Montclair is a township in Essex County, New Jersey, United States. It is the 50th largest municipality in New Jersey by population. As of the United States 2000 Census, the township population was 38,977. Montclair was first formed as a Township on April 15, 1868, from portions of Bloomfield Township, so that a railroad could be built to Montclair. After a referendum held on February 21, 1894, Montclair was reincorporated as a Town, effective February 24, 1894. In the late 1970s, after protesting for years at the inequities built into the formulas, Montclair joined several other communities to qualify for a pool of federal aid allocated only to Townships, that allowed townships to receive as much as double the revenue-sharing aid per capita received by the four other types of New Jersey municipalities — Borough, City, Town or Village.