Chatham is a borough in Morris County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, Chatham’s population was 8,962, reflecting an increase of 502 (+5.9%) from the 8,460 counted in the 2000 Census, which had in turn increased by 453 (+5.7%) from the 8,007 counted in the 1990 Census.

The community that now is Chatham Borough was first settled by Europeans in 1710 within Morris Township, in what was then the Province of New Jersey. The community was settled because the site already was the location of an important crossing of the Passaic River, as well as being close to a gap in the Watchung Mountains and on the path of a well-worn Native American trail. The residents of the community changed its name from John Day’s Bridge to Chatham, New Jersey in 1773.

Chatham’s residents were active participants in the American Revolutionary War, which ended in 1783. Chatham Township was formed in the state of New Jersey on February 12, 1806, taking its name from this pre-revolutionary village. The new township governed the village of Chatham, which is included within the present-day borough, along with several other pre-revolutionary, colonial villages and large areas of unsettled lands connecting or adjacent to them. On August 19, 1892, Chatham adopted a new village form of government allowed within townships in the state after the revolution. The village of Chatham reincorporated for governance as a borough by an act of the New Jersey Legislature on March 1, 1897 with complete independence from the surrounding Chatham Township.

Chatham Borough is a pedestrian-friendly community that covers less than 2.5 square miles (6.5 km²), including a central business district and railroad station within about a mile from its farthest boundary.

In July 2005, CNN/Money and Money magazine ranked Chatham ninth on its annual list of the 100 Best Places to Live in the United States. New Jersey Monthly magazine ranked Chatham as its twenty-fifth best place to live in its 2008 rankings of the “Best Places To Live” in New Jersey.

Occupied for thousands of years by Native Americans, this land was overseen by clans of the Minsi and Lenni Lenape, who farmed, fished, and hunted upon it. They were organized into a matrilineal, agricultural, and mobile hunting society sustained with fixed, but not permanent, settlements in their clan territories. Villages were established and relocated as the clans farmed new sections of the land when soil fertility lessened and moved among their fishing and hunting grounds.

In 1498, John Cabot explored this portion of the New World. The area was claimed as a part of the Dutch New Netherland province, where active trading in furs took advantage of the natural pass west, but, the Lenape prevented permanent settlement beyond what is now Jersey City. Although rapid exhaustion of the local beaver population soon turned the Dutch interests much farther north, contention existed between the Dutch and the British over the rights to this land and battles ensued. Passing to the rule of the British as the Province of New Jersey upon the fall of New Amsterdam in 1664, and becoming one of its original thirteen colonies, marks the beginning of permanent European settlements on this land.

The land that would become Chatham was part of the Province of East Jersey; the Indian rights to Chatham were purchased in 1680 from members of the Minsi and Lenni Lenape tribes. They spoke an Algonquian language. They hunted and fished in the area and farmed on the lands of their settlements. The area was well connected with established paths among their settlements, to and from bountiful resources, and to neighboring settlements. Safe passageways through the valleys, marshes, swamps, and mountains of this portion of the Watchung Mountains connected the area which would become Chatham with other settlements in the area. Except for highways built since the 1970s and a shunpike built to avoid tolls on the roads connecting the colonial settlements of Chatham and Bottle Hill, the roads of the area follow those time proven, long trodden trails made by the Indians. Main Street rises from a shallow crossing of the Passaic River and, after traveling through what became the settlements of Chatham and Bottle Hill (which became Madison), the road follows a westward path that leads to the top of the plateau on which Morristown was founded.

In 1680, the British first purchased this Lenape land upon which John Day made the first European settlement in 1710. He chose to settle upon the western bank of the Fishawack Crossing (of the Passaic River) on the traditional Lenape Minisink Trail. Chatham was in the area delineated as Morris Township by the English. The landing at that location was the best place to ford the river and always had been used by the Lenape on their route to the Hudson River and south from their hunting grounds in what is now Sussex County. That traditional part of the Great Trail would become Route 24, leading to Madison, Morristown, Mendham, and Chester. It became known as Main Street in Chatham.

Before long, the village became known as John Day’s Bridge because of a bridge he built across the river at the shallow landing. By 1750, the village had a blacksmith shop as well as a flour mill, a grist mill, and a lumber mill.

In 1773, the village was renamed to “Chatham” to honor a member of the British Parliament, William Pitt, the first Earl of Chatham, who was an outspoken advocate of the rights of the colonists in America.

New Jersey was one of the Thirteen Colonies that revolted against British rule in the American Revolutionary War. The New Jersey Constitution of 1776 was passed on July 2, 1776, two days before the Second Continental Congress declared American Independence from Great Britain. It was an act of the New Jersey Provincial Congress, which made itself into the state Legislature. To reassure neutrals, it provided that it would become void if the state of New Jersey reached reconciliation with Great Britain.

