Living in Springfield, NJ: A 2026 Local’s Guide to Baltusrol Golf Club, the Battle of Springfield, and the Cannon Ball House

The Town Where the Revolution Was Won and the U.S. Open Has Been Hosted Seven Times

Most American townships of any size struggle to claim a single nationally significant anchor. Springfield, New Jersey — just over five square miles in size, a population around 17,000, sitting twenty miles west of Manhattan in central Union County — has two of them, and they sit on the same ridgeline. The Battle of Springfield, fought on June 23, 1780, was the last major engagement of the Revolutionary War in the northern colonies and effectively ended British ambitions in New Jersey.¹ Baltusrol Golf Club, founded on October 19, 1895 by Louis Keller on 500 acres at the base of Baltusrol Mountain, has hosted seven U.S. Opens, two PGA Championships, two U.S. Women's Opens, four U.S. Amateurs, and the 2023 KPMG Women's PGA Championship — with the 2029 PGA Championship already awarded.²

The two anchors are not historically separate. The same Watchung ridgeline that gave General Nathanael Greene's 1,500 Continental troops their tactical advantage in stalling 5,000 British and Hessian regulars on June 23, 1780 is the same Baltusrol Mountain ridgeline that carries the Upper Course of A.W. Tillinghast's 1918–1922 dual-course design. According to PGA documentation, American soldiers used the high ground that today contains Baltusrol's Upper Course to track British troop movements before the Battle of Springfield.² Two centuries later, the same elevated ridge gives golfers commanding views back toward the Manhattan skyline.

What that geography produced is a township with a structurally unusual identity. Springfield was burned to the ground by retreating British forces on June 23, 1780 — only four houses survived. One of those four houses, the Cannon Ball House at 126 Morris Avenue, is open today as the Springfield Historical Society's living museum, with a Revolutionary War-era cannonball still mounted in its west wall. The First Presbyterian Church, where Reverend James Caldwell pulled hymnals off the shelves and shouted "Give 'em Watts, boys!" to provide musket wadding for the Continental defenders, was rebuilt on its original Morris Avenue footprint and stands today at 210 Morris Avenue. The smallest state park in New Jersey is the Continental Soldier statue out in front.³

This is the lifestyle piece for Springfield. Not the market data, which Prodigy's Clark trade-off comparison contextualizes against the broader Union County market, and not the carrying-cost math, which sits in the four-town property tax comparison. This is about the daily and weekly rituals that make Springfield one of the most genuinely distinctive small towns in the New York metropolitan region to actually live in.

The Forgotten Victory That Ended British Ambitions in New Jersey

At 5:00 a.m. on June 23, 1780, Lieutenant General Wilhelm von Knyphausen advanced from Elizabethtown Point with roughly 5,000 British and Hessian troops, attempting a two-pronged assault up the Galloping Hill Road and the Vauxhall Road toward General Washington's supply garrison at Morristown. Washington had departed his Springfield headquarters the day before, leaving the defense to General Nathanael Greene with approximately 1,500 Continental regulars and 500 New Jersey Militia.¹ At the Galloping Hill Bridge over the Rahway River, Colonel Israel Angell's Rhode Island Regiment fought five times their numbers to a standstill for over twenty-five minutes, while six British cannons were answered by a single American gun.

As the American artillery ran short of paper wadding for their muskets, the chaplain of Colonel Elias Dayton's regiment — Reverend James Caldwell, whose wife Hannah had been killed by a British bullet sixteen days earlier at the Battle of Connecticut Farms — rode into the First Presbyterian Church on Morris Avenue, gathered a stack of hymnals published by English clergyman Isaac Watts, and rushed back to the firing line. "Give 'em Watts, boys!" Caldwell shouted as he tore the pages and handed them out for use as wadding. The painting of that moment by John Ward Dunsmore now hangs in Fraunces Tavern in New York City; a copy hangs in the Springfield Municipal Court.

