
In 1798 the Western Precinct was organized as Montgomery Township, named for General Richard Montgomery, who fell fighting for the patriot cause in the Battle of Quebec at the start of the Revolution (1775). Before the creation of Mercer County in 1838, the southern border extended to Nassau Street in Princeton. The Township was originally known as the Western Precinct of Somerset County (i.e. Many speculators and early settlers were of Dutch descent from the New Amsterdam area (especially Long Island), which, after the British ousted the Dutch (1664), was renamed New York in honor of the Duke of York (the future James II). The first European landowners in what was to become Montgomery Township, such as Johannas Van Home and Peter Sonmans, were speculators who did not live on the land, but sold large parts of what they owned to companies that subdivided it into farm-sized plots for those who did intend to settle. The current Native American population of Montgomery Township is just under 0.1% of the total population. History īefore European settlement began, the area now known as Montgomery Township was inhabited for approximately 20,000 years by Lenni Lenape tribal groups. Based on data from the American Community Survey for 2013–2017, Montgomery Township residents had a median household income of $180,660, ranked 2nd in the state among municipalities with more than 10,000 residents, more than double the statewide median of $76,475. The township has been one of the state's highest-income communities. Portions of the township were taken to form Princeton Borough (February 11, 1813, in Mercer County, consolidated to form Princeton as of January 1, 2013), Princeton Township (April 9, 1838, also now consolidated into Princeton) and Rocky Hill (December 18, 1889). Montgomery Township was incorporated on February 21, 1798, as one of New Jersey's initial group of 104 townships by an act of the New Jersey Legislature, from what remained of Western precinct. As of the 2020 United States census, the township's population was 23,690, an increase of 1,436 (+6.5%) from the 2010 census count of 22,254, which in turn reflected an increase of 4,773 (+27.3%) from the 17,481 counted in the 2000 census. It is located in the New York Metropolitan Area. Montgomery Township is a township in southern Somerset County, in the U.S.
