…it’s a great place to live.
That was the consensus among residents and officials at Wednesday’s reception for a new exhibition at the Morristown & Township Library.
Painstakingly pieced together over several months by James Lewis and his team in the library’s North Jersey History and Genealogy Center, the exhibit traces all 275 years of the Township’s history.
From country farms to corporate parks, from gilded mansions to garden apartments, the Morris Township has offered something for everyone for generations — and many generations have stayed.
One of the library display cases features a leather fire helmet worn by the father of Fire Chief Scott Lovenberg. Soon, the chief’s teenaged son Daniel will represent the third generation of volunteer firefighters from his family in the Township.
Matheu Nunn, a young attorney and former member of the Morris County Prosecutor’s Office, could live anywhere. He chose to stay in the Township, where his dad was a cop, his cousin is a fireman and an uncle is emergency management coordinator. Not to be outdone, the former municipal prosecutor volunteered last month for a vacancy on the Township committee and will run for election this fall.
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Tim Quinn was in the second grade when his family moved to the Township’s Butterworth neighborhood. As a teenager he joined the Morris Minute Men First Aid Squad. At 21, he was a police officer. Quinn rose through the ranks to become chief, and now serves as Township administrator. There never was a question about where he would raise his children.
“I just love Morris Township,” Quinn said.
In less than 16 square miles, the Township manages to pack in a woman’s college, a train station, an armory, a museum and theater, a riding stable, two hockey arenas, two country clubs, two public swimming pools, three prep schools, four county parks … the list goes on.
Paradoxically, this Township once famed as the “Inland Newport” doesn’t get credit for some of these institutions, which cite Morristown addresses. The municipalities may have split in 1865, but they still share a zip code. (And, since the 1970s, a school district.)
“I know we get lumped in with Morristown very often,” said Township Mayor Dan Caffrey, inside a shared library that sits in Morristown. “Yes, it’s a great community with Morristown as the hub. But we’ve got a great community all on its own.”
So here’s a challenge to all the mislocated organizations in Morris Township. Why not end the confusion, and proclaim your true geography?
As the library’s exhibition demonstrates, you have plenty to crow about.
The show runs through Aug. 16, 2015, in the F.M. Kirby Gallery. The Township also will mark the 275th anniversary of its founding with a 5K race on May 2, followed by special days at the Morris Museum and at a Somerset Patriots game, and a family picnic at Ginty Pool in September, said Township Administrator Tim Quinn.
And now, here is a comprehensive historical journey that suggests a Township equivalent to Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire:
MORRIS TOWNSHIP EXHIBIT OPENING
Welcoming remarks by James Lewis, Head of the North Jersey History and Genealogy Center
Thank you for coming to our exhibit opening; for your support, be it financial, in personal time by volunteering here or donations of materials (books, photographs, maps, or manuscript collections) and for contributing to the historical record of Morris Township, Morris County and New Jersey.
On March 25th, 1740, Morris Township was created by the State Legislature. The Township was named for then-Governor Col. Lewis Morris.
This exhibit tells the story of the township through text and images. Most of the images were culled from the library’s vast collection of books, photographs, manuscripts, local newspapers, clippings files (a.k.a. “Vertical Files”) and maps.
Most of the resources consulted for the text belong to the library. Former department Supervisor Barbara Hoskins’ book, Morris Township, A Glimpse Through The Past, was a foundation for the exhibit.
The first schoolhouse was built in 1776. There was enough population growth between 1810 and 1814 that three one-room schoolhouses were built. The four schoolhouses, Mt. Kemble Avenue, Hanover Avenue, Mendham Road, and Washington Valley were closed in 1913. Then children were sent to schools in Morristown.
The 1830s saw improvement in transportation as the Morris Turnpike was built, the Morris Canal was completed in 1834, and two years later, the Morris and Essex Railroad opened, enabling township farmers to move their produce to the urban markets further east and for city dwellers in overcrowded and industrialized centers to move west to Morris Township amongst other places.
In 1860, five years before the town separated from the township, there were 3,426 people living in Morristown and 2,598 in the township. Morris Township’s 256 farms produced wheat, rye, oats, corn, hay, tobacco and butter.
However, the township was not just farmland. The Speedwell Iron Works was in operation from 1815-1876. Where in 1838, Alfred Vail and Samuel Morse sent the first telegram. Bricks were made on Mt. Kemble Avenue before 1800, until Robert Foote purchased the brickyard in 1906 then built the Springbrook Country Club.
The Sisters of Charity of St. Elizabeth started the Academy of St. Elizabeth, at the behest of Bishop James Roosevelt Bayley, in 1860. The academy was the first all girls secondary school in the state. Later, in 1896, the Sisters opened the first four-year college for women, the College of St. Elizabeth in Convent Station.
The Township continued to collect taxes from town and township residents for roads, and schools after the town had separated from the Township on April 6, 1865. The final separation of Morristown from Morris Township took place on February 18, 1895.
