MORRISTOWN  , a

town and the county-seat of Morris county, New Jersey, U.S.A., on the Whippany river, 31 M . (by rail) W. of New York City . Pop . (1890) 8156; (1900) 11,267; (1910 census) 12,507 . It is served by the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western, the New Jersey & Pennsylvania and the Morristown & Erie railways . Morristown is situated on a table-land surrounded by picturesque hills . It is primarily a residential suburb of New York, and has many handsome residences and a number of large estates . Near its centre is a public park, in which is a soldiers' monument (59 ft. in height) . At Morris Plains, about 4 M. to the north, is a state hospital for the insane (1876) . Morristown, officially named in 1740 in honour of Lewis Morris (1671—1746), then governor of New Jersey, and grand-father of Gouverneur Morris, was settled about 1710, under the name of West Hanover, by Puritans, who were attracted here by the presence of iron ore . From January to May 1777, and again from December 1779 to June 178o, Morris-town was occupied by the American army under Washington . Behind the court-house is the site of Fort Nonsense, built at Washington's orders, largely to keep his soldiers employed .

In December 1779—January 178o

General Benedict Arnold was tried before a court martial presided over by General Robert Howe (1732—1785) in the Dickerson tavern here, still standing . In Morristown, at the old Speedwell ironworks (almost completely destroyed by fire in 1909), was made a part of the machinery of the " Savannah," the first steamboat that crossed the Atlantic, and here Samuel F . B . Morse and Alfred Vail completed the invention of the electric telegraph . Morristown was incorporated as a town in 1865 . See A . M . Sherman, Historic Morristown, New Jersey; The Story of its First Century (Morristown, 1905) and Julia K . Colles, Authors and Writers Associated with Morristown (Morristown, 1893) .