by Amy Curry, Executive Director
September 30, 2025
As the nation prepares to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, we’re reminded of how much American history can be found within Morris County. Spanning from the monumental to the everyday, hundreds of local sites speak to our shared past and the ways in which our country has developed since and, indeed, before 1776. To capture this rich and vast history, MCHS, in partnership with the local history community, launched a new, self-guided driving tour series which will continue to be rolled out over the coming year. The second tour of the series, which highlights local schoolhouses, will debut as a part of the Pathways of History event this weekend.
Whether it’s the late summer sales or the cooler temperatures of early fall, this time of year, tinged with excitement for the future and nostalgia for the past, marks the perfect moment to celebrate the nearly universal rite of passage of back-to-school season. Welcoming students for over two centuries, the 45 historic schoolhouses included in this tour each have a story to tell. The oldest, the one-room Littleton Schoolhouse (c. 1796) in Parsippany provides insight into the lives of area students only 16 years after George Washington’s “hard winter” in Morristown. Others reflect the settlement and development throughout the county, in particular the juxtaposition between east and west. Set in the agrarian community of Lower Berkshire Valley, Roxbury Township, one of the youngest included schools, Lafayette School (1921), was in fact constructed five years after the laying of the cornerstone of Morristown High School (1916), which boasted such opportunities as dentistry, manual training, and chemistry labs for students.
In addition to the various types of schools found in Morris County, the Schoolhouse Driving Tour highlights the adaptive reuse of local school buildings in order to continue serving the community, like Millington School (c. 1853), which became Long Hill’s town hall. It also showcases the painstaking restoration efforts of municipalities and non-profit organizations, as seen at the Mount Vernon School (c. 1860) in Chatham Township, to bring others back as museums and places of learning. We encourage you to join us on October 4 at Union Schoolhouse (1830) in Washington Township as we celebrate Morris County’s history of education and the varied schools constructed to serve diverse generations of students.
For more information on the Pathways of History on October 4 & 5, visit the event’s website.
Did you enjoy this blog? MCHS is an independent nonprofit. Please consider supporting our mission at morriscountyhistory.org/donate or become a member at morriscountyhistory.org/get-involved/ to help us continue to preserve and promote Morris County history through programs, exhibits, and blogs like this.
