Acorn Hall House Museum

Acorn Hall is an 1853 Victorian Italianate mansion located in Morristown, New Jersey. It is on the National Register of Historic Places. It serves as the headquarters of the Morris County Historical Society, which operates Acorn Hall as a museum. Acorn Hall, named for the more-than-two-centuries-old oak formerly standing on its property, has served at the headquarters of the Morris County Historical Society since 1971, when it was gifted to the organization by Mary Crane Hone. Acorn Hall’s most outstanding feature is its authenticity. As numerous visiting art and architectural historians have commented, Acorn Hall represents an unusual opportunity to experience mid-Victorian splendor at its best. The house is furnished primarily with pieces from the Schermerhorn and Crane-Hone families, supplemented with significant objects from other prominent Morris County families. Carpeting, wall covering, and decorative paint techniques remain as they were in the nineteenth century. Currently there are seven period rooms on view, two rooms that serve as a changing exhibit gallery, and a charming gift shop. The house and grounds are on both the National and New Jersey State Registers of Historic Places. Acorn Hall is also part of the NJ Women’s History Trail, in recognition of the importance of the Crane and Hone women in both preservation and the women’s suffrage movement. The grounds are also connected to the Morris County Park Commission's Patriot’s Path system of trails. When Mary Crane Hone donated the house to the Morris County Historical Society in 1971, she was living out her views. “It’s high time for all of us interested in historic preservation to face up to the fact that the power and the purse are now in the hands of government – at whatever level – and we’ll just have to sully our dainty hands with the political approach if we seriously intend to save anything in this threatened Greater Metropolitan Area.” This beautifully maintained house is the legacy of her vision and her passion for preservation.