Cranford is a township in Union County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, located southwest of New York City. As of the 2020 United States census, the township's population was 23,847, an increase of 1,222 (+5.4%) from the 2010 census count of 22,625, which in turn reflected an increase of 47 (+0.2%) from the 22,578 counted in the 2000 census.Table 7. Population for the Counties and Municipalities in New Jersey: 1990, 2000 and 2010, New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development, February 2011. Accessed May 1, 2023.
NJ Transit rail service is available at the Cranford station, along the Raritan Valley Line, with service to Newark Penn Station and to New York Penn Station in via Midtown Direct. It is part of the New York metropolitan area.
Cranford was incorporated as a township by an act of the New Jersey Legislature on March 14, 1871, from portions of the Townships of Clark, Linden, Springfield Township, Union Township and Westfield. Portions of the township were taken to form Garwood (in 1903) and Kenilworth (in 1907).Snyder, John P. The Story of New Jersey's Civil Boundaries: 1606–1968, Bureau of Geology and Topography; Trenton, New Jersey; 1969. Accessed May 1, 2026. The township's name is said to derive from the Crane family,Hutchinson, Viola L. The Origin of New Jersey Place Names, New Jersey Public Library Commission, May 1945. Accessed August 28, 2015. including John Crane, who built a mill in 1720 along the Rahway River.Cheslow, Jerry. "If You're Thinking of Living in: Cranford", The New York Times, March 8, 1992. Accessed August 29, 2015. "KNOWN at the turn of the century as the Venice of New Jersey, the Union County Township of Cranford grew up around the meandering Rahway River. In 1720, John Crane of nearby Elizabeth Towne (now Elizabeth) built a grist mill on the north side of a ford in the river and a sawmill on the south side."
Historic preservation
Historic sites in the township are overseen by the Cranford Historic Preservation Advisory Board.Cranford Township Code Chapter 6-40.19, Township of Cranford. Accessed November 28, 2016.
The Cranford Historical Society, a private entity founded in 1927 and located in Hanson Park on Springfield Avenue, maintains the Crane-Phillips House (), located at 124 North Union Avenue, as a museum.Home page , Cranford Historical Society. Accessed December 26, 2014.
Historic figures Though no known Cranford residents died in the American Civil War, at least 22 were active in the Union Army at the time of General Robert E. Lee's surrender. Cranford's last surviving Civil War veteran died in 1935.
James E. Warner is a former sheriff of Union County who was the namesake of the James E. Warner Plaza at the Cranford Train Station. Concerned by the then-growing pollution of the Rahway given the cleaner waters of his youth, Warner advocated for the preservation of the Rahway River and Rahway River Parkway parkland. One of Sheriff Warner's successful targets in fighting Rahway River pollution was his battle against the discharge of paper makers; one such site is now the regional theater known as the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn. The Cranford Canoe Club, built in 1908, continues to offer canoes and kayaks for rent on the river in town.
Charles HanselCharles Hansel (1859–1936), Flickr. Accessed October 3, 2017. was co-founder of the Union County Parks Commission that preserved parkland all along the Rahway River and its tributaries in the 1920s, a greenway now known as the Rahway River Parkway.It Takes a Village... and a park commission , Friends of the Rahway River Parkway. Accessed August 14, 2017. He was an engineer for the Pennsylvania Railroad and Central Railroad of New Jersey. Hansel lived in the 300 block of North Union Avenue in a home that still stands today, later moving to what is now Gray's Funeral Home, near what is now called Hansel's Dam by Sperry Park. For his Rahway River preservation efforts, a memorial copper plaque was placed to Hansel in Echo Lake Park.Charles Hansel plaque, Accessed October 3, 2017.
Joshua Bryant was Cranford's first Black law enforcement officer and the township's first Black elected official.Fridlington, Robert J. "Remembering Joshua Bryant, a prominent figure in Cranford's history", Cranford Chronicle, February 10, 2012. Accessed October 28, 2016. "Without formal training and despite prevailing attitudes, he became Cranford's first African-American law enforcement officer, the first African-American elected to public office in the township, and an influential figure in local politics."
William P. Westervelt was credited with thwarting the Baltimore Plot, an unsuccessful assassination attempt against president-elect Abraham Lincoln. He did so by cutting telegraph wires that would have alerted assassins to Lincoln's arrival.
Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau, the township had a total area of , including of land and of water (0.78%). Cranford's downtown is as a census-designated place.
There are nine municipalities bordering the township: Garwood and Westfield to the west, Springfield to the north, Kenilworth to the northeast, Roselle and Roselle Park to the east, Linden to the southeast, Winfield Township and Clark to the south.Areas touching Cranford, MapIt. Accessed March 26, 2020.Union County Municipal Profiles, Union County, New Jersey. Accessed March 26, 2020.New Jersey Municipal Boundaries, New Jersey Department of Transportation. Accessed November 15, 2019.
Parks Township parks Parks run by the township and overseen by the Cranford Recreation and Parks Department include:Parks and Facilities, Township of Cranford. Accessed October 3, 2017.
