1 2 MORRIS COUNTY BOARD OF CHOSEN FREEHOLDERS Leanna Brown, Director Peter J. Burkhart Eileen McCoy Rodney P. Frelinghuysen Douglas H. Romaine S. Charles Garafalo Alphonse W. Scerbo MORRIS COUNTY PLANNING BOARD Robert N. Zakarian, Chairman Eugune H. Caille, Vice Chairman William Keitel, Secretary Leanna Brown George E. Burke Dorothy Jurgel William J. Mathews Douglas H. Romaine John Stevens Dudley H. Woodbridge, Planning Director 3 contents Page Illustrations 8 Acknowledgment 9 INTRODUCTION Section I WHY PRESERVE? 13 Philosophy 14 Pragmatism 17 Section II PRESERVATION IN CONTEXT 22 Social Preservation 23 Environmental Preservation 25 Adaptive Preservation 27 Section III WHAT TO PRESERVE 33 Criteria 34 Documentation 37 Section IV PRESERVATION TOOLS 43 Historic District Zoning 44 Landmarks Commissions 45 Supplementary Municipal Power 46 County Action 47 Acquisition Alternatives 47 Tax Relief 49 Section V PAYING FOR PRESERVATION 53 Private Initiative 54 Federal Assistance 58 The State Role 61 County and Municipal Resources 63 4 MORRIS COUNTY PLANNING BOARD STAFF Dudley H. Woodbridge, Planning Director Long Range Planning Section James L. Roberts, Assistant Planning Director Raymond K. Molski, Supervising Principal Planner Raymond Zabihach, Principal Planner Robert P. Guter, Senior Planner William M. Chambers, Senior Planner William A. Fredrick, Jr., Assistant Planner Edward Matey, Assistant Planner James C. Willis, Planning Draftsman Development Review Section Miron C. Meadowcroft, Assistant Planning Director James D. Woodruff, Supervising Principal Planner Arne E. Goytil, Principal Planner Frank A. Marquier, Senior Planning Aide Clerical Staff Rhoda B. Chase Marie C. Gilmartin Rosamond M. McCarthy Evelyn Taylor STAFF FOR THIS ELEMENT Project Director Robert P. Guter Text and Research: Robert P. Guter Research Assistance: Jeanne Korp Editing: William M. Chambers Graphics: James C. Willis William M. Chambers 5 maps Page Historic Transportation Routes 65 Planning Regions 92 Site Location Maps: REGION A Butler, Kinnelon, Lincoln Park, 101 Pequannock, Riverdale REGION B Boonton, Boonton Township, Denville, 122 East Hanover, Hanover, Montville, Mt. Lakes, Parsippany Troy—Hills REGION C Chatham, Chatham Township, Florham Park, 150 Madison, Passaic REGION D Harding, Morris Plains, Morristown, 183 Morris Township REGION E Rockaway, Rockaway Township, Jefferson 189 REGION F Dover, Mine Hill, Mt. Arlington, Randolph, 202 Roxbury, Victory Gardens, Wharton REGION G Chester, Chester Township, Mendham, 215 Mendham Township REGION H Mt. Olive, Netcong, Washington 227 6 Section VI GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS Page FEDERAL National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 67 Advisory Council on Historic Preservation 68 National Trust for Historic Preservation 69 National Register of Historic Places 69 National Register of Historic Landmarks 69 Historic American Buildings Survey 70 Department of Transportation Act 70 Department of Housing and Urban Development 71 National Environmental Policy Act 72 STATE Historic Sites Section, DEP 74 New Jersey Register of Historic Places 74 Section VII PRIVATE ORGANIZATIONS Local Historical Societies 76 Other Organizations 79 Section VIII CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS: Municipal Action 85 County Participation 85 State Action 86 Federal Action 86 Section IX INVENTORY OF HISTORIC SITES Introduction 88 Region A 94 Region B 102 Region C 123 Region D 151 Region E 184 Region F 190 Region G 203 Region H 216 APPENDICES Appendix A Proposal for a Landmarks Commission 229 Appendix B Morris County Historical Societies 237 Appendix C Glossary of Architectural Terms 239 Appendix D Resource Bibliography 242 Appendix E Footnotes 254 7 illustrations The line drawings which introduce each section are reduced copies of measured drawings made by the Historic American Buildings Survey. Section 10 shows a complete sample sheet from a full HABS documentation series. The buildings are identified as follows: INTRODUCTION: Hilltop Church, Mendham Section I: Lewis Pierson House, Hanover* Section II: Van Ness House, Pequannock* Section III: Jacobus Out-Kitchen, Montville* Section IV: Sayre House, Madison Section V: Dickerson Log Cabin, Parsippany* Section VI: Moses Hatfield House, Morristown* Section VII: John Jacobus House, Montville* Section VIII: Thomas Dey House, Lincoln Park* Section IX: Green—Cook House, Hanover APPENDICES: David Miller House, Washington *Destroyed 8 acknowledgment More than any other element of the Morris County Master Plan, this study has benefited from direct citizen participation. We would like to thank: Richard Irwin, Chairman, Historic Sites Committee, Morris County Historical Society; Terry Karschner, Historian—Curator, Historic Sites Section, New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection; and