The Morris County chronicle. [volume] (Morristown, N.J.) 1877-1915, 1905-09-26
HISTORIC
MORRISTOWkT''
Rev. A. M. Shern1an's Latest
Contribution to RevoIu-
tionary History.
.McCLINTOCK'S INTRODUCTION

Rev. Andrew M. Sherman has in
press new book which will be valua-
contribution to Morris County histori-
cal publications 1t is called & His
toric Morristown, and will include
the articles recently Published in the
" Newark News, revised and cor
rected, with much new matter, Mr..
Sherman has been fortunate in discov-
erfng much new material which will
be published in the forthcoming work.
The effort has received the commen-
dation of our local historians, and
Emory McClintock, than whom no
one in this section of the country is
more competent to judge of historical
matter gives the work his warmest
commentator and has also written
an Introduction from which we quote
in part -:
: Few will take up this book who do
not known that MorristoWn is in Nor
| ris County in New Jersey, some thirty
miles due west of New York. Few
are aware, however, that the location
of MQrristown is absolutely unique,
not in one respect only, but in three
different ways. 1t occupies a geologi-
cal site Of remarkable interest 1t
was the westernmost colonial puritan
church-town, the outpost Of New
England In the revolutionary era,
from the capture Of New York to the
capture Of CORVALLIS. it was the key
of Washington's position, the one con
Meeting link between the eastern and
the southern states, like the stem Of
anhourglass
1.-THE Morristown court house on
ground which has been solid ground
since the world began. The Morris
town green, near by, was for a long
period under the waters Of the ocean,
as has been, at one time. or another;
nearly all of the land within this
country, and indeed most Of the pres
emit land surface of the globe. From
the hill on which the court house
stands there could be seen, when the
ocean last receded. no one. OF the
Numerous other hills now visible, to
the east and south. All that the /
ocean left behind it was wide ex-
panse of sandstone and shale. Melted
rock, squeezing up later through
cracks in the sandstone, was to form |
the hills that now shut in the Passaic
valley, and others further away
" Upon the crossing point Of the two
great geological lines just sketched
there grew up puritan settlement.
The reader will find that, according
to puritan custom, the early history
of the town was substantially that of
the church.
:" 1t is unnecessary to describe the
puritan element, the most notable of
those which went to the formation Of
American civilization. The puritan,
the churchman, the Holland calvin
ist, the Scotch presbyterian, the lu-
theran, the catholic, the huguenot,
all contributed their part. but the
dominant element, in the north at
least, was introduced by the puritan,
whose settlements we're known col
lectively as New England. Town af-
ter town was established on the puri-
itan model, first on the coast, and by
degrees, in the interior, each town with
its one church. If doctrinal differ
erences arose in any church, one fac
ton or the other would usually re-
move to another place and organize a
new town. There were certain settle
ments outside of the legal limits Of
New England which were as truly
puritan as any in Massachusetts or
Connecticut, such as the Hamptons
and the Seuthold in eastern Long Is
land and Newark ia New Jersey, with
its offshoOt Morristown.
"Thers were, no doubt. during the
colonial period, villages to be found
farther west than M0rristOwn Where
New England ideas were nppermost,
and among them notably a settlement
in the Wyoming valley which might
have become Connecticut town, had
it not been destroyed by the Indians.
No other place of Importance, how
ever, was settled by the puritans west
of the Hudson except Newark and
MOrristown, the latter being the adj