BOUND BROOK, a borough of Somerset county, New Jer sey, U.S.A., on the Raritan river and the Delaware and Raritan canal, 32m. south-west of New York city, at the foot of the Watchung hills. It is served by the Central railroad of New Jer sey, the Lehigh Valley, the Baltimore and Ohio, and the Reading railways. The population in 193o was 7,372. With the adjoining boroughs of South Bound Brook and Middlesex the urban unit in 1927 had a population of over 10,000. Bound Brook has a large lumber trade. The manufactures include chemicals, roofing materials, asbestos products, and oil-less bearings.
Several interesting colonial houses are still standing. The Staats homestead, in South Bound Brook, still occupied by a direct de scendant of its builder, was the headquarters of Baron von Steuben during the Revolutionary war. Col. Philip Van Horne's house, known as Convivial Hall because of the famed hospitality of the colonel and his five daughters, was occupied for a time by Lord Stirling, and later by "Light Horse" Harry Lee. Washington's army twice camped on the hills back of the village, known as the Heights of Middlebrook, and the site is kept as a historical mon ument. It is said that Washington here first (1777) unfurled the Stars and Stripes as the national flag. In 1681 all the land now occupied by Bound Brook was transferred by deed from two Indian chiefs to Philip Carteret and six other men. Settlement soon followed, but the borough was not incorporated until i891.