By afternoon, Greene's forces had pushed the British back across the Rahway. Frustrated by the failed advance, the retreating British and Hessian troops set fire to Springfield in retaliation. Only four houses in the entire township survived the burning. American casualties on June 23 totaled 13 killed, 49 wounded, and 9 missing. The Battle of Springfield was the last major engagement of the Revolutionary War in the northern colonies. After it, British troops never again entered New Jersey in force. Washington wrote that the New Jersey Militia "flew to arms universally and acted with a spirit equal to anything I have seen." Because the decisive battles of the war moved south to Yorktown, Springfield became known to historians as "the forgotten victory."

The 1741 Farmhouse With a Cannonball Still Standing in Its West Wall

When the British torched Springfield on the afternoon of June 23, 1780, four houses in the entire township survived. The Cannon Ball House at 126 Morris Avenue — built in 1741 by Dr. Jonathan Dayton, a Revolutionary War soldier whose nephew of the same name later signed the Constitution — was one of them. The structure was used as a British field hospital during the battle, which is widely understood as the reason the retreating British forces did not burn it.³ A cannonball had pierced the west wall during the fighting and remained mounted in the wall until it finally fell out in the 1920s. The cannonball is now on display inside the museum.

The house was added to the New Jersey State and National Registers of Historic Places. Originally an ochre color with cream and dark green trim, it has served at various points as a farmhouse, tavern, boardinghouse, tearoom, and field hospital. Seven of its eight rooms are open to the public, with period furniture, weapons, tools, kitchen implements, and a letter written by General George Washington in the days before the battle on display. The Cannon Ball House is the headquarters of the Springfield Historical Society, founded in 1955.

The museum is open by appointment and on a calendar of select annual dates: the Sunday of Presidents' Weekend (2–4 p.m.), the Sunday closest to the June 23 anniversary of the Battle of Springfield (2–4 p.m.), the third weekend in October as part of the Union County "Four Centuries in a Weekend" program, and the first Sunday in December. Admission is nominal. The other three Battle of Springfield survivors — the Swaim House on South Springfield Avenue and the Sayre House — remain in private hands. The Cannon Ball House is the only one open to the public.

The Church Where "Give 'em Watts, Boys!" Became a National Memory

The original First Presbyterian Church of Springfield was burned by the retreating British on June 23, 1780, alongside most of the rest of the township. It was the same church Reverend James Caldwell had ridden into hours earlier to retrieve the Isaac Watts hymnals he distributed as musket wadding to the Continental defenders. After the war, the congregation rebuilt the church on its original Morris Avenue footprint, salvaging much of the original structure. The church still stands today at 210 Morris Avenue.

Out in front of the church stands a small bronze statue of a Continental Soldier. The plaque underneath identifies the surrounding parcel as the smallest state park in New Jersey. It is roughly the footprint of a single front lawn. The fact that a state park can be that small is a Springfield-specific quirk of preservation that locals know by heart and that newer arrivals have to be told about.

Reverend Caldwell himself — born in Virginia in April 1734, Princeton Class of 1759, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Elizabethtown, chaplain of Colonel Elias Dayton's regiment, and known throughout the war as "the Fighting Parson" or "the Rebel's High Priest" — survived the Battle of Springfield by sixteen months. He was shot and killed by an American sentry at Elizabethtown Point on November 24, 1781, in circumstances that remain disputed. His congregation in Elizabethtown had provided forty line officers to the Continental Army. The Watts-hymnal moment from the Battle of Springfield is the moment that anchored him in American memory, and it happened on a stretch of Morris Avenue that runs less than a mile from the Cannon Ball House to the church.

The Tillinghast Dual Course That Has Hosted Seven U.S. Opens

On October 19, 1895, Louis Keller — the publisher of the New York Social Register — announced the opening of Baltusrol Golf Club on 500 acres he had purchased in Springfield Township. The land was named for Baltus Roll, a farmer who had been murdered on Baltusrol Mountain on February 22, 1831, by two thieves who believed he had hidden a treasure in his farmhouse.² The original 9-hole course was designed by George Hunter in 1895 and expanded to 18 holes in 1898. By 1903 the club had hosted its first U.S. Open. By 1915 it had hosted its second.

