New Jersey Office of Travel & Tourism, 20 W State Street, P O Box
820, Trenton NJ 08625-0820; 609-777-0885; 800-VISITNJ; Fax: 609-777-4097. Web: http://www.visitnj.org.
State American Folk Dance: square dance
State Animal: horse
State Bird: Eastern willow goldfinch
State Colors: buff and Jersey blue
State Dinosaur: Hadrosaurus foulkii (It was the world's first complete dinosaur skeleton ever discovered. It was discovered in Haddonfield, New Jersey in 1858).
State Fish: brook trout
State Flower: common meadow violet
State Fruit: blueberry
State Insect: honeybee
State Motto: Liberty and Prosperity
State Nickname: Garden State
State Quarter:
State Seal:
State Shell: knobbed whelk
State Soil: Downer
State Song: I'm from New Jersey
State Tall Ship: schooner A.J. Meerwald
State Tree: red oak
State Memorial Tree: dogwood
State Capitals
Elizabethtown, New Jersey — Colonial capital until 1686.
Perth Amboy, New Jersey — Capital of East Jersey.
Burlington, New Jersey — Capital of West Jersey.
Princeton, New Jersey — U.S. national capital from January to November 1783.
Trenton, New Jersey — New Jersey State House, 125 W State Street, Trenton NJ 08625-0068; 609-633-2709. Built in 1792, it is the second oldest capital in the United States. Trenton was the U.S. national capital in November 1783 to December 1785.
Songs
I'm from New Jersey; Jersey Bounce.
State Specials
In Ocean City, it is against the law to slurp your soup at a restaurant.
Giovanni da Verrazano was the first European to explore the New Jersey area in 1524.
In 1640, Dutch settlers opened the first copper mine in America in the Kittatinny Mountains.
In 1642, the first brewery in America opened in Hoboken, New Jersey.
Francis Hopkinson, a signer of the Declaration of Independence from New Jersey, designed the first American flag in 1777.
In 1789, New Jersey became the first state to ratify the Bill of Rights.
In 1790, New Jersey became the first state to sign the Bill of Rights.
In 1791, Alexander Hamilton built the country's first planned industrial city in the area around present-day Paterson, New Jersey.
The first ferry service in the U.S. began in 1811, shuttling between Hoboken and Manhattan.
Elysian Field in Hoboken, New Jersey was the site of the first organized game of baseball. The New York Nine beat the Knickerbockers by a score of 23-1 on June 19, 1846.
In 1858, the world's first complete dinosaur skeleton (Hadrosaurus foulkii) was discovered in Haddonfield, New Jersey by William Parker Foulke.
New Brunswick, New Jersey was the site for the first intercollegiate football game on November 6, 1869. Rutgers University beat Princeton by a score of 6-4.
The world's first boardwalk was built in Atlantic City, New Jersey in 1870. The first saltwater taffy was produced at the Jersey Shore in the 1870s.
In 1877, the first phonograph was invented by Thomas A. Edison in Menlo Park, New Jersey.
The first submarine was built in 1878 by John Holland of Passaic County. It's now on display in the Public Museum in Paterson.
In 1879, the first incandescent lamp was made by Thomas A. Edison in Menlo Park, New Jersey.
Roselle became the first town in the nation to be lighted by electricity in 1883.
In 1889, Edison developed the first motion picture in West Orange.
The first condensed soup was cooked and canned in Camden County in 1897, the forerunner of Campbell's Soup.
The first professional championship basketball season was held in Trenton in 1898 - 1899.
Elizabeth Lee of New Egypt, a cranberry grower in South Jersey, decided to boil some damaged berries instead of throwing them away. She liked the tasty
jelly so much she started a business selling Bog Sweet Cranberry Sauce. That was the beginning of the Ocean Spray company that still sells cranberry products today!
In 1921, the first Miss America Pageant is held.
In 1933, the first National Historic Park in America was established in Morristown, New Jersey.
In 1933, the first drive-in movie theater in the U.S. opens in Camden, New Jersey.
In 1940, Les Paul invented the first solid body electric guitar in Mahwah, New Jersey.
In 1963, Tom Sims of Haddonfield, New Jersey creates the ski board, an early version of the snowboard.
