This robust Richardson Romanesque Revival-style building--one of the state's finer surviving examples of the style--originally housed the borough's James Library. The library was designed in a style reminiscent of ecclesiastical architecture of the period. Daniel Willis James, a local philanthropist, commissioned the granite building in 1900 and also donated the adjacent James Park. A stately and commanding structure in the Madison Commercial Historic District, the building has housed the Museum of Early Trades and Crafts since 1969.

The building's interior details have long been hidden behind museum exhibits. The 1996 Trust grant for interior restoration will help uncover the building's most dramatic architectural features--groined vaulting, decorative stained glass and stenciling, fireplaces, handsome light fixtures and intricate woodwork. The focus of the museum, which contains eighteenth and nineteenth-century artifacts, will expand as the architecture of the building itself is highlighted and used to explain New Jersey craftsmanship during that period. A 1992 Trust grant funded exterior restoration work.

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