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Rapid industrial growth in the first half
of the 19th century gave an emerging managerial class wealth and leisure time. Victorians idealized the rural life and city dwellers looked to the hills and farms of New Jersey for vacation accommodations.
In the 1880s, residents of New York City boarded trains to Plainfield, where they were guests at the city's five resort hotels. Executives of the
Central Railroad Company of New Jersey saw the opportunity for development and promoted housing subdivisions in Plainfield, Fanwood, Westfield, Cranford, Roselle and Roselle Park. Summertime vacationers became year-round residents with twenty-two daily trains carrying them to and from the city.
Watchung Mountain communities served by the Morris and Essex Railroad were especially attractive vacation destinations. Summit contained lavish hotels catering to affluent visitors and, a short distance away, Glenside Park offered a rustic retreat. Eventually many of these vacationers built substantial houses in the "Hill City" and a suburban community was born.
The long reign of Britain's Queen Victoria influenced all facets of life and culture throughout the western world. The classical ideal gave way to the romantic. The picturesque and the complex replaced simplicity and balance. Passion, grandeur and lack of restraint were expressed in art, architecture and landscapes. Variety of color, material and design won favor.
Victorian architecture included a number of styles, each experiencing a short period of popularity during the forty-four years of the Queen's reign. Many examples of such residential architecture may be found throughout Union County.
Garden and cemetery planning was also influenced by the Victorian aesthetic. Park-like cemeteries contained a variety of funerary stones and monuments, often decorated with statues and other sculptural embellishments.
To learn more about the Victorian Era, visit the following sites:
- Deserted Village of Feltville
- Litell-Lord Farmstead
- Crane-Philips House Museum
- Evergreen Cemetery
- Deacon Andrew Hetfield House
- Drake House Museum
- Reeves-Reed Arboretum
- Twin Maples
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