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is a town in Morris County, New Jersey, United States. As of the United States 2000 Census, the town population was 18,544. Its estimated population in 2004 was 18,842. It is the county seat of Morris County. Morristown became characterized as
The area was inhabited by Native Americans for more than 2,800 years prior to exploration by Europeans. The first European settlements in this portion of New Jersey were established by the Swedes and Dutch in the early 1600s where a significant trade in furs existed between the natives and the Europeans at temporary posts. It became part of the Dutch colony of
, but the English seized control of the region in 1664, which was granted to Sir George Carteret and John Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley of Stratton, as the
. In British colonial records, the first permanent European settlement at Morristown occurred in 1715, when a village was founded as
by migrants from New York and Connecticut. Morris County was created on March 15, 1739, from portions of Hunterdon County. The county was named for the popular Governor of the Province, Lewis Morris, who championed benefits for the colonists.
Following the American Revolution the former colony became the state of New Jersey and almost one hundred years after the American Revolution began, Morristown was incorporated as a town by an Act of the New Jersey Legislature on April 6, 1865, within Morris Township, and it was formally set off from the township in 1895.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 3.00 square miles (7.78 km
The word "Morristown" is sometimes confused, in conversation, with Moorestown, a township in southern New Jersey.