Our History
Based on the work of the late St. Mary's Abbey Archivist Father Benet Caffrey, O.S.B. (1931-2018), with additional research by Abbot Augustine Curley, O.S.B., Abbot of Newark Abbey (2022-present), and Father Michael Tidd, O.S.B. of St. Mary's Abbey.
The Morristown area, home of Delbarton, is an area rich in history. During the notorious winter of 1779–1780, the Continental Army made its winter quarters in Jockey Hollow, now part of the Morristown National Historical Park. The Park (once part of the Kountze estate, as noted below) is adjacent to what is now the grounds of St. Mary’s Abbey, home to the Abbey’s Benedictine monastic community and Delbarton School.¹
In 1841, Martin Luther Kountze (koontz) was born in Osnaburg, Ohio, one of seven sons and five daughters of German immigrants Christian and Margaret Kountze.² As his parents prospered in the New World, in 1857, young Luther went into banking in Omaha, Nebraska with his brothers Augustus and Herman. Together, they founded the Kountze Brothers Bank (later renamed First National Bank of Omaha in 1863).³ In November 1862, Luther arrived in Denver, Colorado, where he opened a branch of the family bank, adding his brother Charles as a partner in 1864.⁴ In June 1866, the Denver bank was converted by Luther and Charles into the Colorado National Bank.⁵
In 1869, Luther left the presidency of the Denver bank to his brother, Augustus, and moved to New York City to establish another branch of Kountze Brothers.⁶ In 1875, he married Annie Ward Parsons, a descendant of two patrician New York families, the Barclays and the Delanceys.⁷
Both economically and socially, Luther Kountze’s family prospered greatly in Gilded Age New York City. In the early 1880s, Kountze, like many other prominent New York families, established an estate in northern New Jersey.⁸ Beginning in 1881, Kountze amassed nearly five thousand acres of farmland in Morris and Somerset Counties, an estate that ultimately included what are now the grounds of St. Mary’s Abbey, Morristown National Historical Park (Jcokey Hollow), and Lewis Morris County Park.⁹
In 1883, in the northeast corner of his Morris County holdings, Kountze completed a large stone mansion as a summer retreat, and established a working farm with several outbuildings: a carriage house (destroyed by fire in 1947), stables, barns (one barn is today home to the current Buildings and Grounds Department), a creamery (used today as an employee residence), and a chicken house.¹⁰ Luther and Annie Kountze had four children: Barclay Ward, William Delancey, Helen Livingston, and Annie Ward. Borrowing a syllable from each of the first three children’s names, the estate was named Del-bar-ton.¹¹
Following Luther Kountze’s death from influenza on April 17, 1918, his heirs put the estate on the market. The family’s wealth had dramatically declined due to World War I, particularly as a result of the Kountze Brothers Bank’s heavy investment in German war bonds.¹² The family was eager to sell Delbarton in whole or in part, but for seven years, their efforts were frustratingly unsuccessful.
