A Truly Capital Party This Weekend!

This Saturday, November 7, please join the I Am Trenton Community Foundation and other members of the Trenton 1784 Committee (visit their newly constructed website - still under construction - for more information) at a kick-off event to celebrate the 54 days in 1784 that Trenton was the Capital of the new nation. The party takes place from 6pm to 10pm at the NJ State Museum, 205 West State Street, Trenton, NJ.

Tickets $10 per person or $15 per couple, with children under 12 admitted free of charge.

You may purchase tickets at the door or online at www.IAmTrenton.org

Going out on a Limb

Have you been pondering your family tree lately? Unsure of how to get started? The Historical Society of Pennsylvania is offering a series of helpful and very affordable genealogy workshops this fall. A beginner workshop, only $15 for non-members of the Society, will provide novice genealogists with the tools you’ll need to begin your own family research. It will cover everything from how family interviews should be conducted, to what resources are available (including public records, federal and local repositories, historical societies, ancestral DNA testing, and genealogical databases) and how best to use them.

The workshop will be offered on two separate dates: Wednesday, October 28 at 6 pm and Friday, October 30, at noon at the HSP: 1300 Locust Street, Philadelphia, PA.

Instructor: Lee Arnold, family historian and director of the library and collections at HSP (who has been researching his own family since 1980). He received his masters in library and information science from the University of Wisconsin and his masters of liberal arts with a concentration in archives management from Temple University.

Upcoming workshops include information on tracing your Civil War ancestors. Cost includes a one-day admission to HSP's research library. To register online click here. Or call 215-732-6200 ext. 214 for more information.

Meet the Author, Meet Our History

pencil sketch of Mikvah Israel Synagoge design by Louis I. Kahn (MoMA collection)

On Tuesday, October 27th, at 5:30 pm author Susan Solomon will be at Labyrinth Books (122 Nassau Street, Princeton) to talk about her new book, “Louis Kahn's Jewish Architecture: Mikveh Israel and the Midcentury American Synagogue.”

Solomon’s earlier book, “Louis Kahn's Trenton Jewish Community Center,” and her ardent advocacy helped to preserve the Trenton Bath House, arguably one of Louis I. Kahn’s most seminal buildings. The Bath House, now on the National and NJ Registers of Historic Places, is located right here in Ewing, NJ. The County of Mercer’s Culture & Heritage Commission and Department of Planning recently launched an informational website on the Trenton Bath House that includes archival photographs, restoration plans, and information on Louis I. Kahn.

Solomon will talk about Kahn’s 1961 plans for the never-built Mikveh Israel synagogue, exploring the transformation of the American synagogue between 1955 and 1970, and looking at how Kahn struggled to “…reconcile his own profoundly spiritual aims for …modern architecture…"(Joseph Siry, Wesleyan University) with his distant relationship to Judaism as a non-practicing man of Estonian Jewish heritage.

La Belle Époque, NJ Style!

The Coach House on Lovers Lane - one of the "outbuildings" on the tour!

The Historical Society of Princeton holds its 8th annual Historical House Tour on Saturday, November 7, from 10am -4pm. This year features a terrific line-up of homes, including five that were originally outbuildings for Drumthwacket (the beautiful NJ Governor’s mansion!) at the turn of the 20th century.

Financier and Princeton University alum Moses Taylor Pyne had purchased Drumthwacket from Charles Smith Olden’s estate in 1893 and expanded the estate to more than 300 acres (including the entire area between Stockton St., Princeton Pike, Lover’s Lane and Quaker Road in Princeton). He created “…park-like landscaping, greenhouses, bridle paths, a dairy farm, and formal Italian gardens…” and commissioned the construction of fabulous buildings, including the Dairy, the Superintendent's House, the Greenhouse, the Coach House, the Garden House – all now privately owned homes which are included in this year’s House Tour. Tickets for the House Tour, a fundraiser for the Historical Society, are $35 per person. For tickets, Click Here .

The Historical Society also invites you to become a Docent for House Tour 2009! Click Here

House tour participants can also choose to lunch at Drumthwacket, the beautiful mansion that is the official residence of NJ's Governor. The boxed lunches, priced at $20.00, will be provided by Griggstown Quail Farm. Visitors that day can also opt to visit the building and gardens of Drumthwacket without the lunch (a rare Saturday opportununity!) for a $5.00 donation. Advanced registration is required for either the lunch or the visit. [Purchase of the Historical Society's house tour tickets are required in order to visit Drumthwacket on this day.] Click Here for information and the reservation form for the Drumthwacket lunch and open house or make reservations by phone at 609-683-0057.

Preserving the History Around Us

Do you live in a historic house, work in a historic property, own land near some of the County's many historic areas? On Wednesday, October 28, the D&R Greenway and the NJ Historic Trust
are offering a workshop “Easements, an Under-Utilized Tool for Protecting New Jersey’s Historic Resources” to share private-land protection options and strategies.

