Chatham is a quiet community located just 25 miles west of New York City. Chatham Boro, sometimes referred to as "The Village" consists of many fine homes, townhomes and condominiums. With quite a bit of new construction, Chatham housing is a mix of old and new homes. The newly built luxury homes are usually in keeping with the charm of the town. Chatham offers many specialty shops and cultural opportunities. The surrounding towns have great shopping facilities...the Short Hills Mall is right down the road! Chatham was recently voted one of the top ten Best Places To Live in the country by Money Magazine! The Chatham High School was rated as #7 in New Jersey Monthly. Chatham Township is for those who desire a slightly more rural area. Chatham Township is a little further from the center of town with larger lot sizes. Attention Golfers...Chatham Township has a private Golf Course.
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Chatham School Information
The Chatham Club
Chatham Recreation
The Chatham area, comprising Chatham Borough and Chatham Township, combines the peace and quiet of small town suburban living with easy access to commuter services to New York City and surrounding metropolitan North Jersey. Chatham has fewer than 20,000 residents and offers over 300 years of rich history, picturesque village centers and rural scenery, superb outdoor recreation, great shopping and dining, and almost limitless cultural opportunities.
Location
Chatham Borough and Township are located about 30 miles west of New York City on the southern edge of Morris County, New Jersey.
Geography/Terrain
Chatham is located in the valley of the Passaic River, at an elevation 244 feet. The surrounding countryside is gently rolling hills and the town is bordered by the marshes, meadows, and dry hardwood forest of the Great Swamp.
Chatham is just 32 miles from New York City. Real estate housing in Chatham is desirable to those who work in New York.
Jobs
Many major corporations, including AT&T, Wyeth, Atlantic Mutual, Lucent Technologies, Nabisco, Novartis, and Prudential have their headquarters in the Chatham area, and along with the many local businesses offer a wide range of employment opportunities. In addition of course, the almost limitless job market of the New York City area is only a short commute away.
Housing
Chatham’s delightful location, easy access to New York City, and wide variety of housing options makes it a popular destination for home-buyers. A friendly, quiet community, it has benefited from a history of carefully planned development, and its range of distinctive family homes, town houses, and condo’s all make excellent investments.
Parks/Sports/Recreation/Golf
A highlight of Morris County’s 17,000 acres of parkland, Chatham’s Great Swamp Outdoor Education Center invites visitors to wander the trails and boardwalks of this wonderful mix of marshes, meadows, dry woods, and brush-covered swamps and enjoy its wide variety of plant and animal life. Various environmental education programs and guided nature walks are offered for all ages.
Among Chatham Township’s most attractive and popular park spaces, the Passaic River Park has been developed to help preserve the river and its banks and environs from further encroachment. With more than a mile of riverbank, the Park’s over 700 acres provide pleasant hiking and picnic spaces, open areas for softball and other games, super fishing, and, in winter, excellent ice skating and cross-country skiing.
Many areas around Chatham offer excellent opportunities for horse-back riding, and there are a number of stables where horses can be kept or hired. Loantaka Brook Reservation is particularly popular, being adjacent to one of Morris County’s more urbanized areas, and with almost five miles of trails through its 570 unspoiled acres. As well as those on horseback, it also welcomes cyclists, joggers and hikers, and winter skiers.
Morris County golfers are fortunate to have four of the best public golf courses available anywhere. One of these, the 36-hole Flanders Valley Golf Course is commonly included on lists of the nation's most outstanding public courses, for example receiving four stars from Golf Digest and ranking in their Top 75 Public Courses. Among New Jersey’s top courses, it is played by over 85,000 golfers each season. Meanwhile, a little north of Chatham, the fabulous Sunset Valley course is known for some of the most stunning views in Morris County. It is also ranked with four stars by Golf Digest and has received the Top Women-Friendly Courses Award by "Golf for Women" magazine
Special Attractions and Events
Chatham and all of Morris County offer an enormous variety of recreation, culture, and beautiful scenery, but the long history of the area makes for attractions of special interest. Every town and village has its unique story to tell, and most boast delightful museums and historic sites where the visitor can see and experience aspects of the lives of people who lived in days gone by.
The Italian mansion known as Acorn Hall in Morristown NJ was built in 1853 and is now headquarters for the Morris County Historical Society. During the long period between 1853 and 1971 only two families lived there, and the furnishings and décor that they established can still be seen today, in addition to all kinds of other wonderful Victorians. Today’s visitors can enjoy guided tours of the house and garden and varied exhibits on interesting aspects of local history.
Interesting Facts/Historic Buildings and Places
Early European explorers and entrepreneurs entered the Passaic River valley as early as 1680, and the first white settlers arrived in the Chatham area, attracted by the rich iron ore deposits and fertile soil, in 1710. They soon displaced the original Native Americans who had inhabited the area for many thousands of years. In 1773 the area was named in honor of the English Prime Minister Sir William Pitt, the Earl of Chatham, who had expressed sympathy with the American colonists, and its settlers played an active part in the Revolutionary War.
The town of Chatham was incorporated in 1806 and was connected to nearby centers of population by turnpikes and toll roads which private corporations built to transport their goods to market. To avoid paying these tolls, local residents later built Shunpike Road, which exists in Chatham to this day.
In 1837 the opening of the Morris and Essex Railroad- only seven years after the opening of the nation’s first public railroad - led to a rapid increase in the population and, following the Civil War, to the development of a thriving tourist industry and the establishment of the rose-growing industry for which the area became famous. Fifty blooms of the area’s most prized variety, known as American Beauty and possessing extraordinary five foot long stems, were sent to England’s Queen Victoria on the golden anniversary of her reign.
Many beautiful buildings, some over two hundred years old, survive in Chatham, carefully preserved by their current owners and lending the town its elegant historic character.
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