A town the river built

Hampton began the way most river towns do — with water and a way to turn it into flour. A gristmill on the Musconetcong gave the settlement its first reason to exist, and the families who worked it gave the place its character.

The borough was incorporated in 1895, carved from the surrounding township during New Jersey's great borough-forming era. But the story runs deeper than the paperwork: the river here decided which buildings got to stay, and the mill anchored the village for generations.

Walk the main street today and you can still read the layers — brick storefronts, stone foundations, and the millrace that once turned the wheels of the local economy.