A 5-person panel of experts will discuss currently available tax and land-saving opportunities, particularly for historic properties. This event is open to all, with an emphasis on historic homeowners, municipalities, architects, attorneys, realtors, historic preservation specialists and historians. The keynote speaker is Paul Edmondson, Esq., Vice-President, Law and General Counsel, National Trust for Historic Preservation, who will discuss legal issues in the easement process, including IRS regulations. Other panelists are Susanne M. Curran, Curran Realty Advisors, John D. Snook, Senior Advisor, Brandywine Conservancy, Kate Marcopul, from the NJDEP Historic Preservation Office and Kevin Tremble, private homeowner who is donating a preservation easement.

The workshop is from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at D&R Greenway’s Johnson Education Center. Registration starts at 9:30 am. You must register in advance (by October 23) by contacting Mary Penney at the D&R Greenway: 609-924-4646, x. 127 / mpenney@drgreenway.org. The $25 fee is payable by credit card or a check made out to D&R Greenway. Lunch and registration refreshments are included. D&R Greenway is located at One Preservation Place, Princeton, just off of Rosedale Road. For directions go to www.drgreenway.org

Historic House Tour

Cadwalader Heights House Tour

This Saturday, September 26th, Noon to 5 p.m.

New this year: local restaurants featured in each house!

This year's proceeds will be shared with HomeFront.

Start point/registration: Cadwalader-Asbury United Methodist Church

900 Stuyvesant Avenue, Trenton (Get a Map - MapQuest)

Tickets: $20 in advance at www.cadwaladerheights.com or $25 the day of the tour

Start the Harvest Fest with Celtic Fun

Na’Bodach

Trent House

Outdoor Highland Concert Saturday, October 3rd, 2009

On the lawn of the 1719 William Trent House Museum, Trenton, NJ

2-4 pm

Featuring: Celtic band Na’Bodach

The 1719 William Trent House, once the summer home of Scotsman and Philadelphia merchant, William Trent, sits on a point (now behind the Hughes Justice Complex) that once commanded one of the area's best views of the Delaware River. This lovely venue, now owned and operated by the City of Trenton, boasts period furniture, a riotous garden and cutting edge interpretation of the first quarter of the 18th century

The concert showcases Na’Bodach, a high energy five-man Celtic band. Incorporating the traditions and culture of Scotland and Ireland into their music, Na’Bodach performs haunting ballads and lively jigs "...arranged in their own high octane compositions..." on traditional Celtic instruments."

Tickets: $20 for adults and $5 for children under 12.

For reservations call 609-989-0087 or purchase tickets at the gate. Check the Trent House website (link above) for directions.

Refreshments including beer, wine, cider, tea and snacks will be provided. Seating will be provided, or bring your own lawn chair. There is ample free parking and the site is wheelchair accessible from William Trent Place and the south parking lot.

Ribbon of Life - D&R Greenway

The D&R Greenway is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year with more than 200 properties preserved for posterity! You're invited to join the party on June 19th at the Opening Reception for the Ribbon of Life exhibit. It blends works by contemporary artists with vintage views of the canal culled from old post cards, prints, photographs. For more information, you can go to www.drgreenway.org or call them at 609-924-4646.

This show is funded, in part, by the Mercer County Cultural & Heritage Commission through a Mercer County History Regrant.

Fiber Arts from the Past

Art is all over -- and in my book, art takes a lot of different forms and shapes. The art of living, truly living, is just one example; and there's always room for checking in with our recent past for some examples of how to pursue that particular art a little more - well ----- artfully! This Sunday, June 14, folks in the Mercer County area can step back a couple of hundred years with a free visit to the Schenck House in Zaitz Park, 50 Southfield Rd., West Windsor, NJ. The house is open 1 to 4 p.m. for self-guided tours of this beautifully restored 1790-1830 farmhouse and its out-buildings. The museum rooms include an exhibit on West Windsor history and a special display of "Women's Handi-crafts" a fiber arts exhibit featuring quilts, weaving, tatting, crocheting and embroidery of all types. This is the last day of this show. Donations are always appreciated. For additional information contact Mary Schenck at 609-799-1230

And while we're talking history options, you history buffs may want to note down that New Jersey Day—an observance of New Jersey’s 345th founding as a British proprietary colony—is taking place at the State Museum, 205 West State Street, Trenton, on June 24 at 2:00 p.m.   It's free & open to the public.

Special tours will be offered of the State Museum, the State House, the State Archives, and the World War II memorial, outstanding students and teachers will be saluted for their achievements in the field of history, and two priceless historical documents will be on display:

• the June 24, 1664 royal grant that established New Jersey

• a rare, original copy of the Declaration of Independence printed July 4, 1776.

I also hear that there's going to be fife and drums (thanks to the Old Barracks Museum) and CAKE!

RSVP by calling 609-777-0881. For directions visit 

www.nj.gov/state/museum/index.htm or www.trentonparking.com