24/7 Trauma & Biohazard Cleanup Near West Helmetta Helmetta, NJ

Helmetta is a borough in Middlesex County in the heart of the Raritan Valley, with Manalapan Brook, a Raritan River tributary, flowing through the center of the community.

Helmetta was formed as a borough on March 20, 1888, from portions of East Brunswick, following a referendum held ten days earlier.

The borough is named for Olivia Antoinette "Etta" Helme, daughter of snuff manufacturer George Washington Helme.

Helmetta grew up around a snuff mill first opened in the 1820s that George Washington Helme acquired in the 1880s, building a classic late-1800s company mill town.

By 1925 the Helme snuff mill was the largest of its kind in the world, and by 1934 it employed about 400 people.

Snuff production left Helmetta in 1993 when owner Swisher International moved operations to Wheeling, West Virginia, and the old mill complex was converted into an apartment complex completed in 2017.

The G.W. Helme Snuff Mill Historic District, added to the National Register of Historic Places on August 15, 1980, originally contained about 109 buildings, including worker housing, St. George's Episcopal Church, Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church and Helmetta Pond.

Helmetta Pond once served as the source of power for the snuff mill.

Helmetta ranks last among Middlesex County's 25 municipalities in both land area, at 0.88 square miles, and population.

The 2020 census counted 2,455 residents in Helmetta living in 1,052 households — the borough's highest population ever, up 12.7 percent from 2010.