Museum Building, Morristown National Historical Park: Historic Structure Report, Volumes I and II

Phillips, Maureen; Urquhart, Gordon

Project Background and Scope The Museum Building is located in the Washington Headquarters unit of Morristown NHP in Morristown, New Jersey. The park has received funding for a project to rehabilitate the Museum Building. The project has two principal objectives – to protect the valuable collections currently stored under substandard conditions in the building, and to improve the quality of its exhibit spaces. In 1999 a study completed by ICON Architecture, Inc., recommended an ambitious expansion to the building. A more recent Collections Management Plan (2001) reassessed some of the space needs for storage and display, and indicated that a more modest expansion or rehabilitation might be sufficient. The park wishes to reconcile these studies and determine a direction for the project in a manner that respects the historic significance of the building, and is consistent with conceptual directions developed by the 2003 General Management Plan (GMP). Additional studies evaluating the Museum Building were conducted concurrent with this process, to inform the Denver Service Center (the Project Manager for the Museum rehabilitation project) and the GMP team and its consultants. A historic structure report (HSR) for the Museum Building was needed to document its existing features and physical evolution, and to determine its character- defining features. Historical Context Morristown NHP was established in 1933 as the nation’s first national historical park. The park commemorates the site of the encampments of the Continental army under General George Washington during the winters of 1777 and 1779- 1780. An important component of the original park was the Ford Mansion, which was used by General Washington as his headquarters during the winter of 1779- 1780. This building and its surrounding property had been owned and protected by the Washington Association of New Jersey since 1883, and the association donated the mansion property to the new park with the proviso that a fireproof museum- library would be constructed for its extensive Washingtoniana and Revolutionary War collection (previously housed in the mansion). Such a museum- library was constructed near the Ford Mansion in 1935- 1937 under the auspices of the Public Works Administration (PWA), a New Deal agency. Designed by the prominent architect John Russell Pope, it was imbued with Beaux Arts formalism and planning. Pope’s original design consisted of a central building flanked by two curved arcades terminating in end pavilions. The central building’s facade displayed direct architectural references to Mount Vernon, George Washington’s Virginia home; the arcades and pavilions were also inspired by Mount Vernon. However, due to land acquisition problems, only the central building was constructed, with plans to add the pavilions and arcades when the necessary 5 parcels had been obtained. The library that was to have occupied one of the pavilions was “temporarily” located in basement rooms of the building. In mid- 1950s the park received a donation of another significant Revolutionary- era archival collection, but with the proviso that the park erect a “suitable building” to house the collection within 10 years after the donor’s death in 1955. Since the necessary land to build the pavilions had still not been obtained, a library addition was constructed in 1957 at the original building’s northwest corner. In 1975 substantial interior alterations were made to the original building for the 1976 Bicentennial.

Museum Building, Morristown National Historical Park: Historic Structure Report, Volumes I and II

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