Morristown, New Jersey, United States

🇺🇸 Morristown is a town and the county seat of Morris County, New Jersey, United States. Morristown has been called "the military capital of the American Revolution" because of its strategic role in the war for independence from Great Britain. Today this history is visible in a variety of locations throughout the town that collectively make up Morristown National Historical Park.

According to British colonial records, the first permanent European settlement at Morristown occurred in 1715, when a settlement was founded as New Hanover by colonists from New York and Connecticut. Morris County was created in 1739, from portions of Hunterdon County. The county, and ultimately Morristown itself, was named for the popular Governor of the Province, Lewis Morris, who championed land ownership rights for colonists. Morristown was incorporated as a town by an act of the New Jersey Legislature on April 6, 1865, within Morris Township, and it was formally set off from the township in 1895.

History Present-day Morristown was initially inhabited by the Lenni Lenape Native Americans for up to 6,000 years prior to exploration of Europeans. The first European settlements in this portion of New Jersey were established by Sweden and the Netherlands in the early 17th century, when significant trade in furs existed between the natives and the Europeans at temporary posts. It became part New Netherland, a Dutch colony, but the English seized control of the region in 1664, which was granted to Sir George Carteret and John Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley of Stratton, and named the Province of New Jersey.

History: 18th century Morristown was settled around 1715 by English Presbyterians from Southold, New York, on Long Island and New Haven, Connecticut, as the village of New Hanover. The town's central location and road connections led to its selection as the seat of the new Morris County shortly after its separation from Hunterdon County on March 15, 1739. The village and county were named for Lewis Morris, the first and then sitting royal governor of a united colony of New Jersey.

By the middle of the 18th century, Morristown had 250 residents, with two churches, a courthouse, two taverns, two schools, several stores, and numerous mills and farms nearby.

George Washington first came to Morristown in May 1773, two years before the Revolutionary War broke out, and traveled from there to New York City with John Parke Custis, his stepson, and Lord Stirling.

In 1777, General Washington and the Continental Army marched from the victories at Trenton and Princeton to encamp near Morristown from January to May. Washington's headquarters during that first encampment was at Jacob Arnold's Tavern, located at the Morristown Green in the centre of Morristown. Morristown was selected for its extremely strategic location. It was between Philadelphia and New York and near New England while being protected by the Watchung Mountains from the bulk of British troops camped in New York City. It also was chosen for the skills and trades of the residents, local industries and natural resources to provide arms, and what was thought to be the ability of the community to provide enough food to support the army.

The churches were used for inoculations for smallpox. That first headquarters, Arnold's Tavern, was eventually moved.5 miles (800 m) south of the green onto Mount Kemble Avenue to become All Souls' Hospital in the late 19th century. It suffered a fire in 1918, and the original structure was demolished, but new buildings for the hospital were built directly across the street.

From December 1779 to June 1780, the Continental Army's second encampment at Morristown was at Jockey Hollow. Then, Washington's headquarters in Morristown was located at the Ford Mansion, a large mansion near what was then the edge of town. Ford's widow and children shared the house with Martha Washington and officers of the Continental Army.

The winter of 1780 was the worst winter of the Revolutionary War. The starvation was complicated by extreme inflation of money and lack of pay for the army. The entire Pennsylvania contingent successfully mutinied. Later, 200 New Jersey soldiers also attempted unsuccessfully to mutiny. Many soldiers died, due to weak health.

During Washington's second stay, in March 1780, he declared St. Patrick's Day a holiday to honor his many Irish troops. Martha Washington traveled from Virginia and remained with her husband each winter throughout the war. The Marquis de Lafayette came to Washington in Morristown to inform him that France would be sending ships and trained soldiers to aid the Continental Army.

Ford Mansion, Jockey Hollow, and Fort Nonsense are all preserved as part of Morristown National Historical Park, managed by the National Park Service, which has the distinction among historic preservationists of being the first National Historical Park established in the United States.

During Washington's stay, Benedict Arnold was court-martialed at Dickerson's Tavern, on Spring Street, for charges related to profiteering from military supplies at Philadelphia. His admonishment was made public, but Washington quietly promised the hero, Arnold, to make it up to him.

