Editing Chatham Borough, New Jersey (section)

=== Partition of the Chathams ===
After the Revolutionary War was over in 1783, establishment of new forms of government began. On February 12, 1806, the village of Chatham became part of Chatham Township with a township form of government that shared the village's name and included several other area communities and a large amount of unsettled land. However, "[i]n 1892 Chatham Village found itself at odds with the rest of the township. Although village residents paid 40 percent of the township taxes, they got only 7 percent of the receipts in services. The village had to raise its own money to install kerosene street lamps and its roads were in poor repair. As a result, the village voted on August 9, 1892, to secede from governance by the township."<ref name=Thinking>Cheslow, Jerry. [https://www.nytimes.com/1994/04/17/realestate/if-you-re-thinking-of-living-in-chatham-rich-past-bustling-but-homey-present.html "If You're Thinking of Living In/Chatham; Rich Past, Bustling but Homey Present"], ''[[The New York Times]]'', April 17, 1994. Accessed March 21, 2012.</ref>

Ten days later, on August 19, 1892, the citizens of Chatham reincorporated with another type of village government then offered as an alternative within townships by the new state. The evolving state regulations regarding governance structure soon began to offer a borough form for governance. Chatham adopted that new government form and the village reincorporated for governance as a [[borough (New Jersey)|borough]] by an act of the [[New Jersey Legislature]] on March 1, 1897, with complete independence from Chatham Township.<ref name=Story/>

Most of the colonial settlements that had been part of Chatham Township abandoned its governance as soon as new forms of government became available to them during this evolution of new state regulations. Green Village being the exception, each of the settlements withdrew from governance by the township and Chatham Township was left to govern mostly unsettled lands.{{cn|date=April 2025}}

In 1910, the borough boundaries expanded when Chatham acquired a slice of Florham Park.<ref name=Story/> The local form of government and the boundaries of the borough have remained the same since that acquisition, encompassing about {{convert|2.4|sqmi|km2}}.