By Kevin Coughlin
Did you know that the Hershey Bar has origins in Morristown?
So does the Aquatic Velocipede, a pedal-powered boat.
And contrary to popular assumptions, the Mayo Performing Arts Center did not put the town on the entertainment map. That distinction belongs to the late, great Morristown Lyceum, which presented some of the biggest names of the 19th century, including Mark Twain.
These delicious tidbits are from a new exhibit celebrating Morristown’s 150th anniversary, at the Morristown & Township Library.
“The big challenge was what to put in, and what not to put in,” said James Lewis, who oversaw creation of the display by his team at the library’s North Jersey History & Genealogy Center.
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A few figures are conspicuous in their absence. Thomas Nast, the muckraking illustrator often credited with creating the iconic GOP elephant, Democratic donkey and jolly Santa Claus, is not featured. (He has his own museum a couple of blocks away, at Macculloch Hall.)
Neither is Craig Newmark, Morristown High Class of ’71 and founder of craigslist.
The most famous residents of all — George Washington and Alexander Hamilton — don’t get any display space, either.
But the Founding Fathers also have their own museum, Washington’s Headquarters. They get plenty of publicity. And they predate the town’s incorporation.
What’s fun about the library exhibit, which runs through December 2015 in the second-floor F.M. Kirby Gallery, is discovering fascinating, forgotten characters.
There is the late James Gregory. During the Great Depression, he became Morristown’s first African American policeman.
“It’s great to see my own history and heritage,” Warren Kersey said at Thursday’s library reception. He’s a history teacher at the Frelinghuysen Middle School whose grandmother was related to Gregory.
“I was impressed at how this person could hold a position of esteem so long before the Civil Rights movement,” added Tara Schaberg, a volunteer at the history center.
Alice Leslie Hill was an early feminist whose friends included Margaret Sanger, who laid low in Morristown when her birth control crusades got her in hot water.
Wilbur Day ran an ice cream shop and catering service for the area’s Gilded Age millionaires. But he may be most memorable for one of his hires: Milton Hershey, who, according to the exhibit, learned the confectioner’s trade in Morristown before starting his famed chocolate empire.
And then there is Lewis Bunn.
When he wasn’t pedaling his velocipede on Lake Pocahontas, the undertaker was undertaking more serious undertakings… like Bunn’s Improved Corpse Preserver. Invented in 1866, it was guaranteed to “preserve the body from decay for any reasonable length of time.”
(“Honey, can you check the expiration date on that package?”)
Unfortunately, the state of medicine in those days was such that Bunn must have been a very busy man.
The library found death certificates for three children from the Reynolds family who died over a 10-day span in 1892, victims of scarlet fever.
During the devastating Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, the phone company published an ad in The Daily Record urging the public to “avoid telephoning during the epidemic.”
Other reminders of how times have changed:
A century ago, local “engine” companies still relied on old-fashioned horsepower to get them to the fire.
In 1920, Morristown police handled 720 calls, complaints and reports, with a whopping budget of $13,480. They dealt with 34,480 such instances last year; the tab was $5.2 million.
ENDURING MYSTERIES
The exhibit was designed by Daniel Schnur and curated by Lewis, Carolyn Dorsey, Jeffrey Moy, Linda Ross, Cynthia Muszala and Cheryl Turkington.
Methodical and meticulous, this crew could give Sherlock Holmes a run for his money.
Yet even they could not crack the mystery of Morristown’s split from Morris Township.
“There really isn’t any smoking gun,” said Turkington.
Although Morristown had two newspapers during the Civil War, she said, there was hardly any public comment about the town’s incorporation, which occurred just five days before Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, and 11 days before Abraham Lincoln’s assassination.
One theory is that the town and Township parted ways over disputes about building water or gas lines. Turkington found scant evidence, however.
Morristown’s peculiar geography– a “hole in the doughnut” of Morris Township — traced its boundaries to properties owned by 11 prominent residents.
Perhaps, Turkington said, they sought tax breaks by breaking free from the Township.
One more mystery hung over Thursday night’s reception: Where were the town fathers (and mothers)?
Back in April, the opening of an exhibit celebrating Morris Township’s 275th anniversary drew the Township mayor, administrator, committee members, fire chief and police.
Not a single Morristown official or town employee showed up on Thursday.
I found that this was great and thank you.You History Buffs. When I can say I knew James Gregory on the street corners directing traffic.