In 1918, Keller hired Albert Warren ("Tilly") Tillinghast — the architect later responsible for Winged Foot, Bethpage Black, San Francisco Golf Club, Quaker Ridge, and Somerset Hills — to design a second course to complement the original. Tillinghast's recommendation was bolder: plow the existing 18 holes under and build two entirely new championship courses side by side. The board agreed. Construction began in 1918 and the Upper and Lower Courses opened in 1922 as the first contiguous 36 holes ever built simultaneously in America. Golf Illustrated called the project the most ambitious golf course development conceived in America to date.

In its 130-year history, Baltusrol has hosted seven U.S. Opens (1903, 1915, 1936, 1954, 1967, 1980, 1993), two PGA Championships (2005 and 2016), two U.S. Women's Opens (1961, 1985), four U.S. Amateurs (1904, 1926, 1946, 2000), two U.S. Women's Amateurs (1901, 1911), and the 2023 KPMG Women's PGA Championship. The 2029 PGA Championship has already been awarded. Jack Nicklaus set U.S. Open scoring records at Baltusrol in both 1967 and 1980. Phil Mickelson won his first PGA Championship at Baltusrol in 2005. The 80,000-square-foot Tudor revival clubhouse — designed by member Chester Hugh Kirk in 1909 after the original burned — became the first golf clubhouse to host a sitting U.S. President in 1912 (William Howard Taft).

In 2005 Baltusrol was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 2014 it was further designated a National Historic Landmark by the National Park Service in recognition of its significance to Tillinghast's career — one of only four or five golf properties in the United States to hold that designation. The Lower Course's Gil Hanse-led restoration was completed in 2021. The Upper Course's restoration was completed in 2025. Per PGA documentation, the same elevated ridgeline that defines the Upper Course is the same Watchung high ground used by Continental soldiers to track British troop movements before the Battle of Springfield in June 1780.²

What's Within a Five-Minute Walk of the Battle of Springfield Markers

Springfield's central commercial corridor runs along Morris Avenue — the same road the British marched up on June 23, 1780, and the same road that connects the Cannon Ball House to the rebuilt First Presbyterian Church to the Galloping Hill Bridge battlefield marker. A summary view of what fits inside that walking corridor:

Sources: Township of Springfield; Springfield Historical Society; New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection; Revolutionary War New Jersey project; National Park Service.

Springfield does not have its own NJ Transit station. Most Springfield residents commute via Midtown Direct on the Morris & Essex Line by driving to nearby park-and-ride stations — Short Hills (in Millburn), Summit, or Millburn proper. The drive-to-train calculus is one of the structural realities of the Springfield buyer-side workflow and is covered in detail in Section 09 below. The Shunpike Road corridor that hosts Baltusrol's main entrance was originally laid in the early 1800s as a parallel "shunpike" to avoid paying tolls on the Morris & Sussex Turnpike. The toll-evasion road is now the address line on one of the most prestigious private clubs in America.

A Year of Recurring Springfield Rituals

Springfield's annual calendar is anchored by the June 23 commemoration of the Battle of Springfield, with the Springfield Historical Society opening the Cannon Ball House to the public on the Sunday closest to the anniversary date. The Society additionally opens the museum on the Sunday of Presidents' Weekend, the third weekend in October as part of Union County's "Four Centuries in a Weekend" program, and the first Sunday in December. The 2026 Semiquincentennial year carries particular resonance for Springfield given the township's role in the events of 1780.

Baltusrol Golf Club's 2029 PGA Championship is the marquee future event on the Springfield calendar — the club has already hosted nineteen major championships across its history, and the 2029 championship will mark the twentieth. The 2023 KPMG Women's PGA Championship brought the world's best women golfers to the Lower Course; the 2025 reopening of the restored Upper Course set up the next phase of the club's championship rotation. Public access to Baltusrol is restricted to member guests, but the club's championship windows draw competitive-tournament traffic that lifts Springfield's profile across the New York metro for weeks at a time.

The First Presbyterian Church on Morris Avenue maintains an active worship calendar and historical-tour programming that intersects with the Battle anniversary. The Springfield Public Library and Springfield Free Public Library system run cultural programming year-round. For the broader Union County context, Prodigy's four seasons of Westfield piece covers the fuller monthly calendar in the neighboring Midtown Direct ring township, and the Clark trade-off analysis walks through the comparative Union County positioning across Westfield, Cranford, Scotch Plains, and Clark.

