The number of unique qualities of Lawrence Township were too many to fit in one column. Here are nine more fascinating facts about Lawrence.
1. Our town’s historic Princeton Pike, once a toll road over which drovers moved their animals to Northern markets is and should be better known as "The Avenue of Schools."
At one end is Slackwood Elementary School, moving along we come to an old historic school house at the corner of Smithfield Avenue, then comes Lawrence Middle School, followed by the Lawrence High School, and further along the Ben Franklin Elementary School and at the Princeton border the well-known Chapin School.
2. "Uniquely" Lawrence does not have any municipally installed automobile parking meters.
3. Our community is one of the few if not the only New Jersey community that has a housing development area in which the streets are named after local historic figures and or deceased veterans of World War II, Korean or Vietnam wars. It has a street that early on was named after a local soldier who was the first Mercer County casualty of World War I, Carter Road was named after Austin P. Carter.
4. In 1964, for the first time in 267 years, Lawrence Township publicly celebrated its birthday. It did so in an appropriate manner with our school children.
Superintendent of Schools Fred Combs Jr., who had long local family roots, arranged, in cooperation with the Lawrence Tercentenary Committee, to have over 2,000 cookies shaped in the outline of the township from a cookie cutter made by teacher Lou Angebrandt. The cookies were distributed to each school child in the school district and members of the faculty.
Children and faculty members whose birthday also fell on Feb. 20 received a special tercentenary gift.
5. In 1972 on the occasion of Lawrence Township’s 275th birthday the school system celebrated our anniversary with a highly acclaimed multi-media theatrical presentation, again with the cooperation of the Lawrence Historic and Aesthetic Commission.
6. In 1997, the township celebrated its 300th birthday with a series of events and as was done during the New Jersey tercentenary in 1964, and played host to the mayor of Maidenhead, England. Maidenhead was the township’s original name after it was established in 1697.
7. Our community is the home of the New Jersey National Guard, previously known as the 112th Field Artillery. It served as the National Guard Communication Hub in 2003. Currently it is being developed as a creditable Military Museum.
8. Lawrence which had one of the first traffic circles in the state, currently has the last one remaining the Brunswick Circle.
9. The popular Terhune Orchards is New Jersey’s first orchard and retail market preserved through the state’s agricultural farm preservation program.
If the foregoing, and previous column, does not qualify historic Lawrence Township as a "unique" community the writer is at a loss to understand why.
Robert Immordino, of Lawn Park Avenue, is the township’s historian.
