History in Chatham Township: Colony Association

This week for the View Finder column, Chatham Patch has teamed up with the Chatham Township Historical Society to bring you a little piece of history and tell you about the Chatham Colony Association.

The Chatham Colony Association was founded in 1924 as a socioeconomic experiment in communal living. Russian and other eastern European immigrants living in New York City wanted to pursue a natural environment with the freedom to live and think and educate their children outside of the metropolitan environment in the city.

Sufficient interest was garnered from advertising in the Jewish Daily Forward newspaper, and the Chatham Colony Association purchased approximately 100 acres of land in Chatham Township. A constitution was incorporated in 1924 with 70 members.

Members drew lots to determine individual acreage. They built a community house. They manually expanded the natural spring and stocked it with fresh fish. Later they drilled an artisan well, filled the pool and added chlorine in 1928 for the first Colony Pool. Also in 1928, the association sold a strip of land to Public Service Co. for a high tension line.

Toward the late 1960s membership in the Chatham Colony Association dwindled, and in 1969 Chatham Township purchased the pool area and the association closed. Land along Southern Boulevard was donated to the Long Hill Volunteer Fire Department for the construction of a firehouse.

In 1972, sculptor Ber Coffet’s land adjorning the Colony Pool was donated to Chatham Township in his name to be used for recreation, open space and park land. 

The Colony Pool and Tennis Club still operates as a municipal pool and tennis club for the residents of Chatham Township.