The Chathams

 

History

Occupied for ten thousand years by Native Americans, this land was overseen by clans of the Lenni-Lenape, who farmed, fished, and hunted upon it. They were organized into a matrilineal agricultural and mobile hunting society sustained with fixed, but not permanent, settlements in their clan territories. Villages were established and relocated as the clans farmed new sections of the land when soil fertility lessened and moved among their fishing and hunting grounds.

In 1498, John Cabot explored this portion of the New World. The area was claimed as a part of the Dutch New Netherland province, where active trading in furs took advantage of the natural pass west, but, the Lenape prevented permanent settlement beyond what is now Jersey City. Although rapid exhaustion of the local beaver population soon turned the Dutch interests much farther north, contention existed between the Dutch and the British over the rights to this land and battles ensued. Passing to the rule of the British in 1664 as the Province of New Jersey, and becoming one of its original thirteen colonies, marks the beginning of permanent European settlements on this land.

In 1680, the British first purchased this Lenape land upon which John Day made the first European settlement in 1710. He chose to settle upon the western bank of the Fishawack Crossing (of the Passaic River) on the traditional Lenape Minisink Trail. The landing at that location was the best place to ford the river and always had been used by the Lenape on their route to the Hudson River and south from their hunting grounds in what is now Sussex County. That traditional part of the Great Trail would become Route 24, leading to Madison, Morristown, Mendham, and Chester, it became known as Main Street in Chatham.

Before long, the village became known as John Day's Bridge because of a bridge he built across the river at the shallow landing. By 1750, the village had a blacksmith shop as well as a flour mill, a grist mill, and a lumber mill.

In 1773, the village was renamed to Chatham to honor a member of the British Parliament, William Pitt, the first Earl of Chatham, who was an outspoken advocate of the rights of the colonists in America.

The citizens of Chatham were active participants in the American Revolutionary War and nearby Morristown became the military center of the revolution. Washington twice established his winter headquarters in Morristown and revolutionary troops were active regularly in the entire area. The Lenape assisted the colonists, supplying the revolutionary army with warriors and scouts in exchange for food supplies and the promise of a role at the head of a future native American state. The Treaty of Easton signed by the Lenape and the British in 1766 had required that the Lenape move to Pennsylvania. Wanting to recoup rights lost thereby to the British, the Lenape were the first tribe to enter into a treaty with the emerging government of the United States.

Location of Morristown in relation to New York, showing the importance of the river crossing and Hobart Gap in the Watchung Mountains, a blue arrow indicates American forces and a red arrow indicates British forces

The Watchung mountain range was a strategic asset in the war, acting as a natural barrier to the British troops and providing a vantage point for Washington to monitor their troop movements. The Minisink Trail and the village bridge provided a route for essential supplies across the river and through the mountain range.

A graphic presentation of the importance of this pass from a site about Morristown, where arrows are pointing from Morristown and New York to demonstrate how vital the Hobart Gap was as the only pass through the Watchung Mountains, is displayed to the right.

Seventeen letters were written by Washington while he stayed at a homestead in Chatham and the village was the site of several skirmishes, as residents and the rebel army held off British advances, preventing them from attacking Washington's supplies at Morristown.

A printing press was established in the village of Chatham during the war by Shepard Kollock. From his workshop he published books, pamphlets, and the New Jersey Journal (the second newspaper published in New Jersey) conducting lively debates about the efforts for independence and boosting the morale of the troops and their families with information derived directly from Washington's headquarters in nearby Morristown. Kollock's paper was published until 1992 as the Elizabeth Daily Journal (having moved to there) and was the fourth oldest newspaper published continuously in the United States.

After the revolutionary war was over, New Jersey became a state and governmental reforms were instituted throughout the new nation. In 1806, the village of Chatham became part of a township form of government that also took its name, but included several other villages. "In 1892 Chatham Village found itself at odds with the rest of the township. Although village residents paid 40 percent of the township taxes, they got only 7 percent of the receipts in services. The village had to raise its own money to install kerosene street lamps and its roads were in poor repair. As a result, the village voted on August 9, 1892, to secede from the township."

Ten days later, on August 19, 1892, the citizens of Chatham reincorporated as a village. With the introduction of yet another new local government form in New Jersey, five years later, the village reincorporated, again, as a borough on March 1, 1897.

In 1910, Chatham also acquired a slice of Florham Park to enlarge farther. The local form of government and the boundaries of Chatham have remained the same since that acquisition, making it about 2.4 square miles.