An important era, particularly to Morris Township, began in 1870 and ended in 1929 with the Stock Market Crash. The Gilded Age, a term coined by Mark Twain, marked a period of incredible industrialization and economic growth, especially in the northern part of the country. New York City’s ultra wealthy looked for summer retreats from their incredibly polluted metropolis. Morris Township with its rolling hills and fresh air was a desirable location.
By 1896, an estimated 54 millionaires lived in the Morristown area. Six years later there were at least 91. They built their mansions along Madison Avenue, Normandy Heights Road, Normandy Parkway, Mendham Road and Sussex Avenue.
One of the results of this change in Morris Township’s population was the Morris County Golf Club, created by women in 1894. The golf club held one of the earliest golf tournaments in the country in 1898.
The millionaires brought the first cars to the township and had their private and public roads leading to them paved.
In 1899, the township hall, 24 by 30 feet and one story tall with a 12-foot ceiling was built on Mendham Road, near Burnham Park pond. The township didn’t have its own fire department until 1910.
In 1922, the township hired its first uniformed police officer, Thomas Dwyer. However, there were constables in the township as early as 1777.
In 1940 there were still many farms and only a few businesses, like those in the Hillside and Fairchild sections. The police department only had two police cars and they drove 44,584 miles.
From 1940-1990 the township’s population tripled, with the greatest growth between 1960 and 1970. During the 1960s, 16 estates were demolished and replaced with subdivisions. Otto Kahn’s estate became Allied Signal Inc. after being home to Dr. George Marshall Allen’s Physiatric Institute from 1920 to 1931.
Garden-style apartments were also built in the township in the sixties: Madison Avenue’s Township Village, Lindsley Arms on Whippany Road, and Old Forge East and West on Speedwell Avenue. The first townhouses were built in 1981, at Liberty Green off of Punch Bowl Road. The first low-income housing, The Oaks on Whippany Road, was provided in 1984. This growth means there are no more farms.
Honeywell, bought Allied Signal Corporation in June 1999. A chemical-producing firm, it is moving its headquarters and 1,000 jobs out of Morris Township to Morris Plains.
Mennen moved to Morris Township, from Newark, NJ, in 1953 and expanded its complex in 1957. Mennen employed 1,000 at its Morris Township headquarters when it was sold to Colgate Palmolive at the end of 1992. The first William G. Mennen Sports Arena was built in 1973 on land donated by Mennen Company and named for its former executive.
General Drafting occupied Glynallyn, a mansion built for publisher George Marshall Allen in 1917, until 1992 when the company was sold to Family Vacation Services, and Langenscheidt, who were sold to the American Map Corporation. The mansion was modeled after Compton Wynyates in Warwickshire, England, and has a Great Hall 40 feet long by 30 feet wide.
Crum and Forster, an insurance company, built an office building on Madison Avenue in Morris Township in 1972 and originally employed 700. An August 1976 Daily Record article titled The Millionaires Now Are Companies, Not People described the changes in property ownership along Madison Avenue particularly near Punchbowl Road.
According to a Jan. 29, 1978, Daily Record article titled Morris Township Looks to ‘Boom Year’ in ‘78, the township expected to receive plans for 92 housing lots in the Wheatsheaf neighborhood off of Sussex Avenue. The township expected to have 350 new homes built on James Street and Blackberry Lane in 1978, and another 90 single-family homes off Blackberry Lane built on the Easley tract. A $3 million dollar senior complex was supposed to be built that year between Hanover Avenue and Ketch Road.
The year 1982 saw the opening of the 195-room Madison Hotel, then owned by Peter, Richard and Bob Keller.
First Energy Corporation, formally known as GPU and before that as Jersey Central Power and Light, is another major employer in the township.
With the population and commercial growth of the township came the township’s first independent bank in 1969 as the First Morris Bank at Madison Avenue and Kahn Road opened for business. The bank moved to 250 Madison Ave., in July 1970.
Four county parks– Lewis Morris Park, Loantaka Brook Reservation, Seaton Hackney Farm and Sunrise Lake — were created within Morris Township’s boundaries between 1957 and 1979.
In 1990, the Township was about 58 percent residential, 29 percent commercial and 13 percent parks and open space. Route 287, completed in the 1980s, has five entrances and exits in the township.
By 1990, there were many different kinds of small industries in the township: Communications, publication industries, insurance and real estate companies, banks, hotels, legal and consulting firms.
As of 2010, there were 22,306 people living in the township, which is 10,000 more than there were in 1960, and roughly 20,000 more than in 1900.
The last decade and a half has seen some change in Morris Township. However, the township, much like it was to the first settlers from eastern New Jersey and New England, is still a desirable place to live, work and play. I hope you enjoy the exhibit, and you will tell your co-workers and friends about the exhibit and the North Jersey History and Genealogy Center. Thank you!
