New Jersey Route 27 - History

History

The southern part of Route 27 follows the Lenape Assunpink Trail that during the colonial era was known as the Old Dutch Trail, and later became the Kings Highway. Route 27 follows portions of several 19th-century turnpikes, including the Essex and Middlesex Turnpike, which was chartered on March 3, 1806 to run from New Brunswick to Newark along what is today Route 27, the Northeast Corridor rail line, and Broad Street in Newark, the Georgetown and Franklin Turnpike, chartered on February 15, 1816 to run from Lambertville to New Brunswick along the present-day alignments of County Route 518 and Route 27, the Newark and Elizabeth Plank Road, chartered on March 14, 1856, and the Princeton and Kingston Branch Turnpike, chartered on December 3, 1807 to run from Trenton to Kingston along current County Route 583 and Route 27. The route became a portion of the Lincoln Highway, the United States' first transcontinental highway that was established in 1913 to run from New York City to San Francisco. It is still known by that name in a few places along the route, particularly in Edison Township. In 1916, the Lincoln Highway was legislated as part of pre-1927 Route 1 between New Brunswick and Elizabeth and as pre-1927 Route 13 between Trenton and New Brunswick in 1917. In the 1927 New Jersey state highway renumbering, Route 27 was designated to run from Trenton to the intersection of Frelinghuysen Avenue and Astor Street in Newark, replacing the portions of Routes 1 and 13 that ran along the Lincoln Highway. With the creation of the U.S. Highway System, U.S. Route 1 was designated along the length of Route 27 from 1927 until sometime before the 1940s, when the U.S. Route 1 designation was moved to Route 26, Route S26, and Route 25 between Trenton and Newark. U.S. Route 206 was designated along the portion of route between Trenton and Princeton by the 1940s. In the 1953 New Jersey state highway renumbering, the southern terminus of Route 27 was cut back to Princeton to avoid the U.S. Route 206 concurrency.