The name, Phillipsburg, first appears on a map published by Evans in 1749, entitled "Map of the Inhabited Parts of Pennsylvania and New Jersey."  Whether the name was in honor of an old Indian chief, Philip, who was an intimate friend of the Great Chief Teedyuscong, and who resided here, or whether after William Phillips, who resided in this locality as early as 1740, is a mooted question.  Those who have studied the history of the Roseberry family and their ancestors, the Phillips, affirm that the latter theory is correct.

        In 1715 Daniel Coxe, of Burlington, N.J., received a warrant to locate 1250 acres of land opposite to what was then known as the forks of the Delaware.  Upon the death of Daniel Coxe this tract was willed to John Coxe, who by will dated April 8, 1753, devised one-half to Daniel and Grace Coxe, children of his brother, Daniel Coxe, and the other half to his brother, William Coxe.  Grace Coxe married John Tabor Kempe, of New York.

        A deed on record at Burlington reads as follows:  "This indenture, made the Fourth day of October, in the twenty-seventh year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord George the Second, by the Grace of God, of Great Brittain, France and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith and in the year of our Lord Seventeen Hundred and fifth Three, between William Coxe, &c., and Peter Seiter, of Phillipsburg, County of Sussex, Miller, for Five Pounds proclamation money, four perches front on George Street (now South Main) by ten perches deep, containing one and one-quarter acres, begin lot No. 82."  In this deed the plan is called "The intended town of Phillipsburg."  Thus 100 years before the town was incorporated, a far sighted man saw the suitability of this site for the location of a town in the future and laid his plans to organize it.  This proceeding filled the Penn family, who were the proprietors of Pennsylvania, with alarm for the infant town of Easton, which they had just started, and Thomas Penn wrote under date of March 9, 1752, to Richard Peters:  "I think we should secure all the land we can on the Jersey side of the water."  The intention was to prevent the establishment of a village or town on the east side of the Delaware.  Through this influence William Coxe was compelled to abandon the formation of the "intended town of Phillipsburg."

        The ferry house was on the shore opposite Tindall's distillery at the terminus of the Ferry Road.

        The New Brunswick Turnpike was built to Union Square in 1802.  The first Delaware Bridge was built by the pioneer bridge builder, Timothy Palmer, in 1805, and the Morris Turnpike was incorporated in 1806.  In 1808 Joseph Roseberry bought from Thomas Bullman a tract of 10 acres which included the ferry and upon this tract "Boatman Joe" built the Union Square Hotel.

        Philip Saeger, grandfather of John and Henry Saeger, owned land from the Presbyterian Church to the Main Street M. E. Church.

        Dr. Jacob Reese, father of Jeremiah and Hiram Reese, lived on Hanover street and owned property, which included Mt. Parnassus, then called Reese's Rock.  Henry Barnes lived and died in the stone house opposite the Presbyterian Church, his son, James Barnes, was a soldier in the war of 1812.

        Adam Ramsay, a native of Ireland, and a licensed preacher in the Presbyterian Church, carried on a mercantile business in a stone building at the corner of Reese's Court and Main Street.

        Phillipsburg continued a part of Greenwich township until 1832, at which time the Morris Canal was started, and immediately new life was infused into the place and boat building began.

        March 17, 1857, Phillipsburg was declared a separate township.

        In 1737, the Presbytery of New Brunswick sent missionaries to this good town, then referred to Greenwich at the "Forks of the Delaware."        The first attempt to navigate the Delaware river was made on March 12, 1852, when the "Major William Barnet" reached Easton from Philadelphia.  For a while the vessel plied between here and Lambertville, but was later abandoned.  On March 6, 1860, the "Alfred Thomas," which had been built at Easton, attempted to make her trial run up the Delaware. She was eighty feet long and fourteen feet beams, and after being locked out of the Lehigh at Williamsport she passed up to Getter's Island, where she stopped to raise steam sufficient to ascend the rapids.  The pressure proved too great for the boilers, which exploded and six were killed outright, four mortally wounded, two missing and seven were seriously injured.

