Morristown’s Macculloch Hall gets a jump on Christmas with antique toy exhibit

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By Bill Swayze

If you were a youngster in 1915, the new Schoenhut Piano Company’s Santa Claus Roly Poly was on your Christmas wish list.

About a foot tall and made of papier-mâché and wood, the wobbly pear-shaped plaything would have cost mom and dad $3 that holiday season. These days the big-bottom toy in mint condition will cost you up to a thousand times as much and can be spotted mostly in eclectic antique shops and on collectors’ Web pages.

As of Sunday, you’ll find two of them at Macculloch Hall Historical Museum in Morristown as part of a new exhibit aptly named Twas the Night Before ChristmasVintage Holiday Ornaments and Toys. The exhibit features the most popular stuff found on, under and near the Christmas tree from 1850 through 1920.

Toys of Christmas Past
Ornaments of Christmas Past...on display at Morristown's Macculloch Hall. Photo by Bill Swayze

There’s a giant clockwork Santa circa 1890 with a noggin that would have nodded to shoppers as they passed store window displays. There’s a bobblehead-like Santa from Germany. There are little figurines called Snow Babies, figural candy containers, Belsnickel figures and a Noah’s ark.

macculloch xhibit
SANTA ON A DIET? Antique Christmas decorations of yesteryear are on display at Morristown's Macculloch Hall. Photo by Bill Swayze

The exhibit also includes the museum’s collection of original holiday artwork by caricaturist Thomas Nast, who not only was the father of modern editorial cartooning, popularizing the Republican elephant and Democratic donkey symbols. The 31-year Morristown resident also gave us the modern day image of Santa Claus.

Macculloch Hall has the largest collection of Nast originals in the nation.

Carrie Fellows, the director of the museum, said the exhibit is especially important and interesting and hopes people take advantage of the opportunity to see the works of art, toys and decorations from Nast’s time.

Wouldn’t you want to see what influenced the man who shaped our contemporary image of Santa Claus? Where did the red suit, the white beard come from? Has Santa always looked the way we see him now – or did he develop along with the American Christmas holiday?” Fellows said.

On Sunday, the lenders and curators of the exhibit will be on hand beginning at 2:30 p.m. to talk about the objects.  They include Sharon and Joe Happle of Sign of the Tymes Antiques, Lafayette NJ and Lauren Rethwisch of Wooly Sheep Antiques, Robbinsville NJ.

Local teacher Barb Silverstein’s fourth-graders at the Assumption School will add to the hall’s holiday decorations, providing handmade ornaments similar to the ones made a century ago. And the Garden Club of Morristown will soon add its botanical touches to the museum.

Video and photos from Macculloch Hall’s 200th anniversary

The Museum is open for tours and to view exhibits on Sunday, Wednesday and Thursday from 1 to 4 p.m. For information, call the Museum weekdays at (973) 538-2404 or visit https://maccullochhall.org/

JOLLY THROUGH THE AGES: Santa Claus from a bygone era, on display at Morristown's Macculloch Hall.
JOLLY THROUGH THE AGES: Santa Claus from a bygone era, on display at Morristown's Macculloch Hall. Photo by Bill Swayze


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