This 2.10-square-mile borough in northern-central Union County, was originally a pre-Revolutionary farming community. It was acquired in the late 1800s by a group of real estate developers who called the property New Orange. The area was renamed Kenilworth, after England’s Kenilworth Castle and Sir Walter Scott’s novel Kenilworth, and in 1907 was incorporated as the Borough of Kenilworth. Kenilworth was home to Kensington Riding Academy and Upsala College. Inventor Thomas Edison often visited Kenilworth, and famed aviator James Doolittle crashed his experimental plane there in 1929, while attempting an emergency landing in foggy conditions. Doolittle credited the accident with reinforcing his commitment to developing blind-landing instrumentation for allweather flying, one of his most significant aeronautical achievements.