Conceived during the railroad building craze of the late 19th century, the Rockaway Valley Railroad (RVRR) was a short line that connected White House, New Jersey to Morristown about twenty-five miles away. The line was primarily designed to transport peach harvests from rural orchards near the southern terminus to urban markets. At the peak of harvest season, it shipped as many as seventy carloads of peaches per day. Farmers no longer had to drive all night by wagon to Newark in order to sell their produce at the Commerce Street Market the next morning; the railroad meant more time for liesure and for making out of state business contacts to better market their crops.

By the time the Rockaway Valley line was built in 1892, railroads had transported people and goods through Morris County for over five decades. However, the promise of generating huge profits by quickly moving large volumes of goods vast distances resulted in the proliferation of rail lines with poor long term viability, including the Rockaway Valley Railroad. Nevertheless, Chief Engineer John Melick discounted studies from competing railroads and believed he could build the line for less than the $27,000 per mile required to make it profitable.

By 1888, Melick had raised enough capital from stock sales to complete construction of the initial four mile run, which indeed cost a mere $15,000 per mile. Operations began that year and turned a minor profit even as plans resumed on more challenging sections of the line that ultimately connected White House to Watnong, New Jersey in 1892.

Despite Melick's sales and marketing acumen, he lacked formal civil engineering training and the railroad was poorly constructed; some stretches traversed severe grade changes and curves that led some to refer to it as the "Rock-a-Bye-Baby". Regardless, the route served a genuine need of the region's orchard farmers to quickly bring their produce to market, and the company retained a homestyle character that endeared it to local residents -- such as offering scenic excursions from Morristown into the countryside, giving school children a shortcut on their walk to and from school, and providing free freight service to cover the final two miles into Morristown from the Watnong depot.

Years of abundant peach harvests kept Melick's railroad operating and the addition of passenger service provided much needed revenue in the off season. Attempts to entice the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad into a deal that would connect with RVRR via an extension at Mendham fell through, and this final stretch to the Watnong depot was more problematic than prior stretches, especially during poor weather when under-engineered sections through swampland caused flooding and grading problems. Speed limits were lowered to prevent derailments, which did not greatly affect the schedules of either the peach crops or local commuters. Nevertheless, the operational and maintenance difficulties that resulted were poor harbingers of plans to build further extensions to Morristown, Greystone, and even Montclair, and attempts to complete the line past the Speedwell hills was ultimately abandoned in 1912.

The 1904 peach blight killed many of the region's trees and created a systemic revenue crisis. Later that year, the RVRR was renamed as the New Jersey and Pennsylvania Railroad and refocused its business model on hauling freight for local merchants and passenger service for the White House to Morristown line. By 1912, the financial outlook was exceedingly dim and by October of 1913 the railroad could no longer meet payroll. All remaining freight cars were returned to White House and passenger cars moved to side tracks before its thirty employees were laid off on October 18, 1913. Several attempts were made to revive the RVRR by competitors, but increased use of motor vehicles for shipping, the company's lingering debt service, and engineering challenges inherent to rebuilding entire sections of degraded track proved insurmountable.

In 1917, the remaining sections of track were removed and sold as scrap by its final owner, Frank B. Allen, since iron shortages resulting from World War I made the materials extraordinarily valuable. The sale produced some of the railroad's highest profits even as it erased the company's physical footprint. As of this writing, the right of way remains and Morris County hikers can still traverse the original route of the Rockaway Valley Railroad along stretches of Patriot's Path near Morristown and the Rockabye Meadow Preserve in Peapack Gladstone.