In the summer of 1907, two sisters, Ching-ling Soong (15 years of age) and Mei-ling Soong (9 years of age) were brought by their aunt and uncle to attend and board at the Miss Clara Barton Potwin School in Summit.

Here in Summit we've had championship high school basketball teams several times throughout the 20th century. Many of these championship teams were the boys teams, although in the later years the girls teams had begun to establish a tradition of their own. Many people may think that girls high school varsity teams are a relatively recent innovation which came about as a result of the passage of Title IX in the last quarter of the 20th century (Title IX had mandated equal opportunities for girls and boys in interscholastic sports). However, a recent search of the files at the Carter House reveals that Summit High School had championship teams, girls championship teams, many, many years before Title IX was ever thought of.

During the heyday of prize fighting (back in the 1920s, the 1930s and even in the 1940s) there grew up an internationally known training camp for fighters. It was run by a woman in Chatham Township at 516 River Road and situated on a hilly thirty acres of farmland. The camp was simply known as Madame Bey's.

In the long history of the Summit Post Office there has been only one woman to hold the leadership position of postmistress, Bridget Lane serving two terms in the late 1800's. The Federal government established the post office in Summit on November 20, 1843, thereby unofficially recognizing Summit as a community although it was not to become one until 1869. Up to its establishment as a township, the area had been known informally as "The Summit" from 1810 on. The first postmaster had been William Littell, who operated the post office out of his store on Union Place.

The Summit Playhouse is the longest running community theatre in New Jersey and one of the oldest continuously operating community theaters in the United States, Although it is an amateur theatre it is described and known as a theatre with professional standards.

On Sunday afternoon, February 18, 1917 there was a memorial service at the Lyric Theatre in Summit for one of the community's foremost residents, Hamilton Wright Mabie. It was a widely attended service with international luminaries too numerous to fully mention in this short space.

Dr. John L. Meeker, a man who was born just after the Civil War, came back to Summit after service in World War I and served the community for nearly a half century. Early in his career he went about the city by horse and buggy, charged a dollar or two for a house visit and seventy-five cents for an office visit, eventually graduated to a gold Cadillac and became a beloved legend in his own city.

The next time you drive past Whittredge Avenue at the juncture of Summit Avenue you might think of Thomas Worthington Whittredge. His property and original home studio (later torn down and replaced by Whittredge Gardens and Worthington Court apartments in 1928) was where this important artist of the 19th century Hudson River School of painters lived for thirty years until 1910 just three months shy of his 90th birthday.

It was the spring of 1917 and, as war raged across Europe, the small town of Summit (population about 9,000) was feeling the surge of patriotism and pride. Soon many of its young men would be going to Europe to take their part in what was to be called The Great War.

Reverend Dr. Florence Spearing Randolph, pastor of Wallace Chapel A.M.E. Zion Church in Summit, New Jersey from 1925 -1946 was also a leader of the women's suffrage movement in New Jersey. She was recently included in an exhibit at the Morris County Historical Society. Her involvement in American religion, society and politics in the first half of the 20th century place her among the elite women in New Jersey and local Summit history.