 

Location and Transportation

Chatham is a borough in Morris County, New Jersey, United States. As of the United States 2000 Census, the population was 8,460.

Chatham is located twenty-five miles west of New York City on the eastern edge of Morris County. Chatham's neighboring communities are Summit, New Providence, Berkeley Heights, Long Hill Township, Chatham Township, Harding Township, Madison, Florham Park, Morristown, Short Hills, Millburn, and Livingston.

The Passaic River, which rises in Mendham and defines the Great Swamp, flows north along the eastern boundary of Chatham. A good crossing location, identified by Amerindians to early European settlers, figured significantly in the colonial history of the community. Fairmount Avenue ascends Long Hill perpendicularly from Main Street in the contemporary center of town to the highest elevation of the town among the Watchung Mountains. From there one may see the lights of New York beyond the crest of the ridge hills of Summit and Short Hills. Water from artesian wells is stored at its crest to provide the drinking water for the community.

A portion of the Great Swamp extends to the southern boundary of Chatham and other marshes surround the community to the north and northwest. The marshes and brooks in the area contain water draining from the plateau of Morristown and many points to the north and west. All are remnants of a massive lake that covered the area following the retreat of the Wisconsin glacier of the last Ice Age. Residents of Chatham were among those in the late 1950s who formed the Jersey Jetsite Association and instigated the preservation of the Great Swamp when the New York Port Authority sought to turn it into a massive airport.

The Great Swamp is a major watershed and a significant resting point for migratory birds. The core of the swamp was purchased with the help of Geraldine R. Dodge. Several other members of the organization, including residents of Chatham, who were students at the nearby campus of Fairleigh Dickinson University began to infiltrate the administration of Austin J. Tobin, the executive director of the port authority. They attended meetings scheduled quietly to garner the support of union workers—once inside the meetings they provided pamphlets in opposition to the project—infuriating the port authority administration. Eventually other organizations formed to join the opposition to the plans for the airport and finally, a majority of the swamp was assembled to be donated to the federal government to become a National Wildlife Refuge. Stewart Udall, Secretary of the Interior under President John F. Kennedy, lent his support to the local efforts to save the swamp while he served as U.S. Representative from Arizona, making recommendations to the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration to lend their support also, and on November 3, 1960, the legislation creating the refuge was passed by an act of the United States Congress. Later issues regarding the use of the donated land were under his authority when Udall was the Secretary of State.

Being only 2.4 square miles in area, Chatham was mostly built out well before the Second World War, retaining its charming homes that sometimes display the dates of their construction during the colonial and revolutionary times.

New Jersey Transit stops at the Chatham station to provide commuter service on the Morristown Line, with trains heading to the Hoboken Terminal and to Penn Station in Midtown Manhattan. Bus lines also connect Chatham with the other towns along Route 24 from Newark to Morristown, mostly running parallel to the train lines. Nowadays, buses transport people along the line, but stagecoaches and trolleys were mass transit methods once used along the route that followed Main Street. That section of the old route now is labeled Route 124 because of the widening of Route 24. The destruction of the historic downtown by a proposed widening of the historic route was opposed and after much debate, an alternate route was chosen to preserve the historic downtowns of Chatham and Madison. The last rails for the trolley system were removed from the area roads in the 1950s

 

Corporate/Residential Community

Being less than 2.5 square miles with a central business district and railroad station to which one may walk comfortably without having to traverse much more than a mile from its farthest boundary, it is a pedestrian friendly community.

In July 2005, CNN/Money and Money magazine ranked Chatham ninth on its updated annual list of the 100 Best Places to Live in the United States.

 

Recreation

Chatham Recreation is a joint venture of Chatham Borough and Chatham Township. Meetings are held monthly with the Chatham Recreation Joint Advisory Committee.

Chatham Recreation is committed to develop, promote, organize, implement and maintain a variety of programs for its residents. They also administer and schedule those programs striving to be the best they can be without compromising other programs in achieving that goal. Goals are achieved through open communication, the establishment of policies, the time hundreds of volunteers share with the communities and the cooperation of the Chatham Borough Council, the Chatham Township Committee and the School District of the Chatham's

 

Education

The School District of the Chatham’s is a regional public school district serving students from two municipalities in Morris County, New Jersey, United States, for grades K through 12. Students come from Chatham and Chatham Township. The district serves nearly 3,200 students, made up of 1,447 from Chatham and 1,719 from Chatham Township.

Elections were held in both municipalities in November, 1986 to consider joining the two school systems into a regional district. This proposal was supported by the voters and since then, the two municipalities have shared a regionalized school district.

 

Chatham Resources