        The first church in this section of the country, and perhaps of all Northwest New Jersey, was located at Phillipsburg, and was built of logs.  A part of the burial ground attached to that church is inclosed [sic] in the garden of John S. Bach, Esq., near the M. & E. freight house on South Main street, and the rude grave stones were visible 45 years ago.  In this church David Brainard preached in 1740.

        Mr. Philip Reese, one of our old citizens now deceased, recalled an old lady named Myers, who said that when her parents first came to Phillipsburg there were eleven houses there, and but three on the opposite side of the river.  These eleven houses were situated on the south side of the New Jersey Central Railroad track, near the Phillipsburg Hotel.

        Easton thrived, however, and Phillipsburg existed under protest in a lingering way.  Main street was simply a country road, bordered here and there by an occasional log house.  Those among the prominent families living in or near the place during the latter part of the eighteenth century were the Bidlemans, Roseberrys, Howells, Reeses, Beers, Shoups, Bullmans, Phillips, Saegers, Ramseys, Stulls and Barnes.  Jacob Reese, a tailor by trade, came from Easton about 1787 to Phillipsburg, where in conjunction with Philip Saeger, they bought a considerable tract of land lying along George street (now South Main street) and extended to the Delaware river.  Reese lived in a log house that stood on the lot now occupied by the Phillipsburg hotel, and in that house was born his son, Jeremiah Reese, in 1797.  Philip Saeger lived in a stone house that stood opposite the present site of the Presbyterian church, and very close to that site stood his barn.  Saeger was a large land owner, and devoted his time chiefly to farming.  Jacob Reese was likewise a farmer, and occasionally did a little work at his old trade of tailoring.  Near him lived three brothers named William, Charles and Amos Beers, who carried on a cooper shop.  On the hill on what is known at the Third ward, John and Joseph Roseberry were living on their farm.  James Barnes, a cordwainer and boatman, lived with his father, Henry, in a stone house that adjoined Philip Saeger's residence.  James Barnes, who was born in that frame house, died there in 1879, aged 81.  His father, Henry, shoemaker and boatman, became a resident in Phillipsburg probably about 1790.  Thomas Bullman, grandfather of the later Major Charles Sitgreaves, came to Phillipsburg from Hudson County and bought in 1798 the ferry privilege originally granted to David Martin, together with the land including Union Square and along on Main Street.  He built a stone house on Main street, near the Sitgreaves mansion, and presently converted it into a tavern.  A man by the name of Albright subsequently bought the tavern, which was long known as Albright's tavern.

        Bullman's ferry privilege could not have lasted long, since about the year 1797 a toll bridge was begun where the present bridge spans the stream.  A freshet washed the first structure from its foundations during construction, and in 1805 the Easton Delaware Bridge Company, under authorization from the State of Pennsylvania, raised, by lottery, a fund, with which they erected a bridge.  This bridge was a covered wooden arch designed and built by the pioneer bridge builder, Timothy Palmer.  It was at this time Thomas Bullman opened his tavern.  He was for many years a justice of the peace, and at one time a judge of the Court of Common Pleas and died in 1873, aged ninety-six.  Both he and his son Hiram were physicians, being, however, simply self-taught doctors who ventured upon practice only because of the frequent occasions upon which medical help from elsewhere was not easy to obtain.  Philip lived in a stone house that stood opposite his father's old log cabin, and died on his farm in Greenwich.  The old stone house was alluded to during Jeremiah Reese's boyhood as the house had been built more than ninety years.  Gen. John Phillips, the miller, lived in it, and sold it to Philip Reese.  Phillips then went to live with his father-in-law, Thomas Beers, just below the Ramsey house.  In 1811 or thereabouts John P. Roseberry built the tavern now known as the Union Square Hotel.  John Mixsell was keeping store in the building now known as the Lee house, and John Myers, who worked for Mixsell, lived in a shanty adjoining the store.  Across the way, where the depot and bank are, was a field.  Some years afterwards Charles Rodenbaugh kept store in a low building put up there by Joseph Roseberry.  On Main street were the taverns of Roseberry and Albright, the dwelling of Thomas Bullman, and beyond there was no house between Bullman's and the residences of Philip Saeger and James Barnes.  Down where the Morris and Essex depot is lived Amos Beers, a cooper.  On the land between the two railway bridges, on Main street, Michael Roseberry lived in a stone house, and at the present corner of Main and Hudson streets was a double framed farm house owned by Joseph Roseberry.  Near there lived Adam Ramsey, Beers and the Reeses, and thence down the street there was no house (except John Carpenter's, on the Furnace ground) until Bidleman's was reached, at what is now Green's Bridge.  That was the condition of Phillipsburg about 1811, save a few cabins here and there.  Peter Skillman, a hand in Thomas Reese's wheelwright shop, lived in one, Theophilus Phillips, a boatman, in another, and Conrad Shaup, with his son John (both tailors), in another.  Barnes, Skillman, Phillips and Conrad Shaup went out in the war of 1812.  George and Henry Bidleman had flouring mills below the present limits of Phillipsburg.

