Morristown, NJ

Morristown was the military capital of the American Revolution. Twice George Washington wintered his army here — in 1777 after Trenton and Princeton, and again in 1779–80 at Jockey Hollow, through the coldest winter of the century, a trial crueller than Valley Forge; the Ford Mansion that served as his headquarters and the reconstructed soldiers' huts form Morristown National Historical Park, the first national historical park established in the United States. The town's second revolution was electric: at the Speedwell Ironworks on its edge, Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail gave the first public demonstration of the electromagnetic telegraph in 1838, the opening act of instant communication.

Modern Morristown wears its history around a working green, ringed by restaurants and the county courthouse, in the prosperous horse country of northern New Jersey; The Seeing Eye, the pioneering guide-dog school, has trained its teams on the town's streets since the 1930s, and puppies in training are part of the streetscape. Concert life centres on the Mayo Performing Arts Center, the restored 1937 theatre that now presents orchestras, opera and touring artists as the region's principal stage; the community and church halls of the source records share the calendar. Few American towns of forty thousand carry two revolutions so lightly.