A slice of history

In the Frelinghuysen Arboretum, there’s a display with an old stump. It has numbers to point out which rings are associated with what years, and why those years are historically relevant— much like the famed Giant Sequoia in NYC’s Museum of Natural History, but on a much smaller and more local scale.

“19,” for example, is for 1968, when the Great Swamp was officially called a National Wilderness Area.

Almost all of the associated history is of local interest only, and even some of those local interests are questionable. (Since when does Morristown care about Atlantic City?) Here’s the complete list, in case you have some burning curiosity:

1. 1738 – Morris County is created by the state legistlature
2. 1738 – Colonel Lewis Morris of the province of colonial New Jersey becomes first governor
3. 1755 – The Morristown Green is first used and constructed to serve as the town courthouse and jail
4. 1777 – George Washington spends 5 months in Morris County with his troops
5. 1787 – New Jersey becomes the third state to join the Union
6. 1790 – Trenton is selected to become the state capital
7. 1816 – The First Presbyterian Church is founded in Morristown
8. 1835 – Morris and Essex Railroad Company chartered
9. 1861 – The Civil War begins
10. 1865 – The sixteenth President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln is assassinated by John Wilkes Booth
11. 1879 – Thomas Edison invents the first light bulb
12. 1887 – Matilda Felinghuysen is born in New York City
13. 1891 – “Whippany Farms,” now known as Frelinghuysen Arboretum, is built as a summer home for the Frelinghuysen family
14. 1915 – Alison Turnbull Hopkins, Officer of the Women’s Political Union, campaigns for New Jersey’s suffrage referendum in Morristown
15. 1926 – Bell Laboratories converts a dairy barn into experimental radio station to develop high power broadcasting
16. 1929 – The Seeing Eye is originally incorporated into Morristown
17. 1930 – Charles B. Darrow develops the game Monopoly. Names in the game originate from Atlantic City street names
18. 1939 – More than 50,000 New Jersey residents join the WWII effort
19. 1968 – The Great Swamp is classified as a National Wilderness Area; it is a landmark event
20. 1969 – Matilda Frelinghuysen dies at the age of 82
21. 1971 – The Frelinghuysen Arboretum is dedicated
22. 1978 – New Jersey legalizes gambling in Atlantic City. One of four casinos opens to an enthusiastic response
23. 1975 – “Branching Out!,” the children’s gardening program, is started by the Garden Club of Morristown in conjunction with the Morris County Park Commission

Geocaching!

I went geocaching!

For those unfamiliar with the concept, geocaching is kind of like a year-round Easter egg hunt for grown-ups. There is a website and a map; you get the coordinates for a cache that interests you (ex. N 40° 41.979 W 074° 24.220), plug those coordinates into your GPS, and start hunting. The caches themselves are often(?) little boxes tucked away unobtrusively so that non-geocachers won’t mess with them; they usually contain a log book (which you sign to prove you found it) and little trinkets. Ideally, you take one of the trinkets, replace it with one of your own, tuck the cache back where it came from, and go about your merry way. There are more complicated ones, too, with clues and puzzles you need to solve in order to find subsequent caches.

My friend Kyle (shown above) has been trying to get me to do this for a while; as he says, with all my random photographic explorations, I’m probably tripping over geocaches and don’t even know it!

This one in the Frelinghuysen Arboretum was supposed to be super-easy.

…Yeah, that didn’t happen. In part, we were using a car GPS, which was probably less exact than a hardcore geocaching GPS. And in part, I’d never done this before, so I didn’t really know what I was looking for. But we found it eventually!

So if you’re looking for things to do in New Jersey, there are geocaches everywhere! If you have a family, a lot of these are appropriate for kids, too! Go see what’s in your area!

Growing gardens

I went to the Frelinghuysen Arboretum in Morristown this past weekend. I was expecting the arboretum to look like this, with cleanly manicured grounds and labels for all the plants and so forth. But no! Most of the site looks like a county park, with hiking trails and rivers and skunk cabbage and everything. It was an unexpected surprise!

…Incidentally, the website of the grounds is Arboretum Friends (Dot Org), which has nothing whatsoever to do with Happy Tree Friends.