What Buyers Are Really Buying When They Buy in Springfield

A meaningful share of Prodigy's Springfield buyer conversations in 2026 involve relocations from Hoboken, Jersey City, Brooklyn, and Manhattan — the same migration pattern that anchors the Cranford and Westfield buyer pipelines. What separates Springfield in those conversations is the combination of nationally significant Revolutionary War heritage and the Baltusrol overlay. Buyers who tour Springfield in the upper price tiers can stand on the same Watchung ridgeline that Continental soldiers stood on in June 1780 and look down at the Manhattan skyline. That combination is not present in most relocation alternatives in the Union County ring.

What those buyers are actually purchasing is not a house. It is a lifestyle pattern: a Saturday afternoon walk down Morris Avenue past the Cannon Ball House and the First Presbyterian Church, a Sunday round on a public course or — if a member — on Baltusrol's Lower Course, a Memorial Day weekend visit to the Cannon Ball House for the Battle anniversary, and a weekday commute by drive-to-station to Short Hills, Millburn, or Summit for the Midtown Direct ride into Penn Station. The Hoboken-to-Springfield migration is buyers trading walkable urbanism for walkable Revolutionary War heritage, with a yard added.

For comparative pricing context, Prodigy's Clark trade-off analysis walks through the four-town Union County framework, and the four-town property tax comparison covers the carrying-cost math. For lifestyle parallels in adjacent Union County townships, see Prodigy's Cranford lifestyle piece and the Scotch Plains lifestyle piece. Live inventory and current Springfield listings are on Prodigy's Springfield neighborhood page.

Choosing a Broker Who Actually Knows the Springfield Market

Springfield rewards broker-level diligence on three structural questions that other Union County Midtown Direct ring towns do not put on the table at the same intensity. The first is the drive-to-train geometry. Springfield does not have its own NJ Transit station — the working commute is via Short Hills (in Millburn), Summit, or Millburn proper, with the Morris & Essex Midtown Direct ride into Penn Station running roughly 35–45 minutes depending on station. Different parts of Springfield are different distances from each of those three stations, and the parking-permit waitlist at each is a distinct municipal process. A broker working a Springfield buyer without a clear-eyed model of which station serves which Springfield ZIP code is a broker pricing the deal on a commute the buyer is going to discover later.

The second is the assessment-compliance posture. Springfield is one of only three Union County municipalities currently in full compliance with State Director's Ratio thresholds — meaning, unlike Scotch Plains (17.31% pre-reval, township-wide reassessment certified to the Tax Board January 10, 2027) or several other Union County towns flagged for revaluation watch, Springfield's assessed values are roughly aligned with market values. That has two implications for buyers: there is no near-term assessment-shock risk, and there is no near-term assessment-compression upside. Both matter to underwriting. A broker who understands the Director's Ratio and how it shapes the Springfield carrying-cost picture is operating with the actual tax authority a Springfield transaction requires.

The third is the Baltusrol overlay and the Short Hills cross-shopping dynamic. Certain Springfield neighborhoods price like an extension of the Millburn / Short Hills corridor and the Baltusrol membership pool. Other Springfield neighborhoods price like a value play against Union or Maplewood. The line between those two pricing zones is not always obvious from a Zillow listing — it shows up in the cross-comp set, the school feeder pattern, and the proximity to the Baltusrol entrance on Shunpike Road. The Prodigy Team works the Springfield buyer-side and listing-side workflows around the actual neighborhood-level pricing geography rather than a generic township average, and Prodigy's Clark trade-off framework, Cranford lifestyle piece, and Scotch Plains lifestyle piece are part of the same locally-grounded comparative framework rather than disconnected market reports.

What that produces, on the ground, is a Springfield listing experience and a Springfield buyer-side workflow built around the actual structural realities of the market — the drive-to-train commuter geometry, the Director's Ratio compliance posture, and the Baltusrol/Millburn cross-shopping overlay — rather than the generic Union County playbook that treats every township in the Midtown Direct ring as interchangeable. The callout below summarizes how Prodigy approaches Springfield specifically.

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