Nottingham is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

located within Hamilton Township in Mercer County, in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...

New Jersey New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...

. It was named after the English town of

Nottingham Nottingham ( , East Midlands English, locally ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located south-east of Sheffield and nor ...

when the area was settled by English emigrants entering an area of Dutch culture just two decades removed from the land being part of

New Netherland New Netherland () was a colony of the Dutch Republic located on the East Coast of what is now the United States. The claimed territories extended from the Delmarva Peninsula to Cape Cod. Settlements were established in what became the states ...

Dutch Empire The Dutch colonial empire () comprised overseas territories and trading posts under some form of Dutch control from the early 17th to late 20th centuries, including those initially administered by Dutch chartered companies—primarily the Du ...

. Nottingham is in the Mercerville-Hamilton Square area. Settled earlier, Nottingham is the original settlement in the former Nottingham Township (1688-1856). The neighboring unincorporated community of Sandtown was renamed Mercerville after the

Battle of Princeton The Battle of Princeton was a battle of the American Revolutionary War, fought near Princeton, New Jersey on January 3, 1777, and ending in a small victory for the Colonials. General Lord Cornwallis had left 1,400 British troops under the comma ...

. Most or all of Nottingham was renamed

Hamilton Square Hamilton Square is a town square in Birkenhead, Wirral, England. The Georgian square, which was designed by Edinburgh architect James Gillespie Graham, has the most Grade I listed buildings outside London (after Trafalgar Square). It is named ...

after

Alexander Hamilton Alexander Hamilton (January 11, 1755 or 1757July 12, 1804) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the first U.S. secretary of the treasury from 1789 to 1795 dur ...

in a wave of anti-British sentiment at the time of the

War of 1812 The War of 1812 was fought by the United States and its allies against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom and its allies in North America. It began when the United States United States declaration of war on the Uni ...

.History of Hamilton Township, Hamilton Township Historical Society, 1999. But local people still call the community Nottingham, because a large minority did not agree with the name change, and the center of Hamilton Square was a different neighborhood. Nottingham has maintained its sense of neighborhood because of continuity with street names and social events.

References

Hamilton Township, Mercer County, New Jersey Unincorporated communities in Mercer County, New Jersey Unincorporated communities in New Jersey {{MercerCountyNJ-geo-stub