While New Jersey’s population rebounded in 2023 after two years of declines, for some moving out of the Garden State is inevitable.
About 267,000 moved out of the state in 2022, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. Work, family and the cost of living have all been cited as reasons to pack up and move despite New Jersey ties, roots or a general sense of belonging.
The good news is, that there are a few places in North America that may sound like home to New Jerseyans.
Moving out of New Jersey? Here are some other Jersey spots
In Illinois, New Jerseyans have options. They may want to consider settling in Jersey County. Positioned north of St. Louis and bordered by the Mississippi and Illinois rivers, Jersey County was founded in 1839, five years after Edward M. Daley purchased over 160 acres of land near what would become the county seat of Jerseyville, show records kept by the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library.
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While Daley was from New York, his business partner, Dr. John W. Lott, was a New Jersey native. The two established the area’s first general store in 1834 before teaming with Alexander H. Burrett to lay out a new town and sell lots. Lott convinced friends to come to Illinois, and they convinced others to follow suit, according to the “History of Jersey County, Illinois” edited by Oscar Browne Hamilton.
“Most of the inhabitants of Jerseyville and the farmers of Jersey Township came from localities in New Jersey and became the most enterprising, thrifty and successful men in the new county,” Hamilton wrote.
When it came time to tie a name to the new post office in what was then called Hickory Grove, the locals chose Jerseyville. Hamilton’s book includes the transcript of an oral history given in 1853 by a local reverend, Lemuel Grosvenor, that credits the name Jerseyville for the development of the town.
“It has been a means of settling the village and the fine country around it with a population, the majority of whom are from New Jersey; a people well known from their industry and thrift, and, generally, for their sober and orderly character,” he said. “The name of Jerseyville, Jersey County, smacks greatly of the old homestead and fireside. They judge, and judge rightly, that they will find a society similar to that they are leaving.”
Today, Jerseyville holds about 8,250 people and a few things that wouldn’t seem out of place in any New Jersey town, such as a golf course, a Dairy Queen and a Walgreens.
Finding ‘Jersey’ culture outside of New Jersey
Outside of Jersey County, Stark County has the Village of West Jersey, named as the result of a “Jerseyite immigration” after the county formed in 1839, according to G. A. Clifford’s 1862 “History of Stark County.” The 1916 history edited by J. Knox Hall, “Stark County Illinois and its People,” said early New Jersey families included the Bodines, Boyds. Hazens, Wileys and Youngs and some others.
“They then swarmed into the central part of the township, where West Jersey proper now is,” Clifford wrote. “These immigrants brought with them sober, steady habits; and as a class they are a quiet, industrious, economical, and, consequently, a thrifty people; honest but close in their dealings and not wasteful in time or money.
“As a general thing, they are liberal patrons of literature and religion, a little “set” perhaps in their opinions and clannish in their associations, which is to a greater or lesser extent true wherever a large settlement is made up of those who came from any one neighborhood or section of a country, whether from New Jersey, Indiana, or any other state. A Jerseyman is a sort of a compromise between a genuine Yankee and a Buckeye,” reads the history.
According to Hall, the New Jersey migrants requested the name West Jersey, and the township system was introduced in 1853.
With little in the way of industry or residents, the nearly square township holds a ton of farmland, a church and a trucking company.
You can even find ‘Jersey’ in Canada
Those from New Jersey might also find familiarity farther north, especially if they are itching to leave the United States of America. The Hamilton, Ontario community of Jerseyville was founded by New Jersey natives, who left the country in the late 18th and early 19th centuries because they were loyal to the crown.
Great Britain officially created Upper Canada in 1791 in part to harbor loyalists from a newly independent United States of America. Among the towns drawing residents were Kingstown, Toronto and Hamilton. It was in the area west of Hamilton and neighboring Ancaster where Jerseyville was founded by transplants from the Garden State, according to Ancaster Township records.
Among the early residents were the Van Sickles. Hailing from Morris County, they built a 10-room house on Jerseyville Road West in 1824 that was moved out of town and reconstructed in 1979, township records show. The family also operated a hotel in Jerseyville, the Van Sickle Hotel built in 1846, records show.
Other New Jersey natives included the Shaver family. The loyalists came to the area in 1789 and bought 1,800 acres on and around the area now known as Shaver Road, according to “Hamilton Street Names: An Illustrated History” edited by Margaret Houghton.
Like Illinois’ Jerseyville, the area had its name cemented when a post office was opened. This time it was in 1852, according to Alan Rayburn’s “Place Names of Ontario.”
Sparsely populated farm country, Jerseyville nonetheless has two churches, a yoga studio and a mechanic’s shop.
One of the top three most common states New Jerseyans move to is Pennsylvania, according to census bureau records. There, near the folded mountains of central Pennsylvania along the west branch of the Susquehanna River, lies Jersey Shore.
The borough was incorporated as Jersey Shore in 1826 in recognition of the Garden State farmers who moved there after the Revolutionary War, according to the “History of Lycoming County, Pennsylvania” edited by John Franklin Meginness.
The very first to settle the area after surveys were made in 1785 was Reuben Manning of Essex County. His nephew, Thomas Forster, arrived soon after. The place then gained the nickname “Jersey Shore” as a slight to the duo.
“At first, the name was applied in derision by the Irish settlers in Nippenose bottom, across the river,” Meginness wrote. “The place was named Waynesburg in 1805, but the title, ‘Jersey Shore,’ had obtained such notoriety that it prevailed.”
Today home to about 4,100 people, according to census bureau data, the town has a Subway, a diner and several pizza places.
‘Jersey’ can be found in Georgia and Texas too
There are some other Jerseys in the United States. Georgia has a Jersey and Texas has a Jersey Village. Those, however, are named for the breed of cattle originally from the island country of Jersey, where New Jersey gets its name.
There are also a number of familiar town names that are direct namesakes of New Jersey communities, including Trenton, Missouri; Newark, New York; and Camden, Ohio. Monmouths in Illinois and Maine get their name from the Revolutionary War battle, according to Henry Gannett’s “Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States.”