History at Macculloch Hall Historical Museum does not begin with the stately Federal-style mansion that rises from Macculloch Avenue. It begins beneath it.
Step into the basement kitchen and the story of this remarkable Morristown property reaches back to around 1765. The stone walls are remnants of an earlier bank house built on property owned by John Doughty, a commander in George Washington’s army. When George and Louisa Macculloch later constructed their home here, the new residence was built above and around it.
“We showcase the kitchen during our online cooking demonstrations,” said Executive Director Kathleen Bartlett during a recent top-to-bottom tour. “It’s Pre-Revolutionary War and part of the house’s foundation.”
It is an appropriate place to begin because Macculloch Hall Historical Museum is not simply a collection of beautiful objects preserved behind glass. Nearly every room connects Morristown to a much larger American story.
George and Louisa Macculloch, British immigrants who arrived in America in 1806, purchased the property in 1810 and constructed their Federal-style brick mansion that same year. Five generations of the Macculloch-Miller-Post family would ultimately call it home.
Outside, another history has been taking root for more than two centuries.
The property, once a 26-acre working farm, now includes approximately two acres of historic gardens open to the public. Bartlett points out wisteria descended from a plant given to the Macculloch family by Commodore Matthew Perry in 1857.
“The first rose was planted in 1810; same for the roses,” she said. “We have George’s account book (1810-1856) and the original garden journal (1829-1856) that documented what was grown.”
He meticulously recorded planting and harvest dates, crop yields, weather, and farm life. In 1829, George documented growing “tomatas”—the first recorded cultivation of what would eventually become the Jersey Tomato.
Macculloch’s influence stretched well beyond his garden.
A businessman and visionary, he is remembered as the father of the Morris Canal, the extraordinary 102-mile waterway that eventually connected Phillipsburg to Jersey City and used an innovative system of locks and inclined planes to overcome New Jersey’s dramatic changes in elevation.
“The canal helped fuel New Jersey’s industrial growth,” Bartlett said.
Louisa Macculloch left her own legacy through work with the Female Charitable Society, an organization benefiting women and children. Her handwritten recipe book also survives today.
The house remained in the family until 1949, when it was sold to W. Parsons Todd, a businessman, philanthropist, and two-time mayor of Morristown. By then, the property needed considerable attention.
“He bought it for $10,000 and put $100,000 into it,” Bartlett said.
Todd never lived there—but his acquisition ultimately ensured Macculloch Hall’s survival. An avid collector, he filled the house with fine and decorative art, furnishings and historic objects. In 1950, Macculloch Hall was incorporated as a museum for the public benefit.
Among its greatest treasures is its extraordinary collection of works by Thomas Nast, the influential 19th-century political cartoonist who lived directly across Macculloch Avenue.
Today, Macculloch Hall holds the largest single collection of Nast’s original works in the United States, including drawings, sketches, paintings, printer’s proofs, correspondence and photographs.
Nast helped establish political imagery still recognizable today, including the Democratic donkey and Republican elephant, while his enormously popular Christmas illustrations helped shape the American visual conception of Santa Claus.
“As Morristown’s County Community Museum, we lean into the idea of being a community and a cultural space that brings people together,” Bartlett said. “History allows us to reflect and learn more about ourselves. It helps you understand.”
The museum’s Schoolroom Gallery recalls the boys’ boarding school that once operated there, while today serving as a gathering place for exhibitions, lectures, and performances. During the holidays, community traditions fill the house again. The Garden Club of Morristown has decorated Macculloch Hall for more than four decades.
And perhaps that is the magic of Macculloch Hall. There is always another story.
A chandelier leads to the Gilded Age. A kitchen leads to the Revolution. A garden journal leads to the Jersey Tomato. A political cartoon opens a conversation about democracy. One family home becomes a lens through which we can understand more than two centuries of American life.
But preserving it all requires something history books rarely discuss: money, time, and people willing to care.
The museum receives support from foundations and organizations, but members, individual donors, and volunteers remain essential.
“All money from membership goes to supporting the museum and programming,” Bartlett said. “Yet, income is not guaranteed.
In 2024 alone, more than 10,000 adults and children participated in Macculloch Hall programming. Donations help make possible exhibitions, lectures, tours, children’s art workshops and youth garden programs, while memberships help preserve the historic house, gardens, and collection.
It is easy to think of historic preservation as simply saving old things. Macculloch Hall makes a compelling case that it is much more than that.
Preservation protects the evidence of who came before us—their ambitions and accomplishments, but also their ordinary lives and ideas. It gives children the opportunity to stand inside a room rather than simply read about an era. It lets a handwritten garden journal reveal what a Morristown family planted nearly 200 years ago, and a political cartoon spark a conversation generations after the ink dried.
Macculloch Hall reminds us that history does not preserve itself. Someone must care for the house, conserve the artwork, tend the garden, catalog the archives, and tell the stories. Generation after generation, someone must decide those stories remain worth saving.
Supporting a local museum—whether by visiting, becoming a member, volunteering, attending a program, or donating—is one way to make that decision.
“If you can make history have a meaning in a person’s life, then they can really learn from it,” Hyman said.
Perhaps that is the greatest reason to keep places like Macculloch Hall alive. Local history is not merely about where we have been. It helps us understand where we are—and what we choose to carry forward.
https://maccullochhall.org/
“If you can make history have a meaning in a person’s life, then they can really learn from it.”
“As Morristown’s County Community Museum, we lean into the idea of being a space that brings people together,” Bartlett said. “History allows us to reflect and learn more about ourselves. It helps you understand.”