Historic Happenings Blog

Saturday, November 2   - Somerville, Somerset County Rutgers Football and the Old Dutch Parsonage Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey is the birthplace of college football and the Old Dutch Parsonage is the birthplace of Rutgers. Long before Rutgers and Princeton met in the first college football game they already shared a deep history rooted in New Jersey and the American Revolution. Before rooting for the Scarlet Knights on Saturday, join us for talk and tailgate to learn about the revolutionary rivalry shared between New Jersey’s colonial colleges. #CFB150 * Open House at the Old Dutch Parsonage 10:00 am - 1:00 pm * Historical Talk at 11:00 am * Historic Bake Oven Demonstration * Bring Your Own Picnic Lunch to Enjoy on the Grounds * Wear Scarlet Knights or your own Sports or School Fan Gear Admission is FREE. The parking lot entrance and interpretive center for the site is located at 71 Somerset Street, Somerville, NJ. For directions and more information about the site, ...

Cleaning Historic Interiors on a Budget for Beginners Historic Preservation at MARCH What : Is your historic house museum dusty? Are you unsure about the best way to dust and vacuum regularly on a budget? In this hands-on workshop, participants will learn about the principles behind why and how you should dust historic buildings regularly and the kind of procedures you can put in place to make sure this important preservation task doesn’t fall by the wayside! On day 1 of the workshop, participants will have the opportunity apply what they learn to a historic room inside the Hunterdon County Courthouse. On day 2, participants will have a chance to discuss their plans for putting a regular cleaning schedule in place at their historic site. Who should register? : This workshop is designed for volunteers, staff, board members, or others who work directly with the care of historic domestic interiors in a house museum setting. Participants are expected to participate in both days of the work...

Thursday, May 2 – Hunterdon County Ghosts of Central Jersey    Author and singer/songwriter Gordon Thomas Ward will relate tales about  Ghosts of Central Jersey  on Thursday, May 2 at Rutgers’ Snyder Research Farm, 140 Locust Grove Road, Pittstown, NJ. The hourlong program sponsored by Rural Awareness, Inc. is free and starts at 7:30 pm. No reservations are required.     Attendees should note this different location from Rural Awareness talks last year. Ward has 40+ years of experience in the field of paranormal investigation and meanders between the worlds of ghosts, God, history, art, and adventure in a talk layered with a richness of factual history and sound investigation of ghostly phenomena. Ward’s open-minded enthusiasm and level-headed approach to the subject informs, entertains, and leads the audience to places where the past is considered to be very much alive and entwined with the present. Call 908.735.4271 with questions.

Register now for the Metlar-Bodine Spring Spotlight Event listed below.  For reservations and payment:  http://goo.gl/knptsx

Tuesday, February 19 – Middlesex County New Jersey Diner History Program February 19 in New Brunswick     Garden State author Michael C. Gabriele will present a program on “The History of Diners in New Jersey”  on Tuesday, February 19 at the Remigio U. Pane Room, located on the first floor of the Alexander Library at 169 College Avenue in New Brunswick. The program will begin at 4 p.m. Admission is free, and the public is cordially invited to attend.     New Jersey is universally recognized as the “Diner Capital of the World.” Friendly, familiar beacons on the Garden State’s highways, byways and downtown business districts, diners play an important role in New Jersey’s culture, commerce, mythology, and community life, and serve as the ultimate egalitarian dining experience.      Gabriele’s program complements the exhibit From Cooking Pot to Melting Pot: New Jersey’s Diverse Foodways , which opened last November and will be on d...

Tuesday, February 5 – Middlesex County    The New Jersey Studies Academic Alliance ( www.njsaa.org ) welcomes  Carla Cielo who will speak on "Domestic Outbuildings of Northwest Central New Jersey."  The talk will begin at 4:15 pm in the Pane Room, first floor of Alexander Library (around the corner past the circulation desk), Rutgers University, 169 College Avenue, New Brunswick. Free and open to the public.      Domestic outbuildings were historically built for tasks deemed inappropriate for a dwelling and include the root cellar, smokehouse, outkitchen, springhouse, milkhouse, washhouse, icehouse, pump-house, dryhouse and bakehouse.  They were often purposefully designed to combine two or more functions in separate dedicated spaces. Carla Cielo has documented over 60 domestic outbuildings since 2006. In her talk, she will identify and illustrate over 20 different combination plan types built in northwest central New Jersey. She will al...

2018 Annual Meeting + Featured Presentation Saturday, December 8, 2018 at 10:30 AM – 1 PM 1 69 College Ave, New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1163 The Genealogical Society of New Jersey 2018 Annual Meeting Saturday, December 8th, 2018 Pane Room, Archibald S. Alexander Library, Rutgers University 169 College Avenue, New Brunswick, NJ 08901 FEATURE PRESENTATION Researching 20th Century New Jersey Families Presentation by Melissa A. Johnson, CG®, of Johnson Genealogy Services, LLC Learn about resources and strategies for tracing ancestors and families who lived in New Jersey during the twentieth century. City directories, newspapers, maps, wills, deeds, vital records, military records, court records, naturalizations, state census records, and numerous other sources will be covered. —Free and Open to the Public — After the Annual Meeting and presentation, Rutgers Special Collection and University Archives, where GSNJ's collections are on deposit will be open for research. This collection offers ...