Old Post Road, the earliest public road in eastern New Jersey, passes through Edison and is said to have been used by President George Washington as he traveled through the state on the way to his inauguration in New York City in April 1789.

A re-enactment of that journey took place in Edison on April 13, 1989, during the celebration of the bicentennial of Washington's first inauguration. His route was retraced, and special ceremonies were held at the historic St. James Church, Woodbridge Avenue.

The Bonhamtown area of Edison, on the Old Post Road, is named after Nicholas Bonham, a freeholder from 1682 to 1683. The hamlet is said to have been the site of an old Indian village and later a Continental Army camp and battleground during the Revolution.

Bonhamtown also served as the seat of justice for Middlesex and Somerset counties as early as 1683. By 1834, the village featured 10 to 12 dwellings, two taverns, a store and a schoolhouse.

Revolutionary War skirmishes took place in Bonhamtown, Piscatawaytown and along Woodbridge Avenue. In fact, the St. James Episcopal Church building served as a hospital for wounded British soldiers during the war, and six British soldiers killed in one of the area's skirmishes are buried in the cemetery at the church.

Edison is also home to the second oldest Baptist Church in New Jersey and the 10th oldest in the nation. Stelton Baptist Church was formed in the spring of 1689, and among its original members was the Stelle family, after whom the Stelton section of Edison is named. Through 1875, however, the church was known as the First Baptist Church of Piscataway. Present-day congregants celebrated the tercentennial of their church in year-long celebrations in 1989.

Edison grew in the second half of the 19th century as the attractiveness of the rural landscape became more accessible with the opening of the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Easton and Amboy line. By the late 1800's, many residents commuted to jobs in New York and other parts of New Jersey.

One of the many passengers carried on the Pennsylvania line to Edison was Thomas Alva Edison, later to be known as the "Wizard of Menlo Park". It is said that he chose the Menlo Park site for his laboratories because it was the highest point along the Pennsylvania Railroad between New York and Philadelphia. The establishment of Thomas Edison's industrial research laboratory - he preferred calling it his "invention factory" - in 1876 brought world fame to the township as it became the site for some of the most innovative research and manufacturing feats of the 19th century.

While there, Edison invented more than 400 patented items including the phonograph, the electric railway (which incidentally, ran along present day Middlesex Avenue) and the incandescent lamp. Christie Street, on which the Edison Memorial Tower now stands, was the first street to be illuminated by incandescent lamps, and Mrs. Jordan's Boarding House, home to many of Thomas Edison's workers, was the first residence so lighted. When Edison moved out of Menlo Park, the buildings fell into delapidation, and the Labratory was even used as a chicken coop for a while before it fell down! Check our virtual tour out for some pictures! The Buildings were replicate  by Henry Ford to his Greenfield Village Museum, Dearborn, Michigan.

From a rural-residential community in the 1920's, Edison has grown into a major population, commercial and industrial center. It ranks as the second most populous municipality in Middelsex County, and the sixth largest in New Jersey.

In 1937, the Edison Memorial Tower was erected to commemorate the 10 years Thomas Edison spent at Menlo Park. In 1986, the Edison Township Historical Society erected 12 period street lamps surrounding the tower to commemorate the illumination of Christie Street. The Edison Memorial Tower is located on the National Register of Historic Places.

It serves as home to nearly 90,000 residents and is a hub of air, rail and highway networks for the distribution of numerous goods and services.

Raritan Center, located in the southeast section of Edison, is the largest industrial park, east of the Mississippi River. The daytime population of Raritan Center is approximately 45,000, rivaling the population of many nearby communities.

In 1954, a group of citizens proposed a change in the name of the township, partially because of the confusion arising from the fact that several municipalities in the state were named Raritan. The name the voters selected was Edison.

This history of Edison, however, is more than a collection of facts and figures,

chronologies of events and even a rich inventory of historic sites and buildings. It is a rich and varied legacy of the people groups, institutions and organizations