Adams Park – Adams Avenue and Lambert Street. Morses Creek dips into Cranford behind this park. Buchanan Park – Centennial Avenue and Buchanan Avenue Cranford Canoe Club – Springfield Avenue and Orange AvenueCanoe Club.com/ Home Page, Cranford Canoe Club. Accessed November 8, 2016. The Cranford Canoe Club rents canoes and kayaks for trips on the Rahway River in Cranford. The current structure was built as a private canoe club in 1908.Fridlington and Fuhro, Cranford Vol. 2 (1996) p. 52. Community Center – Walnut Avenue. The Cranford Community Center, adjacent to the Cranford Public Library, offers classes, sports, speaker series and other recreational activities. Josiah Crane Park – Springfield Avenue and North Union Avenue. In 1971, the Cranford Historical Society marked the farm and village home of Josiah Crane Sr. (1791–1873) in a park across from the First Presbyterian Church on the Rahway River. This park now features Cranford's 9/11 Memorial. Cranford West – Hope, N.J. Originally the home of the Cranford Boys Club on Silver Lake from the 1920s to the 1960s Girl Scout Park – Springfield Avenue and Orange Avenue. This was once the site of a canoe club, later the Neva Sykes Girl Scout House, demolished in the 1950s. Hampton Park – Eastman Street and Hampton Street Hanson Park – Springfield Avenue and Holly Street. Home of the Hanson Park Conservancy.About, Hanson Park Conservancy. Accessed November 8, 2016. Johnson Park – Johnson Avenue. The Johnson Avenue playground opened in July 1957.Staff. "Plan Johnson Avenue Playground; Supervised Areas Opening Monday" , Citizen and Chronicle, July 3, 1957. Accessed December 1, 2016. Lincoln Park – Lincoln Avenue at South Union. What is now Lincoln Park was the Cranford Golf Club in 1899, now moved to Westfield and called the Echo Lake Country Club. The Lincoln Avenue grounds were designed by Willie Dunn. Lincoln Park was also originally a former estate said to have supplied lumber to build the USS Constitution ("Old Ironsides") in the 1700s.A Guide to Union County College's Historic Tree Project, Cranford History. Accessed November 8, 2016. The grounds, at the corner of the Old York Road and Benjamin Street, also included the largest sour gum ever recorded in the Northeastern states, known as the Cranford Pepperidge Tree or "Old Peppy". The cultivated shoots from Old Peppy's root system now form a grove of saplings offering shade to the Deborah Cannon Partridge Wolfe Reading Garden in the park. The park has hosted bocce ball tournaments since the mid-1960s. Mayor's Park – Springfield Avenue and North Union Avenue Memorial Park – Springfield Avenue and Central Avenue, in 2014, the Cranford Historical Society dedicated a civil war monument. Roosevelt Park – Orange Avenue and Pacific Avenue Sherman Park – Lincoln Avenue East. Former site of Sherman School and located on the Old York Road.Report of the Survey of the Schools of the Township of Cranford, New Jersey: School Year, 1924–1925 At the corner of Elizabeth and North Union Avenues sits a memorial bench dedicated to the Cranford Dixie Giants, the town's semiprofessional baseball team organized by and composed entirely of African-American players, which played in the early 1900s.
County parks Parks run by the county inside Cranford's borders (overseen by the Union County, New Jersey Parks and Recreation Department) include:Parks, Activities, Locations & Maps, Union County, New Jersey. Accessed November 28, 2016.
Lenape Park in Cranford, Kenilworth, Springfield, Union and Westfield.Lenape Park map, Union County, New Jersey. Accessed November 28, 2016. Two tusks from an ancient American mastodon were found in 1936 north of Kenilworth Boulevard in what is now Lenape Park (other sources name the swampy area directly behind what is now the parking lot of Union College's main building).1993 Township of Cranford National Resources Inventory, pg. IV-6. MacConnell Park (formerly known as Liberty Park and frequently misspelled as "McConnell Park") is named after the township's first physician, Joseph Kerr MacConnell. It is located on Eastman Street and was known as the Peninsula during the Victorian era due to its position nearly encircled by the Rahway River.McConnell Park map, Union County, New Jersey. Accessed November 28, 2016. Nomahegan Park (off Springfield Avenue across from Union College) is named for a tributary of the Rahway River that runs through it, to Lenape Park to Echo Lake Park in Westfield and Springfield, called Nomahegan Brook.Monahegan Park, Union County, New Jersey. Accessed November 28, 2016. The name "Nomahegan" has had many different spellings in the historical sources (such as "Normahiggins") and may mean "she-wolf" or "women Mohegans." According to the Federal Writers' Project, The WPA Guide to New Jersey: The Garden State (1939): "CRANFORD is an old residential town spread along the Rahway River Parkway, a link of nearly 7 miles joining a series of county parks and playgrounds with the Essex County park system. There are facilities for summer and winter sports, a rifle range, and picnic grove. The Fourth of July canoe regatta is an annual affair. Gardens of fine old Victorian houses line the edge of the parkway on the riverbank. A broadening of the river parkway at the northern end of Cranford is known as Nomahegan Park. The name Nomahegan is a variation of Noluns Mohegans, as the New Jersey Indians were called in the treaty ending the Indian troubles in 1758. It is translated as women Mohegans or she-wolves and was applied to them in scorn by the fighting Iroquois.Bulletin of the United States Geological Survey, Issues 112-121 (1894) The "Nomahiggin" or "Normahiggin" is a brook in Westfield and Cranford townships, Union County, tributary to [Rahway River]. In 2019, the county purchased a long-abandoned house and demolished it, adding the land to the park's footprint. Droescher's Mill Park, located near the dam at Droescher's Mill on High Street. Also called Squire Williams Park. Mohawk Park is located on Mohawk Drive in Cranford's Indian Village section of town. Sperry Park (named after William Miller Sperry), located off North Union Avenue. Home of annual rubber duck derby as a fundraiser for Hanson Park further upstream on the Rahway River.