Alexander Hamilton courted and wed Elizabeth Schuyler at a residence where Washington's personal physician resided. Locally known as the Schuyler-Hamilton House, the Dr. Jabez Campfield House is listed on both the New Jersey and National Register of Historic Places.

At Morristown Green, there is a statue commemorating the meeting of George Washington, the young Marquis de LaFayette, and young Alexander Hamilton as they discussed forthcoming aid from French ships and troops being sent by King Louis XVI to aid the Continental Army in the Revolutionary War.

Morristown's Burnham Park has a statue, "Father of the American Revolution", depicting Thomas Paine, who wrote Common Sense in 1776, which urged a complete break from British rule and helped inspire the American Revolution. The bronze statue by sculptor Georg J. Lober shows Paine in 1776 using a drum as a table during the withdrawal of the army across New Jersey composing Crisis 1. He wrote, "These are the times that try men's souls…" The statue was dedicated on July 4, 1950.

History: 19th century The idea for constructing the Morris Canal is credited to Morristown businessman George P. Macculloch, who in 1822 convened a group to discuss his concept for a canal. The group included Governor of New Jersey Isaac Halstead Williamson, which led to approval of the proposal by the New Jersey Legislature later that year. The canal was used for a century. In July 1825 during his 15 month return tour of the United States, the Marquis de Lafayette returned to Morristown, where a ball was held in his honor at the 1807 Sansay House on DeHart Street (the edifice still stands as of 2011).

In 1827, St. Peter's Episcopal Church was founded at the behest of Bishop George Washington Doane and many prominent Morristown Families, including George P. Macculloch, of the Morris Canal. When the Church was rebuilt by the then-internationally famous architectural firm, McKim, Mead and White, beginning in 1889, the congregation erected one of the United States finest church buildings –a stone, English-gothic church complete with fined stained glass, and a long, decorated interior.

Antoine le Blanc, a French immigrant laborer, murdered the Sayre family and their servant (or possibly slave), Phoebe. He was tried and convicted of murder of the Sayres (but not of Phoebe) on August 13, 1833. On September 6, 1833, Le Blanc became the last person hanged on the Morristown Green. Until late 2006, the house where the murders were committed was known as "Jimmy's Haunt", which is purported to be haunted by Phoebe's ghost because her murder never saw justice. Jimmy's Haunt was torn down to make way for a bank in 2007.

Samuel F. B. Morse and Alfred Vail built the first telegraph at the Speedwell Ironworks in Morristown on January 6, 1838. The first telegraph message was A patient waiter is no loser. The first public demonstration of the invention occurred five days later as an early step toward the information age.

Jacob Arnold's Tavern, the first headquarters for Washington in Morristown and site of Benedict Arnold's 1780 trial, was purchased by Morristown historian Julia Keese Nelson Colles (1840-1913) to save it from demolition in 1886. It was moved by horse-power in the winter of 1887 from "the green" (after being stuck on Bank Street for about six weeks) to a site 0.5 miles (0.80 km) south on Mount Kemble Avenue at what is now a parking lot for the Atlantic RIMM Rehabilitation Hospital. It became a boarding house for four years until it was converted by the Grey Nuns from Montreal into All Souls' Hospital, the first general hospital in Morris County. George and Martha Washington's second floor ballroom became a chapel and the first floor tavern became a ward for patients. In 1910, the late Augustus Lefebvre Revere (brother of hospital founder Paul Revere) willed the Hospital $10,000 to be used for the erection of a new building. This fund was used 8 years later when the original Arnold's Tavern building was lost to a fire. The entire organization, nurses, doctors, and patients of All Souls' Hospital were then moved across Mount Kemble Avenue, U.S. Route 202, to the newly built brick hospital building. All Souls' was set to close because of financial difficulties in the late 1960s. In 1973, it became Community Medical Center. In 1977, the centre became bankrupt and was purchased by the then new and larger Morristown Memorial Hospital, which is now the Morristown Medical Center.

On December 18, 1843, the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church was incorporated. This was the first congregation established by blacks in Morris County. It is still active. The first site of the Church was located at 13 Spring Street and served as the only schoolhouse for colored children until 1870. The Church relocated to its present site at 59 Spring Street in 1874.

