Place:Chatham, Morris, New Jersey, United States

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

'"The Chathams"' is a term used in reference to two shared services (a library and a regional school district) for two neighboring municipalities in Morris County, New Jersey – Chatham and Chatham Township. The two are separate municipalities, the first, a town that was settled in 1710 as a colonial English village in the Province of New Jersey, that in 1773 adopted a name change to "Chatham" and for which there are numerous references to this village as "Chatham, New Jersey" dating from that time.

The second, more southern, without a town center, and less densely populated, is the vestige of a regional government that was formed in 1806 as a township, a form of municipal government peculiar to the state of New Jersey, delineating a region including several communities that initially included the village dating from 1710 from which it took its name.

The newly established, post revolution, state of New Jersey went through several stages setting out how its local governments would be structured. A borough form would follow as a permitted government form and once boroughs were available, this township quickly lost all but one of the villages that had been drawn into it in 1806.

All except one of the villages included in the 1806 township governmental district seceded from it soon thereafter, when other forms of government became available to municipalities in the relatively new, post-revolution state of New Jersey, leaving only Green Village in an undefined rural district, traditionally referred to as "Chatham Township", that experienced extensive residential development only after 1960, when several farms and woodlands were sold off to developers. For several generations, the largest, the Schwartz Farm had produced dairy products that were sold in local stores and schools and that were delivered to homes on scheduled routes. Vegetable farms and flower nurseries were lost as post-war suburban development ensued in the township.

Two community services are shared by Chatham and Chatham Township: since 1974 they have shared library services and in 1986 a joint school district was created and extended to most portions of Chatham Township for all grades. Some portions of Chatham Township are provided federal post office services by the Chatham post office. Green Village, another early town like Chatham that dates to colonial times, remains partially in Chatham Township, and has a separate post office and zip code. The residents of Chatham receive door-to-door delivery of mail and its post office provides rural delivery using roadside mailboxes to the portions of Chatham Township not served by Green Village.

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