Notes From an Article on Early Morristown

While doing some research for someone I came across an article in an issue of the 1909 Morristown Gazette about the origins of Morristown. (September 22, 1909 Morristown Gazette if anyone wants to read it.)

Rev. R.N. Price interviewed one Wilson C. Witt who was able to remember all the way back to 1829. He remembered riding with his parents to the old Baptist Church which would today have been out on North Cumberland Street. He said there was no signs of a town at all at that time, 1829. He said where the town was, three farmers lived in a "group" but not within earshot of one another.

They were:

1. John Morris, father of Drury Morris, who lived in a log house in 1829 at what was in 1909 the extreme south edge of the city limits. So I guess they lived out along where South Cumberland Street is somewhere close to where Morris Cemetery is.
2. William Cheney lived in a log house in 1829 where the Capps House stood in 1909. So then, his cabin was at the north-west corner of Main and Hill Streets, just across from Stetzer Funeral Home.
3. Martin Stubblefield lived near the well near where the depot was. So I guess he lived between Cumberland and Henry Streets, between Main and Morris Boulevard.

The article went on to say Witt remembered there was a blacksmith shop down the creek near the Baptist Church, and another blacksmith shop up the creek south of John Morris's place.

Witt said John Morris's brothers, Shade and Gideon, lived where Rheatown was. So today, I guess they lived a distance west of Jackson Street, and South of Main Street, in that general area. And he thought evidently the town was named after those three brothers. Shade was probably Shadrach Morris, and I think its interesting he is referred to as Shade.

Witt went on to say, Mark Rogers had a store and blacksmith and wagon shop in Rheatown, (I take it later than 1829,) and J.M.Coffin put up a store in Morristown around 1848 or maybe a little later. He said Coffin secured a post office at the store but one of his clerks robbed the mail, got put in prison and died in the penitentary.

I have this picture in my mind of the little boy, Wilson Witt, riding through this farmland which would become Morristown on his way to church. I would love to have seen the land as he saw it..

R.N. Price, writing the article went on to add that he had made one preaching round on the Morristown circuit in 1856 and found nothing but the name, a few houses and maybe a brick mill.

I have read somewhere that a person approaching Morristown before the civil war would keep looking for it and suddenly come to the realization that he had just ridden through it without knowing it, it was so tiny.

I don't know if this article accurately reflects history in every instance, but it is an invaluable record from a man who was there. I thought I would share the information in it with those who might not have access to the old newspapers.

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