The Morris Museum is a small but exquisite and surprising museum located in Morristown, NJ, and is affiliated with the Smithsonian. Housed in a grand old mansion, it offers a compact and easy-to-navigate experience, comfortable to explore in two to four hours. The museum is known for its spectacular, extensive, and enchanting collection of antique mechanical musical instruments, automata, music boxes, player pianos, and other intricate machines, which are performed in live demonstrations. Exhibits are diverse and eclectic, ranging from fascinating local history and a small local history department to engaging science displays, a nice dinosaur wing, and geological rock specimens. There is a huge and fun model train setup, along with beautiful art collections featuring New Jersey artists, colorful sculpture exhibits, Oaxacan tapestry and weaving, and collections from Oceania. The museum includes a dedicated area for kids with interactive elements and hands-on activities, a gift shop, the Bickford Theater, and plenty of parking. It is described as weird, wonderful, thought-provoking, absolutely worth a visit, and highly recommended for all ages as a perfect quick and enriching outing.
Wow. 9 of us from age 7 to 70+ enjoyed the museum. So much to see and hear.
April 2026
I've been coming here since I was a child and now my kids love coming here. The Spark Lab is a great addition, I know it's not new but we didn't have it in my childhood visits. I love the rotating exhibits as well as the permanent ones.
March 2026
Great value. Kids are entertained for a few hours between the train and the sparklab. Ask for sparklab tickets when you get to the front desk. They will give you the passes for the next available time
