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Monroe Township was founded in 1838 and named in honor of the U.S. President James Monroe. For many decades, it was largely a farming community; when parts of the township blossomed into the more densely-packed neighborhoods of Helmetta, Jamesburg, and Spotswood in the late nineteenth century, they seceded. Railroads came into Monroe from just about the very beginning, starting with the Camden & Amboy Rail Road in the 1830s and 1840s, and other railroads soon wormed their way into Monroe as well. Two (or three) of those railroads crossed each other near the water mill of James Buckelew , and the area where this occurred became the town of Jamesburg. After a tobacco mill for the Helme tobacco company was built next to Camden and Amboy tracks (possibly then Pennsylvania Railroad tracks), the company town of Helmetta came into being.
In 1905, Bernarr Macfadden , the then-famous proponent of physical culture , came to the part of Monroe near Helmetta and Spotswood, and attempted to set up a camp called "Physical Culture City", where he could teach his beliefs in relative peace. However, in 1907, Macfadden was arrested on pornography charges, and the camp dissolved. The area of this camp became the Outcalt neighborhood.
Meanwhile, the New Jersey State Home for Boys, later the Training School for Boys, was established near Jamesburg. At first, the purpose may have been to care for orphans; however, by the mid-20th century, its purpose was to incarcerate juvenile delinquents, and this gained it the status of a "juvenile jail" that few people wanted to live near, especially as it had no fence until the 1990s. Now the State Home has a fence running around it.
The township's largely agrarian landscape began to turn more suburban between 1960 and 1968, when the New Jersey TurnpikeThe New Jersey Turnpike is a toll road in New Jersey and is one of the most heavily traveled highways in the United States. Part of it forms part of the interstate highway system. Construction of the Turnpike from conceptualization to opening took an asto opened up exit 8a in the south of Monroe, in conjunction with the effort to develop the Leisure World age-restricted community Rossmoor. Since then, at least four more communities for senior citizens have joined Rossmoor: Concordia, Clearbrook, Whittingham, and The Ponds.
At the same time, and over the next few decades, suburbs for people of all ages spread into the northern parts of Monroe Township, prompting the expansion of several schools and the construction of a couple of new ones. Since 1980, in addition to the age restricted communities, Monroe has added a few shopping centers, a synagogueA synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer and study. The Hebrew term for synagogue is Beit Knesset (House of Assembly) or Beit Tefila (House of Prayer). There are usually separate rooms for prayer (the main sanctuary) and smaller rooms for study. Rooms set or two, a recreation center, a library, and a large number of senior citizens.
According to the United States Census BureauThe United States Census Bureau (officially Bureau of the Census is a part of the United States Department of Commerce. Its mission is defined in the Constitution of the United States, which directs that the population be enumerated at least once every te, the township has a total area of 108.9 km˛ (42.0 mi˛This article is about the unit of measure. In England, the Square Mile is a traditional name for the City of London. A square mile (symbol sq. or mi is an imperial unit which is the area of a square whose side is one mile (or 5,280 feet). A square mile is). 108.6 km˛ (41.9 mi˛) of it is land and 0.3 km˛ (0.1 mi˛) of it is water. The total area is 0.24% water.