Morristown And Morris Township Library

Mission Statement:
To Provide the Residents of Morristown and Morris Township with current reading materials, programs and materials for continuing education, self-improvement, enjoyment and information.

To Provide a Location for the dissemination of state and local documents, history and information pertinent to awareness of governmental, cultural, recreational and business activities in the local area and to preserve these records for future generations.

To Provide the Children of Morristown and Morris Township with recreational materials and information sources which will stimulate and help improve reading skills and encourage the formation of a well-rounded individual. To communicate and cooperate with the Morris School District and other area schools to encourage reading and to aid students in learning research skills which will be valuable to them in later life.

To Provide the Agencies, Organization, Clubs and Other Groups in town and township with information which will meet their current needs.

History

Library services have been available in Morristown since 1792. The first circulating library consisted of 97 members and 96 books. The Morristown Library Association was formed in 1812 and by the middle of the 19th century the library had grown to several thousand volumes. From 1875 to 1914 the Library was housed on South Street in the Morristown Library and Lyceum, an organization that officially incorporated in 1866.

Lyceum Library and Lyceum

Originally a stock corporation, the Lyceum became Morristown's first free library in 1906 and its collection grew from 8,000 books to over 30,000 when the building, and almost everything in it, was destroyed by fire in 1914.

A temporary library was soon opened in the old YMCA building on South Street. With money from both insurance and the sale of the land on which the Library and Lyceum stood, the property at the corner of Miller Road and South Street was purchased with the intention of building a new library building. In 1916, Grinnell Willis, Grinnell Willisa retired textile merchant who lived in Morristown since 1889, approached the Library Trustees and offered to pay the entire cost of a new fireproof building.

The new Library would be built in "grateful remembrance of the love and affection bestowed on his late wife by her friends and neighbors in Morristown." The day after Mr. Willis made his offer, an Act of Incorporation for the Morristown Library was filed. Its object was "to establish and maintain a free public library and reading rooms, to establish and maintain an art gallery and museum for the encouragement of arts and science, to establish and maintain a collection of books and documents of historic interest and to advance the literary and educational interests of the community." On December 14, 1917 the Library, with 8,000 volumes and a staff of four was opened to the public.

In 1929, with the collection now totalling 43,500 volumes, Mr. Willis funded the cost of an addition to the original 1917 building. This addition contained the Children's Wing. Grinnell Willis died in 1930, shortly before the new wing was completed. In his will he left the library an endowment of $200,000. 

The Library continued to grow and serve its public as an association library until 1965 when the residents of Morristown and Morris Township voted overwhelmingly to fund a Joint Free Public Library.

In 1987 the cornerstone was laid for an addition to the Library largely financed by Edythe and Dean Dowling, which became the Dowling Wing. In addition to the generosity of the Dowlings, many members of the community contributed to this addition which doubled the size of the Library. Also in the 1980's, the Library went online with an automated circulation system shared by the members of MAIN, the Morris Area Information Network.

In 2006 the latest addition of the Library was completed.