MONTCLAIR, a town of Essex county, New Jersey, U.S.A., 5 m. N.N.W. of Newark. Pop. (1910 census) 21,550. It is served by the Erie and the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western railways, and by electric lines to Caldwell and Newark. It is situated at the base and on the slopes of the Orange Mountains (its altitude above the sea varying from 217 to about 665 ft.), has an irregular street plan, and is a residential suburb of New York and other neighbouring cities. Montclair has excellent public schools. Among the town’s institutions are the Mountainside hospital, a state normal school (1908), Montclair academy (1887), a public library, and two orphan asylums. An annual Bach festival was first held here in June 1905. The lower part of Montclair was settled about 1675 and gradually became known as Cranetown, which name it retained until 1812. In that year Bloomfield, including Cranetown, was organized as a separate township. In 1868 Cranetown, then popularly known as West Bloomfield, with the addition of the Dutch-settled Speertown, was incorporated as Montclair. Montclair became a town in 1894.
See Henry Whittemore, History of Montclair (New York, 1894).