Area Information - Boonton Boonton Originally named Boonetown honoring Thomas Boone, Governor of New Jersey in 1760, Boonton has been made world famous by the manufacture of Boontonware plastic tableware. It is also known for its many antique shops. The diversified business district includes five banks, food, clothing and variety stores.
Victorian houses are predominant in some parts of town .
Elsewhere, historic dwellings, built between 1850 and 1855, intermix with ranch and split-level dwellings, condominiums and townhouses. The rise from the Rockaway River, the New York skyline and surroundings plains are visible from the town s higher elevations. Rich in colonial heritage, the town stretches north and east to Boonton Township and Montville and to Mountain Lakes and Parsippany in the south. Since 1903, much of the early history of the original community is buried beneath the waters of the Jersey City Reservoir. Once the site of forges, rolling mills, a sawmill, mail factory, grist mill and early homes of Dutch and English settlers, the town now dominates the hills that surround the reservoir.