In 1920, part of the estate was sold but was later repossessed when the buyers failed to complete payment.¹³ A second attempted sale in 1924 to a New York developer, who planned to establish the “Mt. Rose Health Farm,” also fell through amid legal and financial complications.¹⁴ Frustrated in a planned sale for a second time, DeLancey Kountze, Luther Kountze's oldest surviving son and executor, was forced to repurchase Delbarton at a sheriff’s sale in 1925 for $10,000.¹⁵
At the same time that Luther Kountze’s heirs were unsuccessfully trying to sell his estate, the monks of St. Mary’s Abbey, then located in Newark, were seeking a suburban setting for two purposes: a house of studies for monks in formation and a boarding school to prepare boys for college.¹⁶
After considering several possible properties in northern New Jersey, in August 1925, the monks decided to purchase approximately four hundred acres of the Delbarton estate, including the mansion, farmland, and all the outbuildings, for $155,000 (about $2.84 million in 2025 dollars).¹⁷ The deed was transferred on September 22, 1925, with final payment made to DeLancey Kountze on December 1, 1925.¹⁸
Since the estate had not been well maintained in the seven years since Luther’s death, and because the mansion lacked central heating, about eighteen months of work were required to make it suitable for Benedictine life and study. A pioneer trio of monks (later joined by a fourth) was sent from Newark to bring the property into shape.¹⁹
On September 14, 1927, the first group of Benedictine professors and theological students moved into the mansion, now known as “Old Main,” and its surrounding outbuildings. The “St. Mary’s Abbey School of Theology” was founded, and the community became a priory dependent on the home Newark monastery.²⁰
Although the monks had intended from the outset of their acquisition of Delbarton to also establish a school for lay boarding and day students, this project would take fourteen more years to come to fruition. Despite an unsuccessful attempt at opening the school in 1931, with the creation of the Diocese of Paterson in 1937 separate from the Archdiocese of Newark, Abbot Patrick O’Brien, O.S.B., and the Newark monks were finally ready to open their new school in Morris Township.²¹
At long last, Delbarton School opened on September 11, 1939, with thirty-one students. Father Augustine Wirth, O.S.B., served as Headmaster, assisted by Fathers Claude Micik, O.S.B., and Julian Schorn, O.S.B.²² Eight boys graduated from the eighth grade in June 1940.
After only three years as Headmaster, Father Augustine returned to the physics classroom as a full-time teacher, and Father Stephen Findlay, O.S.B., succeeded as Headmaster in 1942 at the young age of thirty-one. Father Stephen would serve as Headmaster for 25 years, building the foundations of Delbarton School was we know it today.
Although the outbreak of World Way II slowed the initial plan to add high school grades, Father Stephen eventually began to do so beginning in 1944. The first high school commencement, with twelve graduates, took place in 1948.²³ Enrollment slowly increased after the war, though the school remained small and predominantly residential through the late 1950s. Most boarders were relatively local residents, and they frequently went home for the weekend after Saturday morning classes ended at noon.
As the high school developed, Father Stephen began to add to the School’s facilities. Initially, he led the construction of the St. Joseph Gymnasium after a 1947 fire destroyed the former estate carriage house, which had served as gymnasium and dormitory. At the dedication of the gymnasium, Father Stephen also gave the school its motto, Succisa Virescit (“cut down, it grows again”), taken from Monte Cassino Abbey in Italy.²⁴
The first purpose-built classroom building, Trinity Hall, then opened in 1959. With the suburban boom of the late 1950s and 1960s, enrollment rose above 300, most of them day students. After his 25 years of visionary and tireless leadership, Father Stephen retired in 1967 and became the school’s first Director of Development. To attract more boarders, in 1971, Schmeil-O’Brien Hall dormitory was dedicated, but boarding was already in decline as a part of Delbarton life.²⁵
In the 1970s, under the headship of Father Gerard Lair, O.S.B., student discipline shifted from the use of demerits and detentions to “discipline by conversation.” The School’s academic prestige grew, and enrollment slowly continued to increase. After many years of declining residential enrollment, in 1978 the monastic community voted to end new admissions to the boarding program.²⁶ The last boarders graduated in 1984.
Campus facilities expanded further in the 1980s and 1990s with the Lynch Athletic Center (1983), the Father Stephen Findlay Pavilion (1995), the Fine Arts Center (2006), and the Forty Acres and North Field complexes (2010).²⁷ Enrollment rose to approximately 640 students, and Delbarton alumni exceeded 5,500, many distinguished in service to the nation, the Church, and the community.