The first Jews moved to Morristown in the 1850s, but much larger numbers of Ashkenazi Jews migrated to the region from Eastern Europe in the 1890s, which led to the incorporation of the Morristown Jewish Center in 1899. Today there are several Jewish synagogues in Morristown reflecting the diversity of the community.[example needed]

In the 1880s, the town's residents were primarily farmers. The small amount of stores in the Morristown Green town centre were only open during the evening to accommodate farmers who did not leave their work during the daytime. There were only a few stores in town, including Adams & Fairchild grocers and P. H. Hoffman & Son clothiers, both located in the Arnold's Tavern on the Morristown Green.

Gilded Age of Morristown Starting in the mid-1800s, Morristown became a popular summer retreat for some of New York City's wealthiest residents. From the 1870s onwards, immense estates were built up along once rural thoroughfares; Madison Avenue, which runs along Morristown and Madison, New Jersey, became known as "the street of the 100 millionaires" due to the sheer extravagance of the houses that were constructed.

Between 1880 and 1929, the Gilded Age of Morristown occurred, when dozens of "millionaires with large fortunes built their estates" in Morristown and Morris Township.

In the 1880 United States census, the town had 5,418 residents, which grew to 8,156 in 1890.

In 1889, Christian charity organization Market Street Mission was established on 9 Market Street beside the Morristown Green in response to the large number of saloons on Market Street. Beginning on March 18, 1889, the Mission hosted nightly meetings to aid and convert those with alcoholism, opioid use, and homelessness. As of 2022, the organization continues to operate a homeless shelter, meals, and emergency services, along with men's drug addiction recovery groups, community counseling, a chapel, and a thrift store.

The Morris Township describes the influx of millionaires: By 1896, an estimated 54 millionaires lived in the Morristown area, with a total wealth of $289,000,000, which [circa 2009] would be worth billions of dollars. Six years later in 1902, there were at least 91 millionaires.

This included New York warehouse & grain broker Charles Grant Foster, who bought Union general Joseph Warren Revere's farm estate and mansion in 1881. This became Fosterfields, a Jersey cow farm. It was later managed by Caroline Rose Foster, though most of its herd was sold in a 1927 auction. In 1979 it was donated to the Morris County Park Commission. The site currently houses a living history museum and Revere's historic house.

In 1902, the New York Herald described Morristown as "the Millionaire City of the Nation". The Herald claimed it "contains the richest and least known colony of wealthy people in the world". It identified 45 millionaires (15 of whom were worth over $10 million) who had purchased country homes in Morristown to avoid "lavish display" and seek "freedom from notoriety". The newspaper named some of them including lawyer George Griswold Frelinghuysen, carpet-making heir Eugene Higgins, banker Otto Hermann Kahn, Luther Kountze, and Louis A. Thebaud.

Even smaller estates without deer herds, polo fields or private gas plants necessitated "multiple indoor and outdoor employees" such as "butlers, housekeeprs, parlor-maids and upstairs maids; governesses, nannies, and tutors; cooks and kitchen maids, coachmen, grooms, and stable boys; managers, care-takers, watchmen; gardeners and assistants".

The Gilded Age of Morristown ended in 1929, due to the "high cost of maintaining the estates, increasing income taxes, and the stock market crash" that led to the Great Depression. The Morris Township reports, "Many of the mansions were closed or sold, and some burned".

History: 20th century Since 1929, more than 16,000 guide dogs for the blind from The Seeing Eye, Inc., the oldest such school in the U.S., have been trained on the streets of Morristown.

History: 21st century On January 5, 2009, five red lights were spotted in the Morristown area night skies, who gained significant press coverage and 9-1-1 calls. On April 1, 2009, the perpetrators revealed their hoax by publicizing footage of its creation, which consisted of helium balloons and flares. The event became nationally known as the Morristown UFO hoax.

Geography According to the United States Census Bureau, Morristown town had a total area of 3.01 square miles (7.79 km²), including 2.91 square miles (7.53 km²) of land and 0.10 square miles (0.25 km²) of water (3.26%).

Morristown is completely surrounded by Morris Township, making it part of 21 pairs of "doughnut towns" in the state, where one municipality entirely surrounds another.

The downtown shopping and business district of Morristown is centered around a square park, known as the Morristown Green. It is a former market square from Morristown's colonial days.

