William Nathaniel Watson (1883 – 1933) moved from his home state of Virginia to Morristown, New Jersey at the turn of the 20th-century and found work as an ash collector, a job that he turned into a successful waste removal businesses and later expanded to trucking and real estate. Together, he and his wife Addie L. Daly (1882 – 1961) raised seven children: William Nathaniel, Jr.; Clara; Francis; John Morton; Hazel; Gertrude; and Evelyn, all of whom attended and graduated from Morristown High School.

William owned and operated William Watson and Sons, located a short distance from the couple’s home in Morristown near where Headquarters Plaza was eventually built. In his spare time, Mr. Watson founded the Morris County chapter of the NAACP, was a leader of the Colored Republican Club, president of the Booker T. Washington branch of the YMCA, and member of both the Elks and Union Baptist Church in Morristown.

Two of William’s sons, John and Francis, joined their father’s business after high school and would inherit it following his death in 1933. Many of Addie and William’s children studied for careers in education and medicine, with Evelyn becoming a teacher and Clara a registered nurse. William Nathaniel, Jr. studied dentistry but died shortly after fulfilling his World War II Army service, and while Francis initially pursued a career as a physician he ultimately joined his brother John to run the family business for forty years.

The 0.5 linear foot collection consists of obituaries and funeral programs, an account book from William Watson and Sons, and a number of diplomas, yearbooks, and reunion programs. It also contains a series of letters to Nannie Watson from her grandchildren and children. The papers include photographs of patriarch William N. Watson, Sr. and his son William, Jr., in addition to the former’s obituary that features his portrait. A small group of ephemera hint at some of the family’s charitable, religious, and social activities. An interview with Clara Watson Pinkman recorded in 1983, in which she discusses her family’s life in Morristown can be found here.

The Rockaway Valley Railroad spanned twenty-five miles from White House, New Jersey to Morristown and it operated between 1888 and 1913. The line was primarily built to deliver peach harvests to market from Morris County orchards located near the southern terminus. At peak harvest season, the Railroad shipped as many as seventy carloads of peaches per day.

The railroad’s designer lacked formal civil engineering training and chose to route the line through severe grade changes and curves that led some locals to refer to it as the “Rock-a-Bye-Baby”. Nevertheless, the line served a genuine need for the region’s farmers and the company endeared itself to residents by offering excursions from Morristown to the countryside and providing school children a shortcut on their walk to and from school.

A peach blight in 1904 killed many of the region’s peach trees and subsequent attempts to revamp the railroad’s business model were unsuccessful. By 1913, the business struggled to meet payroll and its final trip concluded on October 18, 1913. Morris County hikers can still traverse portions of the original RVRR route along stretches of Patriot’s Path near Morristown and the Rockabye Meadow Preserve in Peapack Gladstone.

Archivist Jeffrey Moy preserved, arranged, and described the collection. A finding aid to the records may be found here, and they are available for review in the History Center’s reading room during normal Library hours.

William and Nathan Brittin emigrated from England to Long Island in 1635 and later became farmers and innkeepers. Notably in 1670, Nathaniel was involved in negotiating the sale of Staten Island from the Lenape to English colonists . The history of their lineage from the 1600s through the early 1940s is outlined in the Brittin Family Genealogy Collection, which Assistant Archivist Katelyn Leffler recently processed.

The materials include letters, notebooks, genealogy charts, and manuscripts. Also of note are nineteenth century receipts for William and Abraham Brittin and L.H. Brittin’s incomplete autobiography draft. A finding aid to the collection can be found here, and the papers may be consulted in the History Center’s reading during normal Library hours.