With approximately 4,000 registered families, St. James is one of the largest parishes in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Metuchen.

St. James was founded in the village of Woodbridge in 1860, however Mass was celebrated in households.

In 1865, the a small wooden chapel was built on the south side of Main Street.

Devine also invited the Sisters of Mercy from Bordentown, New Jersey to start St. James School, which was to be housed in the old converted chapel.

Fr Farrell made many changes to St. James, the largest of which was the moving of the church building by tractor to Amboy Avenue.

Due to the continuous growth of the parish, Msgr McCorristin oversaw an addition to the school as well as a campaign to build a new church.

The Vietnamese community was asked to move to a smaller church, Our Lady of Czestochowa Church in South Plainfield, NJ, because the amount of donations collected did not match the size of Saint James facilities.