East Jersey Olde Towne Village

Open-air museum of colonial buildings on the Raritan riverbank

East Jersey Olde Towne Village is an open-air museum of twelve colonial-era buildings gathered into Johnson Park on the bank of the Raritan River. The structures — spanning 1703 to 1850 — were relocated here from sites across central New Jersey: a one-room schoolhouse, an 18th-century tavern, a church replica, and several farmhouses show how ordinary people lived in the Raritan Valley before industrialisation.

The site is managed by Middlesex County and open for self-guided walks along the riverside path even when the buildings themselves are closed. A permanent exhibition documents Raritan Landing, the busy colonial trading port whose archaeological remains lie in the earth just downstream. Entry is free.

things to do museum historic site
A story
The village sits on the edge of Raritan Landing, a 18th-century port that once handled as much cargo as any waterfront in the colony. When the railroad arrived and river commerce died, the town vanished so completely that archaeologists only confirmed its exact location in the 1980s by digging beneath the Johnson Park picnic grounds.