Economy Companies based in Morristown include Capsugel, Covanta Energy, Louis Berger Group, Schindler Group and the Morristown & Erie Railway, a local short-line freight railway and Honeywell.

Morristown Medical Center, with 5,500 employees, is Morristown's largest employer. In a ruling issued in June 2015, Tax Court Judge Vito Bianco ruled that the hospital would be required to pay property taxes on nearly all of its campus in the town.

Arts and culture • Morristown National Historical Park – Four historic sites around Morristown associated with the American Revolutionary War, including Jockey Hollow, a park that includes a visitor centre, the Revolution-era Wick farm, encampment site of George Washington's Continental Army, and around 25 miles of hiking trails, and the Washington's Headquarters & Ford Mansion, a Revolution-era Georgian-style mansion used by George Washington as his headquarters during the Jockey Hollow encampment. • Speedwell Lake - Park with an old dam, other ruins, and more. Patriots Path, a footpath that runs through Northern New Jersey winds through this park. • Morristown Green – Park at the centre of town which was the old town "common" or "green". It is the site of several Revolutionary War and Civil war monuments (including one with George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and the Marquis De Lafayette discussing the arrival of French aid to the colonies), and is surrounded by historic churches, the colonial county-courthouse, and a shopping and restaurant district. • St. Peter's Episcopal Church – Large McKim Mead and White church with bell tower, fine stained glass and medieval furnishings. • Acorn Hall – 1853 Victorian Italianate mansion and home to the Morris County Historical Society. Donated to the historical society in 1971 by Mary Crane Hone, the mansion retained much of its original furnishings and accouterments as it remained in the same family for over a century. It is currently operated as a museum and is the headquarters of the Morris County Historical Society. • Morris Museum – formally incorporated in 1943. The museum's permanent displays include rocks, minerals, fossils, animal mounts, a model railroad, and Native American crafts, pottery, carving, basketry and textiles. • Mayo Performing Arts Center – a former Walter Reade movie theater originally constructed in 1937 that has been converted into a 1,302-seat performing arts center. • The Seeing Eye – the first school in North America for training and connecting guide dogs with blind and visually impaired students. • Speedwell Ironworks – a National Historic Landmark and museum at the site where the electric telegraph was first presented to the public, on January 11, 1838.

Libraries • Morristown and Morris Township Public Library - Originating as informal book trading in 1792, the library was officially incorporated in 1866. After growing to 30,000 volumes, a 1914 fire destroyed the lyceum and much of its contents. In 1916, textile merchant Grinnell Willis constructed and paid for a new fireproof building. Its Modern Mondays Reading Club, an exclusive women's-only book club established in 1921, included prominent community members such as anthropologist Ethel Cutler Freeman; writer Dorothy Kunhardt; local farmer Caroline Rose Foster; and Elinor Parker, manager of Scribner's Book Store.

Historic sites Morristown is home to the following locations on the National Register of Historic Places: • Acorn Hall – 68 Morris Avenue (added 1973) • Boisaubin Manor – Southeast of Morristown on Treadwell Avenue (added 1976) • Dr. Jabez Campfield House – 5 Olyphant Place (added 2008) • Dr. Lewis Condict House – 51 South Street (added 1973) • Cutler Homestead – 21 Cutler Street (added 1975) • Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad Station – 132 Morris Street (added 1980) • Fordville – East of Morristown at 30 Ford Hill Road (added 1978) • Glanville Blacksmith Shop – 47 Bank Street (added 1987) • Jenkins-Mead House – 14 Revere Road (added 1997) • Lindenwold – 247 South Street (added 1986) • Timothy Mills House – 27 Mills Street (added 1975) • Morris County Courthouse – Washington St. between Court Street and Western Avenue (added 1977) • Morristown District – Roughly bounded by the cemetery, King Place, Madison and Colles Avenues., DeHart Street, and North Park Place (added 1973), Boundary Increase Irregularly bounded by Lackawanna, Franklin Place, James Street, Ogden Place, Doughty, Mt. Kemble, Western, and Speedwell Avenues (added 1986) • Morristown National Historical Park – At junction of U.S. 202 and NJ 24 (added 1966) • Morristown School – Junction of Whippany Road and Hanover Avenue, Morris Township (added 1996) • Mount Kemble Home – 1 Mt. Kemble Avenue (added 1986) • Thomas Nast Home – MacCulloch Avenue and Miller Road (added 1966) • Normandy Park Historic District – Normandy Parkway, between Columbia Turnpike and Madison Avenue, Morris Township (added 1996) • Oak Dell – Franklin Street and Madison Avenue (added 1986) • Joseph W. Revere House – Northwest of Morristown on Mendham Avenue (added 1973), Fosterfields Boundary Increase at junction of Mendham and Kahdena Roads, Morris Township (added 1991) • Speedwell Village-The Factory – 333 Speedwell Avenue (added 1974) • Spring Brook House – 167 James Street (added 1986) • Thorne and Eddy Estates – East of Morristown on Columbia Road (added 1978) • Whippany Farm – 53 East Hanover Avenue (added 1977) • Willow Hall – 330 Speedwell Avenue (added 2011)

