The Spirit of 1776, penned in Parsippany.

Independence Day has always been one of my favorite holidays. No matter how you choose to enjoy it - a barbecue, a trip down the shore, fireworks or hearing a public reading of the Declaration of Independence - July 4 is a day to celebrate being free. What could be better than that?

Personally, I get myself in the celebratory mood a day or so in advance by watching the musical 1776 on DVD. A dramatic recounting of the months leading up to the signing of the Declaration, the movie (and the Broadway play before it) manages to do two very difficult things. First, it makes Congressional debate both interesting and entertaining, and second, it draws plausible suspense around an event we all know came to pass. Would the Continental Congress come to agreement on independence?

Given New Jersey's critical role in the American Revolution, I wasn't all that surprised to learn that 1776 was written in the state. The show's creator and songwriter, Sherman Edwards, lived in Parsippany, a few hundred yards from a road Continental soldiers trod in the midst of the war.

If anyone was going to make John Adams and Thomas Jefferson musical stars, Edwards seems to have been just the man to do it. Remember that teacher in high school who moonlighted doing something cool? Edwards was one of those guys. With a bachelor's degree in history from New York University, he taught for many years in the New York City school system, but he also had strong musical chops. By the age of 16 he was playing piano at jazz clubs, starting a professional career that led him to songwriting for stars of the day like Johnny Mathis and Patti Page. Extending to film, he wrote the score for five Elvis Presley movies.

It was 1776, however, that brought him to Broadway. He'd been researching the story and writing the songs for more than ten years when Peter Stone joined him in collaboration on the book. Together, they sought to provide a more or less accurate account of the work of the Continental Congress in the few months leading to the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

As Stone later told the New York Times, Edwards' characterizations and research were so meticulous that he (Stone) was able to use the songs to guide the dialogue, a reversal of the usual writing process for musicals. They modified events slightly for dramatic effect, and vastly reduced the number of congressional delegates for practical reasons. Nonetheless, the finished product adeptly conveys the challenges these very human men faced as they made history in an uncertain environment. Independence, the viewer senses, was not fait accompli. Rather, the declaration was a bold move by very human men with varying convictions, faults and doubts.

An ardent student of history, Edwards spent a great deal of time researching the Founding Fathers at the Morristown Joint Free Library. He cited the availability of source material that couldn't be found anywhere else, including letters from Abigail to John Adams, as one of the prime reasons why he depended on the local collection to inform his work. As for the music, neighbors at the time fondly recall hearing Edwards playing the piano as he composed.

The show premiered on Broadway in 1969 to critical praise, winning the Tony Award for best musical of the season. After a two year theatrical run, it was made into a movie starring many of the same performers from the Broadway run. Even now, more than 30 years after Edwards' death, 1776 is a popular choice for amateur and small local theater productions.

I guess you could say he's probably the most successful American history teacher ever. He made a historical event so interesting that students keep coming back for more!


A big thank you to Beth of Poor Henry's in Montville for letting us know about the Edwards/Parsippany connection! 

The surprise on the hill: Mt. Tabor's Camp Meeting past

Road tripping can take various forms, depending on what you want to find and what kind of hassles you hope to avoid. On a recent trip, we decided to avoid major highways as much as possible, preferring to take our chances on the one- and two-lane roads in Morris County. We figured that what we'd lose in speed, we'd gain in sightings.

The temperature, however, wasn't helping. A several days-long cold snap had frozen most of the lakes and waterways we passed, leaving them bereft of ducks. This obviously wasn't going to be a big birding day.

After a bit, we found ourselves on State Route 53, driving alongside a big hill in Parsippany. We were about to pass without stopping, until Ivan noticed a red county historical marker and an archway that spelled out "Mount Tabor" over an entrance road. Okay, this needs to be checked out. We found the first available road up the hill, passing a Methodist church and a host of tiny brightly-colored Victorian-style cottages. While the streets were too narrow to accommodate parking, we found a more open, town square-type area where there was space next to what appeared to be a public structure, also impeccably painted.

How did I not know about this place, which was clearly a well-tended blast from the past?

The street names gave me a clue of what we'd stumbled upon: Asbury, Pitman, Wesley. Just when I thought I had a decent handle on the Methodist Camp Meeting communities around the state, here's another one. The best known, of course, is Ocean Grove, but we'd already found evidence of gatherings at National Park and Pitman Grove on previous jaunts. Starting in the 1860s, these camps were established in then-idyllic areas to provide worshippers with a peaceful, pleasant setting in which to get closer to their maker during a week or two each summer.

Mount Tabor was founded in 1869, about the same time as Ocean Grove, and three octagonal buildings were erected as worship space around the centrally-located Trinity Park. Nearby Tabor Lake and wooded glens offered places to stroll and enjoy nature with friends and family, far from the cities where most of the attendees lived.

As Ocean Grove summer residents still do, Mount Tabor attendees originally erected tents on small lots rented from the local Camp Meeting Association. Over time, though, the more moneyed members of the summer community started building cottages on the 16 by 32 foot lots, ensuring that their time in the countryside was as comfortable as possible. One of the CMA trustees later built a hotel to accommodate those who lacked cottages but still didn't want to live in tents. Eventually, over 200 structures were built for summer residents.

Like other camp meetings over the years, Mount Tabor's grew dramatically and eventually diminished to a smaller community of permanent residents. Cottage owners entered into 99-year and then perpetual leases for the land beneath their homes, with the current rent ranging from two to four dollars a year depending on the size of the lot. During the Great Depression, more people began to winterize their houses for year-round use, as many chose to leave their year-round dwellings for their smaller, more economical Tabor cottages. Streets were paved in the 1940s, and a new Methodist church was built with the help of members and non-members alike. Notably, the congregants decided to place their new house of worship away from the center of the community as a gesture to welcome worshippers from outside Tabor.

Today, that church is the only official representation of Methodism on Mount Tabor, as the community is largely secular and now part of surrounding Parsippany-Troy Hills. The Camp Meeting Association still exists as a homeowners association, with offices in the building that also houses the fire department and post office. That said, residents are as close-knit as ever, celebrating their heritage with the traditional Children's Day and annual house tours in addition to other activities. The local historical society is working to have Mount Tabor listed on the National and State Registers of Historic Places, further raising its stature among those districts worthy of note and preservation.

As you walk around Mount Tabor, you can't help but think that this is the kind of community that developers strive for and fail to create when they build developments on old farmland or clear-cut woods. There's a sense of closeness and belonging that has to be nurtured over time, based on a mutual desire for something good. You can't just manufacture that from whole cloth.