[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 11]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 15908]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




  HONORING THE 100TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE MORRISTOWN & MORRIS TOWNSHIP 
                      PUBLIC LIBRARY'S WILLIS WING

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                      HON. RODNEY P. FRELINGHUYSEN

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, October 12, 2017

  Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the Morristown 
& Morris Township Public Library's Willis Wing, located in Morristown, 
New Jersey on the occasion of its 100th Anniversary.
  Library services have been available in Morristown since 1792. The 
first circulating library consisted of 97 members and 96 books. The 
Morristown Library Association was formed in 1812 and by the middle of 
the 19th century the library had grown to several thousand volumes. 
From 1875 to 1914 the Library was housed on South Street in the 
Morristown Library and Lyceum, an organization that officially 
incorporated in 1866. Its collection grew from 8,000 books to over 
30,000 when the building, and almost everything in it, was destroyed by 
fire in 1914.
  A temporary library was soon opened in the old YMCA building on South 
Street. With money from both insurance and the sale of the land on 
which the Library and Lyceum stood, the property at the corner of 
Miller Road and South Street was purchased with the intention of 
building a new library building. In 1916, Grinnell Willis, a retired 
textile merchant who lived in Morristown since 1889, approached the 
Library Trustees and offered to pay the entire cost of a new fireproof 
building.
  The new Library would be built in ``grateful remembrance of the love 
and affection bestowed on his late wife by her friends and neighbors in 
Morristown.'' The day after Mr. Willis made his offer, an Act of 
Incorporation for the Morristown Library was filed. Its objective was 
``to establish and maintain a free public library and reading rooms, to 
establish and maintain an art gallery and museum for the encouragement 
of arts and science, to establish and maintain a collection of books 
and documents of historic interest and to advance the literary and 
educational interests of the community.'' On December 13, 1917 the 
Library, with 8,000 volumes and a staff of four was opened to the 
public.
  In 1929, with the collection now totaling 43,500 volumes, Mr. Willis 
funded the cost of an addition to the original 1917 building. This 
addition, which opened in 1930, contained the Children's Wing. Grinnell 
Willis died shortly after the new wing was completed. In his will he 
left the library an endowment of $200,000.
  The Library continued to grow and serve its public as an association 
library until 1966 when the residents of Morristown and Morris Township 
united in the support, maintenance, and control of a joint free public 
library.
  In 1987 the cornerstone was laid for an addition to the Library 
largely financed by Edythe and Dean Dowling, which became the Dowling 
Wing. In addition to the generosity of the Dowlings, many members of 
the community contributed to this addition which doubled the size of 
the Library. In 2006, the latest addition of the Library was completed.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask that you and our colleagues join me in 
congratulating the Morristown & Morris Township Public Library's Willis 
Wing, on the occasion of its Centennial Anniversary.

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