Statues • An equestrian statue of George Washington by the sculptor Frederick Roth is located near the Ford Mansion, Washington's Headquarters from December 1779 to June 1780 during the American Revolutionary War. It was dedicated on October 19, 1928, the anniversary of the surrender of British General Charles Cornwallis at Yorktown in 1781. • A copy of The Hiker by Theo Alice Ruggles Kitson, commemorating the soldiers who fought in the Spanish–American War, was installed at the corner of Elm Street and Morris Avenue in 1948. • One of only two heroic statues of Thomas Paine in the United States is located in Morristown; the other is found in Bordentown, NJ. • One of the few statues depicting an unblindfolded Lady Justice adorns the façade of the Courthouse. • A statue of Morris Frank, the co-founder of The Seeing Eye guide dog school for the blind, and his dog Buddy stands in a corner of the green. • The Alliance (2007) by Brooklyn's Studio EIS, featuring bronze figures of George Washington, Alexander Hamilton and the Marquis de Lafayette. The statue is in the Morristown Green.

Sport The New Jersey Stampede (formerly the Minutemen) are a professional inline hockey team that competes in the Professional Inline Hockey Association.

The United States Equestrian Team, the international equestrian team for the United States, was founded in 1950 at the Coates estate on Van Beuren Road in Morristown.

Morristown has a cricketing club, the first in North America.

The Morristown 1776 Association Football Club is a soccer club that competes in the North Jersey Soccer League and MCSSA.

Local government Morristown is governed within the Faulkner Act, formally known as the Optional Municipal Charter Law, under a Plan F Mayor-Council system of New Jersey municipal government, which went into effect on January 1, 1974. The town is one of 71 municipalities (of the 564) statewide that use this form of government. The Morristown Town Council is composed of seven members, of which three members are elected at-large representing the entire town and one representative is chosen from each of the town's four wards. Members are elected on a partisan basis to four-year terms of office on a staggered basis in odd-numbered years as part of the November general election, with the four ward seats up for vote together and the at-large and mayoral seats up for vote together two years later. As the legislative arm of the government, the council is responsible for making and setting policy for the town.

Education The Morris School District is a regional public school district that serves students in pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade from the communities of Morristown and Morris Township, and high school students (grades 9–12) from Morris Plains who attend the high school as part of a sending/receiving relationship with the Morris Plains Schools. As of the 2018–19 school year, the district, comprising 10 schools, had an enrollment of 5,216 students and 441.4 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a student–teacher ratio of 11.8:1. Schools in the district (with 2018–19 enrollment data from the National Center for Education Statistics) are Lafayette Learning Center (102 students; in grade Pre-K), Alexander Hamilton School (293; 3–5), Hillcrest School (288; K–2), Thomas Jefferson School (314; 3–5), Normandy Park School (302; K–5), Sussex Avenue School (301; 3–5), Alfred Vail School (297; K–2), Woodland School (289; K–2), Frelinghuysen Middle School (1,081; 6–8) and Morristown High School (1,860; 9–12). The nine elected seats on the board of education are allocated based on the population of the constituent municipalities, with four seats assigned to Morristown.

