Morristown New Jersey has a population of close to 19,500 and is literally overflowing with history and culture. The commute into New York is a 50 minute train ride of the Midtown Direct. This is a big attraction for Morristown buyers relocating to the metro NY area. Morristown NJ residents can enjoy employment and recreational opportunities of the Big Apple and come home to a quiet secure rural neighborhood with a small town feeling. Morristown NJ has museums, culture, fine restaurants, the Short Hills Mall and beautiful scenic parks making it one of the most favored towns to call home in Morris County New Jersey.
Morristown's Convenient Location
Morristown is located in south-eastern Morris County, in northern New Jersey, approximately 25 miles west of New York City. It is the County Seat and is part of the greater New York metropolitan area.
Morristown NJ Geography
Morristown is situated at 360 feet above sea level in an area of gently rolling wooded hills.
Distance to 3 closest major cities
Morristown is 16 miles from Union, NJ, 21 miles from Newark, and 39 miles from New York City.
Morristown NJ Jobs
Morristown’s proximity and easy access by train or car to larger centers, especially New York City, mean that there is a practically limitless choice of employment available. Most residents work outside the town, but many major national and international corporations have headquarters or large branch offices nearby, including in the Giraldi Farms Corporate Campus in neighboring Madison.
Morristown Housing
Morristown's easy access to New York City attracts many younger urban workers to Morristown, and has created a lively market for luxury condominiums and townhomes. You will find many charming older homes in the historic area and semi-rural surroundings as well as a wide range of more modern single family homes.
Morristown and Morris Township New Jersey have several different sections such as the Historic Area, Convent Station, Washington Headquarters, Butterworth, Springbrook and the Summit section. They all offer something a little different in the way of surroundings, proximity to town and convenience to the Midtown Direct train stations. They also offer a variety of housing options within such as new construction, luxury real estate, town homes, condos and single family homes.
Parks/Sports/Recreation/Golf
Foremost among the many parks and reserves in and around Morristown, the Morris National Historic Park consists of four areas where the American Continental Army established its headquarters during the period from 1777-80. The Ford Mansion, where Gen. George Washington made his headquarters, is an important feature of the park, while the Jockey Hollow Unit includes the headquarters of General Arthur St. Clair, five reconstructed soldier huts, and approximately 27 miles of walking trails.
Morristown's Patriots’ Path is a fifty mile trail linking many of Morris County’s Federal, state, county, and municipal parks, watershed lands, historic sites and other points of interest, and specially developed for biking, horseback riding, cross country skiing and hiking. The trail is designed to protect conservation of the stream valleys through which is passes. It provides great outdoor exercise and recreation space.
Ice skating is a popular form of recreation, and Morristown’s Mennen Sports Arena is the County’s premier year-round ice facility, offering public sessions, group lessons, hockey clinics and figure skating clubs, as well as a great diversity of visiting shows, including the Annual Shrine Circus, cat and dog shows, antique shows and craft shows. The arena also houses a pro shop with a complete range of hockey and figure skating supplies.
Among the area’s many fine golf courses, the historic Morris County Golf Club in Morristown, founded in 1894, is unique in having been planned, organized and operated by women. The first venue in New jersey to host a national championship, the club, which has survived two disastrous club-house fires (in 1905 and 1913) and all manner of tribulations, is listed in Golf Magazine’s “The First 100 Clubs in America”, and the hilly fairways and small, elevated greens of its 18 holes continue to challenge and delight today’s golfers as they have for more than a century.
Morristown Special Attractions and Events
Morristown’s two largest events are in January and October. First Night Morris County is the largest event of its type in New Jersey, attracting over 10,000 people to welcome in the New Year with shows of more than 40 artists in over 80 performances, ranging from rock and roll, jazz, dance, comedy, classical, blues and opera. Then, in October, more than 50,000 people crowd into Morristown for the well-known Festival on the Green. This is an amazing day of dance, music, plays comedy and just good times.
Morristown also offers two marvelous opportunities to experience rural and industrial life in another age. At Fosterfields Living Historical Farm visitors are encouraged to participate in such farm-related activities as making butter, cracking corn and feeding it to chickens, and working in the vegetable garden on this 200-acre farm which has been under cultivation since the eighteenth century. Staff dressed in period attire interprets the lives and roles of those who worked the farm and its Jersey cows, pigs, sheep, draft horses, and chickens at the turn of the 20th Century. The farm also contains two historic homes, one an elegant Gothic Revival mansion built in 1854 by the grandson of the famous patriot Paul Revere.
Historic Speedwell is devoted to the life and work of the remarkable Stephen Vail and includes the Vail House which he renovated and furnished in 1844 and where he lived with his wife until his death in 1864. The site’s most significant building is The Factory, where Vail’s son Alfred worked with Samuel Morse to perfect the telegraph and where, on January 11, 1838, the first public demonstration of the electromagnetic telegraph was made. Historic Speedwell also includes many fascinating and educational exhibits of industrial and family life in the first half of the 19th Century.
Morristown Interesting Facts, Historic Buildings and Places
With a modern history extending back to the early years of the 18th Century, it comes as no surprise that many of Morristown’s elegant old buildings have links to interesting people and events in the nation’s history. Morristown NJ has many churches, public buildings, and residences dating from the early 19th Century including the Sansay House, built in 1807, MacCulloch Hall, and a beautiful Federal-style brick mansion which was built in 1819 for George Perrot MacCulloch, the “Father of the Morris Canal,” and several other homes which are even older.
The Gothic Revival Admiral Rodgers house was built in 1852 for a nephew of the famous Commodore Matthew C. Perry, whose 1854 expedition was credited with opening up Japan to the West after centuries of isolation. The wisteria growing today on the front porch is said to have been brought back from Japan as a gift from Commodore Perry to his nephew.
The John Sayre Housewhich was built in the mid 1700's is one of the oldest buildings in Morristown. In 1833 Judge Samuel Sayre, his wife Sara and their maid (or slave) Phoebe was murdered by Antoine Le Blanc, a recent immigrant from France. Quickly captured and convicted, the hapless Le Blanc was sentenced to be hung and “dissected,” thus becoming the last person to be publicly hanged on Morristown’s village green.
Because Phoebe was a slave, she was not considered important enough for Le Blanc to be charged and punished for her murder, and according to legend she has continued to haunt the John Sayre house ever since. Having served many functions over the years the house is now oddly enough a bank which just went up this year.
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