Who Put The Flag In Flagtown?
What Do You Think You're Looking At? #142
This is Flagtown, a neighborhood in Hillsborough, New Jersey:
It may not look like much—it isn’t, really, just a small neighborhood of modest detached homes—but it’s a neat little Central Jersey curiosity.
First of all, the answer to the question of “who put the flag in Flagtown?” is actually one Jacob Flagg—as in, originally, Flaggtown—whose name was corrupted to “Flagtown” and later identified with the American flag. More accurately even, the neighborhood now called Flagtown was originally called Flagtown Station, after a different place then called Flagtown which was the original Flaggtown.
Why “Station”? The railroad, of course, which used to come through here for coal and probably freight, but also passenger rail for at least some of its time. Here’s a blog post from an area rail expert. One branch of this railroad used to serve my hometown of Flemington!
Flagtown has a fire station, whose trucks are traditionally painted green (not, sadly, red white and blue).
And it has its own zip code and post office, which shares a structure that appears to be an old house with a sandwich shop.
Apparently, on patriotic holidays, especially Flag Day or Fourth of July (or the day before, when the post office is open), people will send letters hand-canceled from this post office in order to get the “Flagtown” stamp on, one would hope, an American flag postage stamp.
A little kitschy. But you know, I love it.
A couple of other scenes:
If it isn’t lovely.
Related Reading:
Fossil Records and (Former) Neighborhood Character
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