Chatham Historical Society

11/02/2026

In the late 1800s, Chatham was a resort town, and the Fairview House was the place to be. 🏨 Up to 150 guests, dancing, bowling (yes, it had a bowling alley!), and rooms for just three dollars a night!

This clip is from one of the stops on our Main Street Walking Tour on October 24. (Yes, those are leaf blowers 🍂 in the background, so forgive the less-than-stellar audio!)

The hotel was demolished in 1920. Today the Library of the Chathams stands on the site. ☀️

While we don’t have any in-person walking tours scheduled right now, why not go on a self-guided tour of Main Street? Our guide is at the

Oh, and did you take note of the mention of Chatham’s “salubrious” air?! There’s an SAT word if I ever heard one…but our gorgeous fall days certainly have been salubrious, wouldn’t you agree?!



Music: "Fig“Leaf Rag - distressed” (Scott Joplin), performed by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

10/25/2026

10/15/2026

A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY THROUGH CHATHAM⁠
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In 1824, Chatham had a visitor few small villages ever get: the Marquis de Lafayette himself, then 68 years old, passing back through scenes he’d known during the Revolution.⁠
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The town went all out. Flags flew from nearly every home along Main Street. Aging Revolutionary War veterans stood at attention by the roadside, heads bared, as his carriage rolled past. The main reception was held at Bottle Hill (today’s Madison), where local girls dressed in their finest took part in the formal ceremony. ⁠
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Chatham got its own moment too—Lafayette was hosted at a home on the northeast corner of Main Street and Elmwood Avenue, and stopped near the Vanderpoel house by the bridge, which held a personal connection: a distant relative of his, Count d’Anterroches, had once courted and married Polly Vanderpoel there.⁠
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The trip wasn’t without mishap. Leaving Chatham through Short Hills, Lafayette’s carriage broke a spring on the rough road at Hobart’s Gap. The fix was pure Jersey ingenuity—a fence rail wedged beneath the coach to get it moving again toward New Brunswick! Lafayette was reportedly good-humored about it, joking that the local residents had “rode him on a rail.”⁠
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As America marks its 250th this year, it’s worth remembering: 250 years ago, Lafayette fought alongside the Continental Army. Two hundred years ago, Chatham lined its streets to thank him for it.⁠
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📍 The hitching post from that era is still standing today at 560 Main Street.⁠
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📚 Historical details from Chatham: At the Crossing of the Fishawack by John T. Cunningham.⁠
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📷 La Fayette, 1825, Charles Cromwell Ingham/Moseley Isaac Danforth. Special Collections & College Archives, Lafayette College. Public domain.⁠
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#1824

10/13/2026

The Roaring Twenties are making a comeback in Chatham! 🎺🎶⁠
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Did you know the Chatham Historical Society was founded in 1924, right in the middle of the Jazz Age? More than a century later, we’re bringing a little of that spirit back to town!⁠
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Join us on **Thursday, October 22**, for **Jazz Night in Chatham**, featuring acclaimed jazz septet **Mike Davis and the New Wonders**, performing the irresistible sounds of early American jazz.⁠
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As part of our celebration of America’s 250th anniversary, we can’t think of a better way to bring history to life than through one of America’s great contributions to music. ⁠
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🎺 **JAZZ NIGHT IN CHATHAM**⁠
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📅 Thursday, October 22, 2026⁠
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📍 The Stanley Center, 94 Fairmount Avenue, Chatham⁠
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🕕 Doors open at 6 PM | Music 7–9 PM⁠
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🎟️ Tickets: $25⁠
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Refreshments will be served during intermission, and you’ll have a chance to mingle with the musicians at a post-show reception.⁠
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** Tickets available at the . **⁠
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Come for the music, stay for the company, and help us make a little history of our own.⁠
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09/14/2026

Think stagecoach travel in the early 1800s was slow and steady? Most of the time it absolutely was! But…a stagecoach driver pushing his team hard could hit 25 to 30 miles an hour for a short stretch. A true daredevil might reach “the incredible speed of forty miles an hour.”⁠
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The ride was not comfortable. Passengers were jostled over roads that were, at best, hard-packed dirt—the gravel surfacing was mostly theoretical. But if you were the Morristown and Elizabeth Stage Company, that speed mattered enough to pay your tolls quarterly, just so your wagons could race through the tollgates without ever slowing down. Somewhere, a gatetender had to be quick enough to yank the pike out of the way in time.⁠
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📚 Historical details from Chatham: At the Crossing of the Fishawack by John T. Cunningham.⁠
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📷 Illustration of a stagecoach crossing bridge over Passaic River (from the cover of the Cunningham book) as featured on a vintage postcard from the collection of the Chatham Historical Society.⁠
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09/11/2026

