Metuchen Edison History Features
Recollections of
Boyhood Days
In Old Metuchen
By
David Trumbull Marshall
Published by The Case Publishing Co., Flushing NY 1930
(Second Edition)- (c) 1930
Metuchen, New Jersey
Metuchen is a borough in New Jersey about 26 miles from New York City on the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Lincoln Highway.
I have been asked many times by strangers how the name "Metuchen" is pronounced and what is its origin.
All sorts of explanations have been offered for the origin of the name.
Some claim that it is the name of an Indian chief, others that it is derived from an Indian name meaning "rolling hills."
My own belief is that the name is a corruption of the two words mud-touchen, the word touch in this case denoting something that sticks to one as does a friend who wishes to "touch" one for the loan of a five-dollar bill.
When I was a boy there wasn't a paved road in Metuchen and few paved sidewalks.
The sticky red mud was everywhere.
What is now the Lincoln Highway was in the spring just a quagmire of liquid red mud.
Later on when this mud became tough and sticky I have no doubt that strangers seeing the red shoes and the mud-be-smeared clothes of the inhabitants of the region, dubbed them "Mud-touchen-ites," which appellation stuck like the mud to them, and to the region from whence they came.
Of course, later on when the real-estate-selling-bug got under the hats of the Mud-touchen-ites some more romantic origin had to be invented for the name.
The word Metuchen has the accent on "touchen," not "tuchen," an added argument for the "touch" theory.
Boyhood Days in Old Metuchen Title page
Metuchen Edison History Features index page
Metuchen Edison Historical Society page
Lasted updated 5/13/99 by Jim Halpin.