In 2006, Father Giles Hayes, O.S.B. ’56, a former headmaster, was elected the tenth Abbot of St. Mary’s Abbey, the first alumnus to hold that position.²⁸ In 2007, Brother Paul Diveny, O.S.B., became Headmaster, the first non-ordained monk to lead the school. He served until 2018, when Father Michael Tidd, O.S.B., was appointed Headmaster by Abbot Richard Cronin, O.S.B.²⁹
In May 2021, Delbarton opened St. Benedict Hall, which houses the Khubani Library, a guidance center, and classrooms. In May 2023, the Pizzo Family Field House at Regan Stadium was dedicated, with facilities for seven sports and amenities for the wider community.³⁰
From its beginning in 1939, Delbarton School was an unincorporated entity of The Order of St. Benedict of New Jersey, Inc., the civil corporation that operated both the School and St. Mary’s Abbey. All monks in solemn vows were the Corporate Members who governed the School. In light of the decreasing number of Benedictines working at Delbarton, and the overall diminishment in number of the monastic community, in 2011, the monastic community and the then-Lay Board of Trustees, the School’s advisory board, began examining a reorganization of the governance of Delbarton School.
The idea was to create a separate civil corporation for the School with Benedictine Corporate Members who would hold certain reserved powers of governance, but who would delegate all ordinary powers to a fiduciary Board of Trustees. The monastic community would continue to be the canonical sponsor of the School, thus ensuring its Catholic and Benedictine identity and mission.³¹
The initial effort to make this change in 2016 was unsuccessful, but after 13 ½ years, the monastic community approved the creation of the Delbarton School Corporation on March 31, 2025. On July 1, 2025, Delbarton School began a new era in governance as a separate civil corporation with a Board of Trustees, while remaining in union with the monastic community as one of the two expressions of Benedictine identity and mission that comprise St. Mary’s Abbey.
Notes
1. John T. Cunningham, This Is New Jersey (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1953), 77–80.
2. “Biographical Sketch of Luther Kountze,” in Alfred Sorenson, History of Omaha from the Pioneer Days to the Present Time (Omaha: National Printing Co., 1894), 257.
3. Ibid.
4. Rocky Mountain News (Denver, CO), November 29, 1862.
5. George E. Whitman, History of Colorado National Bank (Denver: Colorado National Bank, 1916), 14–16.
6. Sorenson, History of Omaha, 259.
7. “Wedding of Luther Kountze and Annie Ward Parsons,” New York Times, May 6, 1875.
8. Peter O. Wacker, Land and People: A Cultural Geography of Pre-Industrial New Jersey (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1975), 214.
9. Morristown National Historical Park archives, accession no. MNP-1883-04.
10. “Kountze Estate Buildings,” Morris County Heritage Commission Report, 1981.
11. Giles P. Hayes, O.S.B., Unto Another Generation: St. Mary’s Abbey/Delbarton, 1836–1990 (Newark: St. Mary’s Abbey, 2006), 97.
12. Madison Eagle (Madison, NJ), August 25, 1925; Bernardsville News (Bernardsville, NJ), February 7, 1924.
13. Madison Eagle, August 25, 1925.
14. Bernardsville News, February 7, 1924.
15. “Sheriff’s Sale of Delbarton Property,” Morris County Clerk’s Office, Deed Book L-29, Page 333, May 27, 1925.
16. Madison Eagle, August 25, 1925.
17. Atlantic City Press (Atlantic City, NJ), August 21, 1925; Morris County Clerk’s Office, Deed Book T-29, Page 323, December 5, 1925.
18. Ibid.
19. Hayes, “Fifty Years in Morristown: History of St. Mary’s Abbey,” Delbarton 1, no. 2 (1964): 7.
20. Hayes, Unto Another Generation, 108.
21. Ibid., 113.
22. Paterson Evening News (Paterson, NJ), August 19, 1939; Morristown Daily Record (Morristown, NJ), September 9, 1939.
23. Hayes, Unto Another Generation, 121.
24. Ibid., 126–28.
25. Ibid., 135.
26. Ibid., 140–42.
27. Delbarton School, Annual Report of Giving (2010).
28. Hayes, Unto Another Generation, 201.
29. Delbarton School Archives, “Headmasters of Delbarton School” (Morristown, NJ, 2018).
30. Delbarton School, “Campus Projects: St. Benedict Hall and Pizzo Family Field House,” press releases, 2021–2023.
31. Delbarton School Corporation, Articles of Incorporation (filed April 28, 2025).