Official Site of The State of New Jersey

The community known today as Smithville was first surveyed in 1683 to delineate a swathe of land purchased by Henry Stacy in 1676. Passing through several different owners after Stacy’s death, the property was purchased by Hezekiah Bradley Smith (H.B. Smith) in 1865 and renamed Smithville. H.B. Smith relocated his woodworking machine company to the site before incorporating the H.B. Smith Machine Company in 1878. Smithville eventually grew from a typical, small mill operation to a major industrial plant employing hundreds of workers in its shops and yards from the 1860s to the 1920s. In Smithville, the H.B Smith Machine Company manufactured the first bicycles in America in the late 1800s. H.B. Smith was awarded more than twenty patents as an independent inventor for his work at Smithville and went on to serve as a U.S. Congressman and New Jersey State Senator. The architecture of Smithville spans four centuries, with the Greek Revival brick Smithville Mansion serving as a highlight. The site is archaeologically rich with both prehistoric Native American occupation and continuous historic occupation from circa 1750 to present. In 1975, Smithville became Burlington County’s first park with Green Acres support. 

The 2025 Trust grant will help fund three phases of stabilization, preservation, and restoration work across 15 buildings and structures located within the Historic District. 

The 2002 Trust grant funded the stabilization of numerous structures, including three workers' houses, the machine shop, the mansion, the dairy barn, and the planar/pickling shop (used in the metal-finishing process). The 2001 grant funded the development of a historic landscape master plan for the Smithville Historic District. The 1996 grant aided the restoration of the Park Avenue streetscape, which included the restoration of a mid-19th century house, two worker's houses, the frame of the conservatory, and interior restoration of a house into a period house museum.

For more information, visit: http://www.co.burlington.nj.us/948/Historic-Smithville-Park