        Reminiscences of life in early Phillipsburg, preserved through unpublished manuscripts left by the late Major Sitgreaves, our first mayor, show how "Every man was armed with a gun and every woman with a spinning wheel.  The outer clothing of the men was stripped from the bodies of deer and bear.  Their food was Indian corn, beans, flesh of beasts from the forests and fish from the river.  The women dressed in linsey-woolsey, wore their own hair and ate with their own teeth, and their feet were shod with moccasins made by their own hands.  The early settlers all owned and carried guns for self-protection and to supply themselves with game.  There were no roads of any account except George (now Main street).  Mere Indian paths through the forest supplied the people with means of travel.  The sports and amusements of that day consisted of hunting, fishing, wrestling and racing.  On South Main street, running through the farm of Michael Roseberry, was the course for the favorite scrub races so hugely enjoyed by our forefathers.  They announced the advent of each year with salutes of guns in front of their houses.  This fashion continued until 1812.  Shooting matches were also a favorite amusement with the hardy settlers of the early days.  Nearly all the houses were mere log cabins, and for luxuries the fathers of the town indulged in sugar from the maples and gathered strawberries and other small fruits."

        By an act of Legislature approved March 8, 1861, Phillipsburg was incorporated as a town.  The minutes of the first meeting are as follows:

        At a meeting of the voters of the incorporated town of Phillipsburg held at the public house of Joseph Fisher, on Monday, April 8th, 1861, Lewis M. Teel was chosen Moderator and Judge of Election, and William M. Patterson, Town Clerk; John C. Bennett and John Seager were elected the Inspectors of the Election in accordance with the provisions of the act of incorporation.

• It was then voted that the vote fixing the amount to be raised for schools be taken over the polls.
• Voted, That one constable be elected.
• Voted, That one overseer of the poor be elected.
• Voted, that two pound keepers be elected.
• Voted, That two overseers of highway be elected.
• Voted, That $600 be raised for roads.

• For Mayor--Charles Sitgreaves.
• For Common Council--William Smith, Charles Davidge, George W. Bearder, William Wyckoff, A. I. Farrand, John Ingham.
• Justices of the Peace--John S. Bach, Edmund Teel, Wm. A. Huff, Patrick Walsh.
• Assessor--Valentine Mutchler.  (Note).  Valentine Mutchler resigned June 24, 1861.  Henry Walters elected July 1, 1861, to fill unexpired term, at a special election held at the house of John C. Reese, at which 167 votes were polled.
• Constable and Collector--Albert K. Metz.
• Town Clerk--Thomas B. Reese.
• Judge of Election--Abraham C. Hulshizer.
• Chosen Freeholder--Charles Reese.
• Town Superintendent of Public Schools--Jacob R. Lovell.
• Surveyors of Highway--W. Scott Johnson, Robert Dempster.
• Overseer of the Poor--John Lesher.
• Overseers of Highway--Robert Dempster, Samuel R. Burwell.
• Pound Keepers--John Miers, Wm. D. Reese.
• School Tax--Three dollars per scholar.
• Next Election--"To be held at the house of John C. Reese."

Note:  The whole number of votes received amounted to three hundred and sixty-three (363).  There was a certain number (two) of votes cast containing the following:  "Dog tax $1.50, Bitch tax $3.00.  Surplus revenue to borough tax."
                                                                                            Wm. M. Patterson, Town Clerk