In addition to a public school system, Morristown has several private schools. Primary and elementary schools include The Red Oaks School, an independent private school founded in 1965 and serving pre-kindergarten through eighth grade, that offers both Montessori and International Baccalaureate programs. Assumption Roman Catholic is a grade school (K–8) that operates under the auspices of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Paterson and was one of 11 schools in the state recognised in 2014 by the United States Department of Education's National Blue Ribbon Schools Program. The Peck School, a private day school which serves approximately 300 students in kindergarten through grade eight, dates back to 1893 when it was originally established as Miss Sutphen's School. Delbarton School is an all-boys Roman Catholic school with approximately 540 students in grades seven through twelve, that began serving resident students in 1939 after having previously served as a seminary. The Morristown-Beard School, a private co-ed school formed from the merger of two previously existing institutions, Morristown Preparatory School and Miss Beard's School, serves grades 6 through 12. In addition, Villa Walsh Academy, a private Catholic college preparatory school conducted by the Religious Teachers Filippini, is located in Morristown.

The Academy of Saint Elizabeth was founded at Morristown in 1860 by the Sisters of Charity, however when municipal boundaries were redrawn in 1895, the academy found itself in the Convent Station section of the adjacent Morris Township.

The Rabbinical College of America, one of the largest Chabad Lubavitch Chasidic yeshivas in the world is located in Morristown. The Rabbinical College of America has a Baal Teshuva yeshiva for students of diverse Jewish backgrounds, named Yeshiva Tiferes Bachurim. The New Jersey Regional Headquarters for the worldwide Chabad Lubavitch movement is located on the campus.

Transport: Road As of May 2010, the town had a total of 39.98 miles (64.34 km) of roadways, of which 29.73 miles (47.85 km) were maintained by the municipality, 5.03 miles (8.10 km) by Morris County and 5.22 miles (8.40 km) by the New Jersey Department of Transportation.

Interstate 287 is the main highway providing access to Morristown. Two interchanges, Exit 35 and Exit 36, are located within the town. Other significant roads serving Morristown include U.S. Route 202, New Jersey Route 124 and County Route 510.

Transport: Public Morristown has attempted to implement transit-oriented development. Morristown was designated in 1999 as of one of New Jersey's first five "transit villages". In 1999, Morristown changed its zoning code to designate the area around the train station as a "Transit Village Core" for mixed-use. The designation was at least partly responsible for development plans for several mixed-use condominium developments.

NJ Transit offers rail service at the Morristown station which offers service on the Morristown Line to Newark Broad Street, Secaucus Junction, New York Penn Station and Hoboken Terminal. The town benefited from shortened commuting times to New York City due to the "Midtown Direct" service New Jersey Transit instituted in the 1990s.

NJ Transit local bus service is offered from the Morristown rail station, Morristown Medical Center and Headquarters Plaza on the 871, 872, 873, 874, 875 and 880 bus routes, replacing service that had been offered on the MCM1, MCM2, MCM3, MCM4, MCM8 and MCM10 routes until 2010, when subsidies to the local provider were eliminated as part of budget cuts.

Community Coach provides daily service between New York City and Morristown on bus route 77.

The town's Department of Public Works operates "Colonial Coach", which provides free transportation within Morristown.

The Whippany Line of the Morristown and Erie Railway, a small freight line, traverses the township. Established in 1895, the line runs from Morristown and runs through East Hanover Township and Hanover Township to Roseland.

Transport: Air Morristown Municipal Airport is the closest public airport. While owned by the town, the airport is physically located in nearby Hanover Township, 3 miles east of Morristown proper.

Newark Liberty International Airport in Newark / Elizabeth is the closest airport with scheduled passenger service. It is approximately 20 minutes away via Route 24 and Interstate 78.

Media Due to its proximity to New York City and Newark, daily newspapers serving the community are The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Star-Ledger.

The Morristown Daily Record was published locally, before being renamed the Daily Record and moving to a near-by location. The New Jersey Monthly magazine is published locally.

WMTR is an AM radio station at 1250 kHz is licensed to Morristown. The station features an oldies format.

WJSV radio (90.5 FM) is the nonprofit radio station of Morristown High School, which also has a television show, Colonial Corner.

Hometown Tales, a public-access television show and podcast chronicling stories and urban legends from around the world, is loosely based in Morristown.