Twenty-five years later, we remember.⁠
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On September 11, 2001, nearly 3,000 lives were lost in the terrorist attacks on our country—including 13 members of the Chatham community. We remember them, the first responders who ran toward danger, and the countless people whose lives were forever changed that day.⁠
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For those of us who remember September 11, it can feel both impossibly long ago and extraordinarily close. For a growing generation, however, it is history—a day they know only through the stories, photographs, and memories passed down to them.⁠
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Here in Chatham, thirteen of our neighbors never came home that day. Twenty-five years later, we remember them by name:⁠
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Donald L. Adams⁠
Dennis Buckley⁠
Paul S. Gilbey⁠
Gary R. Haag⁠
Anthony P. Infante Jr.⁠
Robin B. Larkey⁠
Christian H. Maltby⁠
Philip W. Mastrandrea⁠
Peter C. Moutos⁠
Thomas S. Strada⁠
Kenneth J. Swenson⁠
William R. Tieste⁠
Peter M. West⁠
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They were spouses and parents, sons and daughters, friends, colleagues, and neighbors—members of this community whose absence has been felt for a quarter century.⁠
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Remembering their names, and passing their stories to generations who did not experience that day, is one way we ensure that September 11 never becomes simply a date in a history book.⁠
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This Friday, Chatham will gather once again to remember. Chatham Borough's September 11th Remembrance Ceremony will begin at 6:30 p.m. at the September 11th Memorial in Memorial Park on North Passaic Avenue, behind the Library of the Chathams. The ceremony will also be simulcast at Reasoner Park. Following the Memorial Park observance, attendees will process to Reasoner Park for the concluding program. The ceremony will be held rain or shine.⁠
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On this 25th anniversary, we remember those we lost, honor those who served, and carry their stories forward.⁠
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We remember. 💙

09/08/2026

Did you see our post on Shunpike Road last week? Here’s an accounting of the toll it was built to avoid.⁠
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Chatham had its own tollgate just east of the bridge, with others down the line at what’s now Rosedale Avenue in Madison and Bridges Hollow (today’s Punch Bowl Road in Convent Station). A stone marker tracking the mile count once stood right at 380 Main Street.⁠
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The fees were quite specific. A wagon with one horse cost 6 cents, plus 6 cents for every additional horse. A sleigh cost 8 cents, plus 4 cents per horse. A single rider on horseback paid 4 cents flat. Cattle, mules, and horses traveling in a drove were charged a penny a dozen—and sheep, calves, and swine got the bargain rate of half a cent a dozen, so long as you had enough of them to count.⁠
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And then, of course, there were the people who simply didn’t want to pay.⁠
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Travelers began slipping off the turnpike and into the neighboring fields and farmland to get around the tollgates. If caught, they could claim they had merely wandered off the road to admire the foliage or wildlife—or had simply gotten lost. As historian John T. Cunningham put it, “It was difficult to prosecute nature lovers or lost souls.”⁠
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The neighboring farmers, however, were apparently less sympathetic. When they caught toll-dodgers crossing their property, some reportedly collected the avoided toll themselves—and pocketed it for their trouble. Cunningham notes that these impromptu collections were often made at the point of a sh***un, and that an enterprising landowner could do quite well during a busy season.⁠
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Suddenly, taking the shunpike to avoid the official toll sounds like it came with risks of its own.⁠
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For comparison: Crossing the GWB today with E-ZPass runs $16.79 at peak hours—no livestock discount available.⁠
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📚 Historical details from Chatham: At the Crossing of the Fishawack by John T. Cunningham.⁠
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09/07/2026

Happy Labor Day from the Chatham Historical Society! Today we honor the generations of workers whose skill, effort, and ingenuity helped build the community we call home.⁠
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What's on your agenda this long weekend?⁠
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📷 Image of telegraph linemen in Chatham, NJ, is a digital scan of original glass-plate photograph by George McDougall; from our late-19th Century George McDougall Photo Collection, Chatham Historical Society, NJ.⁠
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09/02/2026

You’ve driven Shunpike Road. Maybe today, even. But do you know why it's called that?⁠
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When the Morris Turnpike opened in the early 1800s, it followed a route that will be very familiar to Chatham residents: today's Main Street. The turnpike connected Elizabeth and Morristown, passing directly through Chatham along the way.⁠
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Back then, “turnpike” didn’t refer to the road itself—it meant the pike, a wooden bar lowered across the road at tollgates. Pay your toll, and the keeper would turn it aside to let you through.⁠
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Naturally, people looked for a way around it.⁠
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Drivers who wanted to avoid the tolls began using a route that ran roughly parallel to the turnpike, south of today's Main Street, skirting the tollgates entirely. And that alternate route earned a wonderfully literal name: the Shunpike, for travelers who “shunned the pike.”⁠
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The turnpike company had reason to object. It held a legal monopoly over roads for several miles on either side of the Morris Turnpike, making shunpiking illegal as well as popular. Some especially bold toll dodgers would ride right up to the gate, reach for their coin purse as if to pay, then drop the reins as a signal for their horse to bolt through before the keeper could react.⁠
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But the workaround road never went away.⁠
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Today, it's Shunpike Road in Chatham Township, becoming Watchung Avenue as it enters Chatham Borough—while the road those early travelers were trying to avoid lives on as Main Street.⁠
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📚 Historical details from Chatham: At the Crossing of the Fishawack by John T. Cunningham.⁠
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🗺️ Map: Chatham, New Jersey, Sanborn Map Company, August 1909. Courtesy of Princeton University Library, Historic Map Division, Special Collections, Firestone Library. No Known Copyright.⁠
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08/31/2026

Could your grant-writing experience help preserve Chatham's history?

The Chatham Historical Society has big ideas for making our community's history more accessible—preserving important collections, developing new programs, sharing more of our archives, and finding new ways to bring Chatham's stories to life.

And sometimes, turning those ideas into reality begins with finding the right funding.

We're looking for community members with grant-writing or grant-research experience who might be willing to volunteer their expertise to help us identify opportunities and develop strong applications for future projects.

Perhaps you've written grants professionally. Maybe you've helped secure funding for a school, nonprofit, arts organization, library, or community group. Or perhaps grant research and development is simply part of what you do.

If you have experience you'd be willing to share—even on a limited or project-by-project basis—we'd love to hear from you.

Help us turn good ideas into lasting resources for our community.

Interested? Send us a DM or contact us at [email protected].