Whippany Farm

In the late eighteen hundreds, Morristown, New Jersey, was the summer retreat of some of America's wealthiest families, a period locals called the Golden Era. George Frelinghuysen, heir to one of New Jersey's most prominent political dynasties, built a Colonial Revival mansion here as his country estate, naming it Whippany Farm. The Frelinghuysen family had given the country senators, a Secretary of State, and a long tradition of civic leadership.

George's daughter Matilda inherited the estate and, rather than sell it for development, left the entire property to Morris County in nineteen sixty-nine, and it became an arboretum. Today the grounds preserve mature specimen trees and formal gardens within what is now Frelinghuysen Arboretum, a public green space in one of New Jersey's most densely settled counties, a lasting gift from a family that shaped the region for generations.