of the entire length of the route, of it ...

(Route 1) in 1804 and its completion in 1807, the community began to flourish, seeing the construction of the Red Lion Inn. In 1812, the Princeton Baptist Church (AKA the Penns Neck Baptist Church) was erected, helping to center the intersection of Route 1 and Washington Road as the geographical and historical heart of the community. In October 2019, the Historical Society of West Windsor published an online museum exploring the history of West Windsor - including Penns Neck.

References

External links

West Windsor History Museum - Penns Neck
West Windsor, New Jersey Unincorporated communities in Mercer County, New Jersey Unincorporated communities in New Jersey {{MercerCountyNJ-geo-stub