InMendham.com

The History of Mendham
The Story
The People
The Buildings

Historical Overview @mendhamtownship.org
Mendham Borough Historical Society
Morris County Historical Society

History in Preziosi Postcards

Coldwell Banker--Magazine/Storys
Coldwell Banker--1961 Bank Robbery
Coldwell Banker--Town info/photos

The First people to occupy this watershed region were the Lenape Indians--one of the many sub-tribes of the great Algonquin Nation. This area was called roxiticus by the Indians. The word means "a meeting place." Later, Roxiticus was used to designate the two white settlements Black Horse and Wills Settlement, now known as Mendham and Ralston.

About 1700, what the Indians called succasunna (black stone) proved to be iron, and it lured people from Connecticut and Long Island. The first authentic settlement in this area was by an Englishman, James Wills, who in 1713 bought what is now known as Ralston. The family never made any real settlement and soon disposed of their holdings to various settlers.

In 1722 James Pitney, of Scottish-Irish descent, settled on what was known as Pitney Corner. In the 1740's the Byram family did much to make this early settlement a town. In 1742 Ebenezer Byram gave this settlement a center--The Black Horse Inn, a proud "Hilltop" church in 1745, and on March 29 1749, the name Mendham. Eliab Byram, son of Ebenezer Byram, was apparently the first Byram to discover this area. As a young graduate from Yale Divinity School, he traveled with David Brainard, an Indian missionary, who made frequent trips to Delaware and stopped here along the way. They would hold services when here and preached in a little log church. Byram was eventually asked to stay on as permanent pastor. At the same time, his father was apparently finding Puritan intolerance in Massachusetts, "intolerable," and prepared to move here by purchasing, in 1740, the small farm house that would become The Black Horse Inn. When Byram moved from Massachusetts he brought with him a band of hearty men and women of like mind. In 1744, Eliab Byram was officially ordained as the church's first pastor, and construction on the first of four "Hilltop" churches that would occupy the same location, originally chosen by Byram, was begun. Ebenezer Byram's will, recorded in 1753, speaks of his wife Hannah, six children, a granddaughter and two great-grandchildren...to be continued.


Name Mayor Town Council
E. W. Elliott 1906- 1917
G. S. DeGroot, M.D.
1906 - 1921
William N. Phoenix
1906 - 1913
George Delp
1906 - 1913
J. K. Burd
1906 - 1913
J. M. Hoffman
1906 - 1913
E. L. Garabrant
1906 - 1930
Dean Sage 1918 - 1922 1914 - 1917
J. Smith Gunther
1914 - 1934
Charles H. Day 1923 - 34 1917 - 1922
Frank Woodruff
1922
Frederick R. Guerin
1923 - 30
George S. Sutton
1923 - 30
William DeVore
1927 - 1938
Clarence McMurtry
1927 - 1936
Michael Coghlan 1937-38 1930 - 1936
Edward Talmage
1931 - 1934
Hugh M. Babbitt
1931 - 1939
Frank Freeman 1939 - 1940 1931 - 1938
William W. Cordingley 1935-1936 1941-1942
Richard Farrelly
1935 - 1939
Dore Apgar
1937
Benjamin Mosser
1937 - 1946
Walter Gunther
1938 - 1942
Ferdinand Jelke
1938 - 1942
James L. Bruff 1943 - 1946 1939 - 1942
Thomas A. Carton
1940 - 1946
Frank Prior
1940
Francis Prior
1941 - 1942
Willard Carley
1943 - 1946
Wiolliam Coghlan
1943 - 1946
Walter Rockafeller 1957 - 1960 1943 - 1946
Henry Landon
1943 - 1946
F. Clyde Bowers, M.D 1947 - 1950
Cyril H. Birch
1947 - 1950
Arthur Robinson
1947 - 1950
James Gunther
1947 - 1950*
David F. O'Keefe
1947 - 1950
Laurence M. Thompson 1951 - 1956
Edward Barnes
1951 - 52
Raymond Greenlaw
1951
Col. John W. Stutesman
1951
Robert McKean Thomas, Jr
1951 - 1956
John W. Dippel 1961 - 1964 1953 - 1960
Harold W. Traudt
1952 - 1964*
Henry Gette
1953 - 1956
William VonMeister
1952 - 1955*
Howard Dean
1957 - 1970
Andrew W. Fletcher 1965 - 1970 1955* - 1964
John Parrillo
1957 - 1960
Francis Hewens
1961 - 1964*
Phillip Parrillo
1961 - 1971+
John Dormer
1965 - 1971+
Robert Muir, Jr.
1964* - 1970*
Robert E. Mulcahy III 1971+ 1965- 1970
Vernon Garabrant
1965 - 1970
Philip R. Arvidson
1971+
Harold Ketchum
1971+
William Steelman
1971+
Ralph Williams
1971+