The citizens of Chatham were active participants in the Revolutionary War and nearby Morristown became the military center of the revolution. George Washington twice established his winter headquarters in Morristown and revolutionary troops were active regularly in the entire area. The Lenape assisted the colonists, supplying the revolutionary army with warriors and scouts in exchange for food supplies and the promise of a role at the head of a future Native American state. The Treaty of Easton signed by the Lenape and the British in 1766 had required that the Lenape move to Pennsylvania. Wanting to recoup rights lost thereby to the British, the Lenape were the first tribe to enter into a treaty with the emerging government of the United States.

The Watchung mountain range was a strategic asset in the war, acting as a natural barrier to the British troops and providing a vantage point for Washington to monitor their troop movements. The Minisink Trail and the village bridge provided a route for essential supplies across the river and through the mountain range. The Hobart Gap was vital as the only pass through the Watchung Mountains.

Washington wrote 17 letters while he stayed at a homestead in Chatham. The community was the site of several skirmishes, as residents and the rebel army held off British advances, preventing them from attacking Washington’s supplies at Morristown.

In 1779, a printing press was established in the village of Chatham by Shepard Kollock. From his workshop, he published books, pamphlets, and the New Jersey Journal (the third newspaper published in New Jersey) conducting lively debates about the efforts for independence and boosting the morale of the troops and their families with information derived directly from Washington’s headquarters in nearby Morristown. Kollock’s paper was published until 1992 as the Elizabeth Daily Journal (having restarted it there in 1787) and was the fourth oldest newspaper published continuously in the United States.

After the Revolutionary War was over in 1783, establishment of new forms of government began. On February 12, 1806, the village of Chatham became part of Chatham Township with a township form of government that shared the village’s name and included several other area communities and a large amount of unsettled land. However, “[i]n 1892 Chatham Village found itself at odds with the rest of the township. Although village residents paid 40 percent of the township taxes, they got only 7 percent of the receipts in services. The village had to raise its own money to install kerosene street lamps and its roads were in poor repair. As a result, the village voted on August 9, 1892, to secede from governance by the township.”

Ten days later, on August 19, 1892, the citizens of Chatham reincorporated with another type of village government then offered as an alternative within townships by the new state. The evolving state regulations regarding governance structure soon began to offer a borough form for governance. Chatham adopted that new government form and the village reincorporated for governance as a borough by an act of the New Jersey Legislature on March 1, 1897 with complete independence from Chatham Township.

Most of the colonial settlements that had been part of Chatham Township abandoned its governance as soon as new forms of government became available to them during this evolution of new state regulations. Green Village being the exception, each of the settlements withdrew from governance by the township and Chatham Township was left to govern mostly unsettled lands.

In 1910, Chatham Borough expanded when it acquired a slice of Florham Park. The local form of government and the boundaries of Chatham Borough have remained the same since that acquisition, making it about 2.4 square miles (6.2 km²).

According to the United States Census Bureau, the borough had a total area of 2.425 square miles (6.281 km²), including 2.373 square miles (6.147 km²) of land and 0.052 square miles (0.134 km²) of water (2.13%).

Unincorporated communities, localities and place names located partially or completely within the borough include Stanley.

Chatham Borough is located 20 miles (32 km) west of New York City on the eastern edge of Morris County. Chatham’s neighboring communities are Summit to the southeast located in Union County, Millburn/Short Hills in Essex County to the northeast, while communities also located in Morris County include Chatham Township to the west, and Madison and Florham Park Boroughs to the north.

The Passaic River, which rises in Mendham and defines the Great Swamp, flows north along the eastern boundary of Chatham. A good crossing location, identified by Native Americans to early European settlers, figured significantly in the colonial history of the community. Fairmount Avenue ascends Long Hill perpendicularly from Main Street in the contemporary center of town to the highest elevation of the town among the Watchung Mountains. From there, one may see the lights of New York beyond the crest of the ridge hills of Summit and Short Hills. Water from artesian wells is stored at its crest to provide the drinking water for the community.

As of the 2010 United States Census, there were 8,962 people, 3,073 households, and 2,397 families residing in the borough. The population density was 3,776.1 per square mile (1,458.0/km²). There were 3,210 housing units at an average density of 1,352.5 per square mile (522.2/km²). The racial makeup of the borough was 91.13% (8,167) White, 0.99% (89) Black or African American, 0.20% (18) Native American, 4.85% (435) Asian, 0.00% (0) Pacific Islander, 1.00% (90) from other races, and 1.82% (163) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 5.10% (457) of the population.

Source: Wikipedia