BLOOMFIELD, a town of Essex county (N.J.), U.S.A., about west of New York, adjoining Newark. It is served by the Erie and the Lackawanna railways, and has easy access for motor trucks to the Port Newark terminal and by way of the Holland tunnel to the New York water-front. The area is 5.42 sq. miles. The population was 9,668 in 1 goo ; 2 2,019 in 19 2o, of whom 4,587 were foreign-born white; and was 38,077 in 193o by Federal census.
Bloomfield is an important industrial centre, as well as a resi dential suburb of Newark and New York. Its 69 manufacturing establishments in 1927 produced a diversity of articles, ranging from safety-pins to motor trucks, and valued at $75,111,875. The area now called Bloomfield was a part of Newark, and its early settlers (167o–1700) were for the most part sons of the men from Connecticut who founded Newark. It was known at first as Wardsesson, but in 1796 received its present name, in honour of Gen. Joseph Bloomfield (1753-1823). In 1812 it was incorporated as a township, and in 190o as a town. Belleville was separated from it in 1839; Montclair in 1868; and Glen Ridge in