Early residents of Metuchen retrieved their mail from stops along the post road and public places such as Campbell’s Tavern. In 1832, Lewis Thomas was appointed the first postmaster and operated out of his store on Main Street. For the next century, the location of the post office moved to various spots along Main Street, including Robins Hall, the Burroughs Building, and the Commonwealth Bank Building, dependant upon who was the politically-appointed postmaster at the time.
By the early 1930s, efforts were being made to appropriate federal funding under the Public Buildings Act of 1926 to construct a new, permanent home for the post office. A site close to the train station was specifically selected and construction finally began in May, 1939, under President Roosevelt’s “New Deal.” The architectural plans followed a standardized federal post office design created under the supervision of the Office of the Supervising Architect (OSA), headed by Louis Adolphe Simon. Built in the Colonial Revival style favored for public buildings during that time, its cupola was intended to reflect that found atop the Old Franklin School on Middlesex Avenue. It opened and was officially dedicated on February 10, 1940. In 1942, Harold Ambellan’s plaster sculpture, “Gardeners,” was installed on the interior north wall. Ambellan was an internationally recognized sculptor whose New York City loft was a meeting place for early blues and protest singers such as Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie, and Pete Seeger.
The Metuchen Post Office was listed on the New Jersey Register of Historic Places on June 25, 2007, and the National Register of Historic Places on April 2, 2008, as an intact example of federally-sponsored construction projects intended to relieve the widespread unemployment brought on by the Great Depression.