Pathways of History Tour of Historic Places in Morris County

02/09/2026

https://morristowngreen.com/2026/09/02/commentary-restoration-hardware-had-a-grand-vision-for-the-abbey-what-happened/?fbclid=IwdGRzaAUFV19jbGNrBQVXQ3Bkb2YFZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQMMzUwNjg1NTMxNzI4AAEe97U-aZvHli1fj3W96h0UVuuR3mfaklQ6gEj2LejNWkldWFAqX_wTonC8Afk_aem_dBCk0yOPCCO9aD5fUCoiUQ

Six years later, former Morris Township Mayor Cathy Wilson calls on RH to clean up the historic "eyesore" and revive its plans.

02/09/2026

02/09/2026

Join the DAHS on September 10 at the Dover Public Library at 6:30 for a very interesting historical presentation on the Hercules explosion given by Brian Lynch. He continues to find more information over time. His presentation continues to evolve.

02/09/2026

Step into history with the Morris County Living History Weekend! Save the date of September 25-27, for family friendly activities, open house tours, historic trivia night, and revolutionary encampments all leading into the Morristown festival on the Green!

Visit https://zurl.co/Cw9si to learn more and start planning you weekend in Morris County, NJ!

02/09/2026

01/09/2026

Did you know that every time you drive down Main Street, you're tracing a line back to Washington's headquarters?⁠
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Here's the connection: Main Street was originally the Morris Turnpike, chartered in 1801—and the man who ran it was Gabriel Ford, son of Colonel Jacob Ford Jr. It was Jacob Ford's own Morristown mansion that became George Washington's headquarters during the brutal winter of 1779–80, one of the hardest stretches of the entire Revolutionary War. Two decades later, his son was the one deciding where Chatham's future Main Street would go.⁠
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And Ford had remarkable power to decide it. The turnpike wasn't a town project—it was a private business venture, funded by investors who bought shares at $25 apiece, banking on tolls set by law to guarantee them an 8 percent profit. To build it, surveyors were given sweeping authority: They could stake out the route wherever they pleased, with the legal right to purchase or simply take any land in their path, including existing public roads.⁠
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You might expect residents to have resisted. Instead, many were relieved. Maintaining local roads had always fallen on the town and its taxpayers, and here was a private company offering to take that burden off their hands entirely.⁠
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Ford treated the turnpike's records as his own personal property, keeping the original survey map for himself.⁠
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That map has never been found.⁠
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📍 The Morris Turnpike's route through town is what we know today as Main Street.⁠
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📚 History courtesy of John T. Cunningham's Chatham: At the Crossing of the Fishawack.⁠
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Top 📷: Washington’s headquarters [i.e. Ford Mansion], Morristown, N.J., circa 1901. Detroit Publishing Co., digital file from original glass negative, courtesy Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.⁠
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Bottom 📷: Main Street, Chatham, NJ, circa early 1900s. From the digital collection of the Chatham Historical Society.⁠
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01/09/2026

Visit our open house on the second Sunday of each month. See you on Sept. 13! Bring your old photos for us to scan.

01/09/2026

Hi everyone! After a fun-filled summer with events and your awesome participation, we're taking a little break.

No meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 1.

But don't worry - our monthly Open House is still happening! Drop by on Sunday, Sept. 13, between noon and 3 p.m. We'll see you at our next regular meeting on Oct. 6 too!