Local city information for Vernon, NJ

Vernon Township is a Township in Sussex County, New Jersey. It is located about one hour drive from New York City and is part of the New York Metropolitan Area. As of the United States 2000 Census, the township population was 24,686, making it the largest township in the county by population.

Vernon is home to ski resort and water park, Mountain Creek (formerly Great Gorge and Vernon Valley), the Hidden Valley ski resort, as well as Crystal Springs Resort's Minerals Hotel and Elements Spa . The Great Gorge Playboy Club was located in the Vernon community of McAfee, but was sold and turned into a hotel, now called the Legends Hotel and Resort.

The independent township of Vernon was established on April 8, 1793, from portions of Hardyston Township, and the township was formally incorporated on February 21, 1798. The which marked the town's borders over 200 years ago have not changed since. However, the population of Vernon, which was a mere 1,548 people as recently as 1950, has steadily grown since the 1960s, when the ski industry was introduced to the area. Additional growth has come as home prices have soared in the near suburbs of New York City and property buyers seek the better values available from real estate developments in the area.

Iron mining in the town of Vernon was prevalent during the mid to late 1800s. Mines such as the Canistear Mine, Williams Mine, and the Pochuk Mine created industry which spawned local businesses, and brought rail travel to the town.

It is not known how Vernon Township got its name, but author Ronald J. Dupont, Jr., posits that the township could have been named after:

• Admiral Edward Vernon. Dupont writes that this is very possible because of two things: 1) the township was created in 1792, the year that George Washington was reelected as President, and 2) because Vernon Township's first Masonic Lodge in 1820 was named Mount Vernon (Washington was also a Freemason during his life), likely after Washington's Virginia residence. The residence, in turn, got its name because Washington's brother Lawrence Washington served with Admiral Vernon.

• A family named Vernon. Not likely, Dupont says, although he notes that a Nathaniel Vernon was a licensed tavernkeeper in Sussex County in 1756. However, the tavern was likely elsewhere, and not in what is now present-day Vernon.

• The Latin root "Vernus." One form of "vernus" is "vernal," as in vernal equinox ("spring"), and so Vernon "had connotations of spring: green, lush, fresh, fertile, etc., and hence was an attractive name for a place."

Dupont, Jr., writes of an interesting sidebar. In the late 1800s two places named Vernon existed -- the one in Sussex County and another in Essex County. When the Essex County village got a post office, they found out that another Vernon existed, and so they eventually named the town Verona.

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