Catholic Church of the Assumption

Now, when I hear the word “assumption,” I associate it with the noun form of the verb “to assume,” which of course means “to make an ASS out of U and ME.”

But to Catholics, apparently, it refers to the Virgin Mary being taken up into heaven.

Dictionary.com tells me that they come from similar roots, at least.

BUT ANYWAY.

Although an Irish congregation formed the church in 1845 (and that church marked the center of Morristown’s Little Dublin neighborhood), this present structure was built in 1872. (Above is a circa 1900 photo of it.)

Despite Morristown’s important role in American Revolutionary War (i.e. George Washington’s headquarters), the Catholic Church of the Assumption is actually Morristown’s oldest church that’s still standing. (To clarify: there are other old buildings, but no older churches.)

For more information about the church’s current programs and Masses, click here to check out its website.

 

Reference:
Morris County Heritage Commision, New Jersey Register of Historic Places, and National Register of Historical Places. (n.d.). “Church of the Assumption.” (Sign marker). Documented October 2011.

Morristown Partnership. (2011?). “Morristown’s History.” http://www.morristown-nj.org/history_cont.html

Williams, J.M. (1996). Images of America: Morristown. Arcadia Publishing: Dover, NH. ISBN 0752402072.

Methodists in Morristown

This is the third— or fourth, depending who you ask— Methodist church (structure) in Morristown!

The first one was established in 1827.

After the congregation outgrew that structure in 1841, they moved to a second church a few blocks away.

After they outgrew THAT church, the third building, a Norman-style edifice, was designed by S.D. Hatch. Its cornerstone was laid in 1866, and it was dedicated in 1870. (See, here, check it out— below is a photo of it in 1873.)

I know, I know, you’re looking at that photo and thinking, “why, golly gee, that’s the same church in the modern photo! How neat.”

Well, yes and no.

In early 1972, the vast majority of the church was destroyed by a huge fire. Only the front tower and front wall remained, and they were subsequently reconstructed using stone from the rest of the church. The new building was reconsecrated in 1974, and today, a charred cross and some chandelier bits salvaged from the fire are displayed in the church’s courtyard as a reminder of the tragedy.

 

(P.S. Confession: this photo was taken during the Fall Festival, which is why there are a million people with balloons wandering around.)

 

Reference:

Morristown Partnership. (2011?). “Morristown’s History.” http://www.morristown-nj.org/history_cont.html

Morristown United Methodist Church. (2008-2011). “History.” http://morristownumc.com/History.

Williams, J.M. (1996). Images of America: Morristown. Arcadia Publishing: Dover, NH. ISBN 0752402072.

Saint Peter’s

What what, look who finally used Photoshop’s panorama tool! (Me, that’s who. It was still crazy distorted, but it saved me 15 minutes of alignment.)

So THIS is St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Morristown.

A sign in front of the church says (plus some Wikipedia links):

The churches of Medieval England inspired the design of this Gothic Revival edifice by architects McKim, Mead, and White. Built 1887-1911, it replaced an 1828 structure. Features include English stained glass, a 49-bell carillon, a rood screen of Spanish design, a Skinner organ, and a Tiffany window.

(Side note: I keep thinking that McKim, Mead, and White comes up all the time, but this is only the second time I’ve mentioned the firm on this blog. Huh. Must’ve read something somewhere.)

Now, most buildings are built over the course of, ohhh, I don’t know, two or three years, right? And so perhaps you read the blockquote above and thought to yourself, ‘wait a minute… it took 24 years to build this church? Really?’

Yeah, really, that’s not a typo. The church stipulated that “no stone would be put in place until it was paid for,” so construction only happened as slowly as the funds rolled in.

If you want information on current church goings-ons, check out St. Peter’s website.

 

Reference:
Morris County Heritage Commision, New Jersey Register of Historic Places, and National Register of Historical Places. (n.d.). “Saint Peter’s Church.” (Sign marker). Documented October 2011.

Morristown Partnership. (2011?). “Morristown’s History.” http://www.morristown-nj.org/history_cont.html

The Kedge

Sometimes, when I’m out taking pictures, I’ll see a house and say, “man, that place looks kind of historic,” and I’ll photograph it just in case it is.

