The Great Swamp Watershed Association lists its office at 568 Tempe Wick Road, Morristown. The building sits in Harding Township. The same goes for the association's 73-acre Conservation Management Area at 1 Tiger Lily Lane, which GSWA's own page places in Harding. The event pages show a Morristown address on many of the outings in this calendar, but most of them happen inside the township.
That matters for planning the weeks between now and the solstice. Harding has no downtown strip, so its season runs through two places. One is Kemmerer Library at 19 Blue Mill Road. The other is the stretch of preserved land between Jockey Hollow and the Great Swamp. From November 7 to the winter solstice, nearly every dated event worth circling falls at one of those two.
The Map Behind the Mailing Address
Harding's Master Plan says that large parts of both Morristown National Historical Park and the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge lie within the township. Jockey Hollow sits to the north, and the Great Swamp covers the southern third. The plan was adopted in 2008. Its description of where the park and refuge sit is the kind of fact that holds steady.
So a year-end hike "at Jockey Hollow" and a cleanup morning "on Tiger Lily Lane" sit at opposite ends of the same town. The library on Blue Mill Road sits between them. Taken together, those three points cover the whole calendar below.
November at 19 Blue Mill Road
Kemmerer's adult calendar for November mixes history talks with evening lectures, and several of them run online. In-person programs meet at the library. Virtual ones mean a 7 p.m. start without leaving the house.
| Date | Program | Format |
|---|---|---|
| Saturday, Nov. 7, 11 a.m. | Revolutionary Roots: Betsy Ross | At 19 Blue Mill Road |
| Thursday, Nov. 12, 7 p.m. | The Yellow Brick Road to Populism | At 19 Blue Mill Road |
| Tuesday, Nov. 17, 7 p.m. | Picturing the People: The Life and Works of Norman Rockwell | At 19 Blue Mill Road |
| Thursday, Nov. 19, 7 p.m. | Rebecca Roanhorse author event | Virtual |
| Monday, Nov. 23, 7 p.m. | John Singer Sargent lecture | Virtual |
| Thursday, Dec. 3, 7 p.m. | Helen Scheuerer author event | Virtual |
The Betsy Ross talk fits the place. Jockey Hollow, at the other end of the township, is where Revolutionary War history is part of the scenery, and a Saturday-morning session on the period sits a short drive from it. The Rockwell and Sargent lectures cover American art, and the two author evenings carry the calendar into December.
The library also works directly with the land side of the township. In late October, Kemmerer and the Harding Land Trust co-hosted a children's photography reception at Blue Mill Road.
The Great Swamp Watershed Association's Calendar, in Order
GSWA runs the outdoor half, and its schedule reads as a series. Each outing builds toward the last one of the year. Registration is required for most of them, and each event page carries its own cutoff.
- Veterans Day paddles, Wednesday, Nov. 11. Two sessions, noon to 2 p.m. and 3 to 5 p.m., at Great Piece Meadows, 2 Camp Lane, Fairfield. This is the one outing on the list that leaves the area. Spots are limited, and participants must be able to swim.
- Community Cleanup Day, Saturday, Nov. 14, 10 a.m. to noon. This one is at the Conservation Management Area on Tiger Lily Lane, inside Harding. GSWA describes the work as mulching and edging trails, hauling out old boardwalk lumber and tidying the seating areas to get the 73-acre wetlands reserve ready for winter. Tools are provided, and volunteers can stay as long as they like. Registration closes Nov. 13 at 3 p.m.
- Sustainable holiday crafts, Wednesday, Dec. 2. Two sessions, 5 to 6:30 p.m. and 7 to 8:30 p.m., at GSWA headquarters, 568 Tempe Wick Road.
- Winter Solstice Hike, Monday, Dec. 21, 5:30 to 7 p.m. It starts at the Jockey Hollow Visitor Center.
The November cleanup links the fall and winter halves of this calendar. The trails mulched and edged on Nov. 14 are the boardwalks and flat paths GSWA uses for its evening walks. The October Hunter's Moon Hike covered two to three miles on that terrain. A Saturday morning on Tiger Lily Lane is the upkeep behind the walks residents sign up for later in the season.
Thanksgiving Week Runs on Farm-Market Hours
The holidays add one practical item that is easy to get wrong. Wightman Farms runs a Morris County farm market open daily from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. in season. Its fall festival runs Fridays from noon to 5 p.m. and weekends from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., with last tickets at 4:30. The holiday schedule is shorter:
- Thanksgiving Day: 8 a.m. to noon
- Christmas Eve: 8 a.m. to noon
- Christmas Day and the day after Christmas: closed
- New Year's Eve: 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Winter hours begin Jan. 2 and run through March 14, 2027. The farm's posted pages carry no publication date, so check the holiday hours page before a Thanksgiving-morning run.
Thanksgiving morning is the one farm stop that falls inside this calendar. The township's outdoor season wraps up a few days before the Christmas Eve hours start.
December 21, at the North End of Town
The season closes at Jockey Hollow on the shortest day of the year. GSWA's solstice hike is a night walk through the park. Afterward the group warms up with hot mulled cider and snacks. The association asks hikers to dress for the weather and wear warm socks. Registration ends Dec. 18 at 3 p.m., and cancellations made less than 48 hours ahead are not refunded except for a health emergency.
For directions, the National Park Service lists the Jockey Hollow Visitor Center at 586 Tempe Wick Road. That is a short stretch up the road from GSWA's headquarters at 568, where the Dec. 2 craft sessions meet. The two December evenings happen nearly next door to each other.
November opens at the library on Blue Mill Road. Mid-month moves to the wetlands on Tiger Lily Lane in the Great Swamp, which covers Harding's southern third. December ends on Tempe Wick Road at Jockey Hollow in the north. Every stop falls on land the Master Plan counts as Harding's own or at the library in between, and only the Veterans Day paddle in Fairfield leaves town.
A few registration deadlines are easy to miss. The cleanup closes Nov. 13, the solstice hike closes Dec. 18, and the paddles have limited spots. GSWA's event pages list the month and day without a year, so register through each page linked above to confirm the 2026 session.
If a move from Harding to the Hudson River waterfront is somewhere on next year's calendar, Scott Waldman can map out the timing well before the solstice hike, so the details are set before the new year begins. Let's Connect.