Harold Scaff, Morris County Planning Board Citizens’ Advisory Council, for their review of goals and objectives and overall comments; Virginia Harrison, Morris County Free Library; and Barbara Hoskins, Joint Free Public Library of Morristown and Morris Township, whose knowledge is as inexhaustible as their patience, for research and bibliographic assistance; and the following individuals, without whose generous contributions the inventory section of this report could never have been completed: Eleanor Bogert, James A. Bolan, Janet Boston, Barbara S. Burnet, Terry Christiano, Betty Cooke, Marjorie M. Davidson, Joseph Decker, bagai1 Fair, Alex D. Fowler, Bruce Hamblen, Hazel W. Howell, Barbara Kalata, Fran Kaminski, Margaret Keisler, Claire B. Kitchell, Christian Lanner, Jean W. Lum, Harriet Meeker, Chris Muenchinger, Susan Pariser, John Pickin, Elizabeth Raube, Muriel Rennie, Elizabeth Riggs, Swiss Schroeder, Carmen H. Smith, Mead Stapler, W. Page Taggert, Fae N. Towns, Robert Turnquist, June Waders, Malcolm Yorkston. 9 10 The obliteration of the past must not be accepted as the inevitable price of progress Lord Duncan Sandys This report is neither a history of Morris County nor simply a collection of site inventories and physical descriptions. The former task has been accomplished by others far better equipped to do so, and the latter is merely the means to an end which is too often mistaken for the end itself. This report has two primary goals: to make apparent the genuine value of historic preservation, and to furnish some guidance for practical action to accomplish preservation goals. Such ends stand in need of continual reevaluation because they lend themselves to misunderstanding, despite the groundswell of enthusiasm for historic preservation in the last decade. The opportunity for misunderstanding occurs largely because of the understandable human penchant for the splashy effect. Unfortunately, every important preservation victory obscures ten less impressive demolitions, which, taken in the aggregate, may be every bit as significant. It seems that we have fallen into the habit of saving monuments to put under glass, while the fabric of our daily life is worn thin by historic amnesia. This complaint is not meant to discount the need for priorities or the value of monuments per Se. We would all be poorer without Mt. Vernon, Valley Forge, and the Ford Mansion. But their value is primarily symbolic, or ceremonial. The time has come to return historic preservation to the sphere of everyday life, which has become impoverished by its absence; to pay more attention to living, usable history, the kind that enriches neighborhoods and lives; to historic sites that can function usefully in the present without apology; and to an integration of past and present that reveals our own continuity to us, so that we can know how we became who we are. This report will try to point out the specific advantages of such a comprehensively designed preservation program, at the same time that it shows 11 citizens and their local governments how to achieve practical preservation goals. The only value of a study such as this lies in the use to which it is put. In that sense it will remain unfinished until its readers transform it into action. 12 13 The fathers did not erase the past, But linked it by firm ties to the future Homer PHILOSOPHY “Why preserve?” can be a difficult question to answer. Like all action that determines what we’ve come to think of as the quality of life, many of the values of historic preservation rely on intangibles. How can we measure the aesthetic impact of Morristown’s Green, the real significance of a piece of monumental architecture, or the importance to a town of a main street that’s “looked that way forever.” Often we fail to recognize such values until they have been destroyed — when loss sharpens our perceptions too late. Perhaps one of the most important contributions historic buildings can make is the individual ambiance they lend a place. It is difficult to imagine Washington, D.C. without its dozen most familiar buildings, or to picture Mendham without its aggregate of Main Street shops and houses. The essence of a particular place is fragile, hard to create and easy to destroy. Ironically, as all aspects of our lives become more homogenized, and we lose the old, natural distinctions of place and customs, we strive to assert individuality artificially. In his book Future Shock, Alvin Toffler suggests that our towns and cities may become so bland or so mechanistically ugly that everyone will have to be sent off for periodic bouts of rest and recuperation — to places like Sturbridge Village, Williamsburg - or Disneyland. How much better if we could halt the disintegration of our daily environment instead of reserving