Most of the time, I never do find out anything about the structure.

But in THIS case, I discovered that this little brown-shingled red-roofed house in Morristown is THE KEDGE!

The Kedge (meaning “a small anchor”) was initially intended as a summer cottage. It was built between 1870 and 1880 by a grandson of George Macculloch; unsurprisingly, it’s about a 2-minute walk from Macculloch Hall. The Macculloch family still owns it and lives in it! (Or, at least, their descendents do.)

 

Reference:

Morristown Partnership. (2011?). “Morristown’s History.” http://www.morristown-nj.org/history_cont.html

Inside the Morristown Library

In case you were wondering what the inside of the Morristown Library looked like, this is it.

It’s not the old Collegiate Gothic portion, though; that part of the library is still closed off to the public, after the basement exploded last year.

And juuuust for fun…

…that’s what the inside of the library looked like, around 1915.

 

Reference:

Williams, J.M. (1996). Images of America: Morristown. Arcadia Publishing: Dover, NH. ISBN 0752402072.

Mayo Performing Arts Center

Ah, the Mayo Performing Arts Center! Home to… performing arts! In a center!

Well, actually, it’s only been the “Mayo Performing Arts Center” since May 2011. Before that, it was “The Community Theatre at Mayo Center for the Performing Arts” (a name adopted in June 2007, after longtime chairman Bud Mayo), and before that, it was simply “The Community Theatre” (maintained by the South Street Theatre Company).

The building was built in 1937 to serve as a movie theater, and did so until the 1980s, when it was abandoned and left to rot in downtown Morristown. In 1994, the long arduous process of renovation began anew, and “the Mayo Performing Arts Center has become one of New Jersey’s preeminent arts and cultural organizations” (Mayo Performing Arts Center, 2011, para. 4).

Past and upcoming performers include Aretha Franklin, Patti LuPone, Mandy Patinkin, Kenny G, Tracy Morgan, Mike Birbiglia… I could keep going, but you get the idea. This theater isn’t entirely small potatoes.

To see a current list of upcoming events, and to order tickets if you feel so inclined, check out the MPAC’s website here.

 

Reference:

Mayo Performing Arts Center. (2011). “A History of The Mayo Performing Arts Center and key historical milestones.” http://www.mayoarts.org/history.htm#.

Macculloch Hall

In Morristown, there were some legendary folks known as the Maccullochs. This was their house.

…and THAT was their house around 1900. Pretty much the same, but some different trees, y’know.

According to a sign in front of the building,

George Macculloch, ‘Father of the Morris Canal,’ and wife Louisa built this 1810-1819 Georgian Mansion. They established Saint Peter’s Episcopal Church. Louisa was First Directress of Family Services of Morris County. The first recorded tomato in the state was grown in the garden.

…These signs are so badly written. Cripes, even I could almost do better. Almost. Well, if this disjointed blog post is any indication, probably not. But anyway.

I think that tomato thing is pretty awesome! I mean, these days, Jersey is renowned for its tomatoes, and this is where it all started! (NJ better known for its corn, but its tomatoes are pretty top-notch, too.)

Regarding the architecture, MacCulloch Hall’s own website calls it Federal style, and I don’t know enough to tell the difference, so you can decide for yourself.

And the Morris Canal, according to Wikipedia, was a canal used for roughly a hundred years to transport coal from the Delaware River across northern Jersey.

Incidentally, it’s directly across the street from Thomas Nast’s house, so it appropriately boasts a collection of his work.

As of November 2011, the museum is open from 1:00-4:00 on Wednesday, Thursday, and Sunday. For more information, check out their website.

 

Reference:
MacCculloch Hall Historical Museum. (2011). “Macculloch Hall Historical Museum, Morristown New Jersey.” http://www.maccullochhall.org/.

Morris County Heritage Commision, New Jersey Register of Historic Places, and National Register of Historical Places. (n.d.). “Macculloch Hall.” (Sign marker). Documented October 2011.

Williams, J.M. (1996). Images of America: Morristown. Arcadia Publishing: Dover, NH. ISBN 0752402072.