Day Trip Diary: Ford Mansion, Jockey Hollow and Wick Farm in Morristown

My favorite historian, David McCullough, when talking about lessons in history that high school students should learn before graduating,  said to learn history through other means than books and teachers. Learn history through music, plays, architecture and by doing drawings, he urges. "Bring them into the tent not just because of books and quotations and dates and boring. Don't do boring. Because it isn't boring. It's about human beings."  Also, "Take them to places where things happened."

 

It is hard to believe that as a life long New Jersey resident, I never had a school trip to Morristown to visit Washington's headquarters at Ford Mansion or any American Revolution sites for that matter. Mr. McCullough wants to plant the seed early to sprout a love of history, but it is never too late for a seed later in life. His advice I believe applies just as much to adults.

 

Steve and I had a renewed interest in George Washington and the story of the fight for independence when we caught a marathon of the AMC series, Turn,  based on Alexander Rose's book, Washington Spies: The Story of America's First Spy Ring. I eagerly anticipate the second season in 2015.  

  

Back to Morristown. It was a mere $4 per person fee to visit Ford Mansion. From my New Jersey Day Trips guide from my local library:

"The winter of 1779-1780 was the coldest in a century. On December 1, 1779, General George Washington entered Morristown and took up residence at the house of Mrs. Jacob Ford, Jr. Meanwhile, 4 miles away at Jockey Hollow, 10,000 men chopped down 600 acres of oak, walnut and chestnut trees to build hundreds of huts along the slopes of the "hollow." Severe snowstorms hindered their work and delayed the supply of meat and bread they needed to survive. Starvation confronted the army, which also suffered from inadequate clothing, disease and low morale. So terrible was the winter of the Morristown encampment that many troops finally mutinied. But history books only tell you about Valley Forge. Why? Because New Jersey has simply never had a very good public relations person."

I thought of the comfortable headquarters here, compared to the primitive conditions of the troops endured at Jockey Hollow.

 

 

 

 

Pots ready for hearth cooking, and behind them candle making equipment. I think of the labor needed to produce everything from food to light. 

 

 

In the museum, a display on the "Ascendancy of George Washington." How much do you know about our first president? I was a political science major, and know some but not as much as I would like. It seems people in our age of access to so much information are more well versed in the doings of the Kardashians or other "reality" personalities.

 

  

Gilbert Stuart, a sign noted, "painted three portraits of George Washington from life and as many as hundreds more likenesses copied from them. This portrait is a version of one called the Athenaeum portrait."

A marker, "Taste for Refinement," talked about "the smoother a dish, plate or teapot, the more desirable it was to the genteel class, who imported porcelain from England and the Far East. Crude earthenware was more common in  colonial homes, but as the 18th century progressed, porcelain and china became available and affordable."

 

Take a look at your plates at home. Where are they manufactured? So many dishes today will bear a "Made in China" logo. Many of ours do. Steve's mother said she has a set of China from her parents no one wants and I said we'd happily take them, but as she lives in Arizona we have yet to make arrangements. I'd love having dishes with a family history.

 

 

A marker calls attention to the art of writing, including letters, logs and diaries. Do you write letters or record thoughts in diaries? My heart is so happy when I get a letter from my pen pal, and I consider my blog to be a diary. A friend suggested I print it out for Grace to read one day, and I love that idea. The film "Nebraska" had me thinking about how much our parents, who are such great shapers of our lives, are such mysteries to us. I hope Grace will know more about me reading this blog one day, and the early adventures we took her on.

 

 

A letter with wax seal from 1845 from Dolly Madison to Reverend William Sprague.

 

 

Think of all the things we have in our homes for babies today. We've had to make room in ours for Grace's crib, bassinet, changing table, bouncy seat, swing, dresser for her clothes and other items. Never mind her toys, books and such! My car contains her car seat, a pram and stroller. I suspect our grandmothers did just fine without so many things (never mind how much money they did not have to spend).

 

A sign on "Infancy and Instruction" noted, "Parents of all social classes provided their children with cradles, and a few with baby bottles. Cradles protected them from their homes' chilly drafts. As children grew older, they learned reading and catechism from primer books." Here, a mahogany cradle from Philadelphia, circa 1730-1760.

 

 

The New England Primer. I think a lot about language, as Steve so poetically put it, which is alive and changing.

 

 

David McCullough talked about the dumbing down of language in history textbooks, and how J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series defied the conventional belief that modern children do not like to read, doing so without dumbing down the vocabulary in the slightest. A topic around our kitchen table has been the dumbing down of American society. We have all this knowledge at our fingertips, but it seems to be more about distraction instead of education, and far too much fluff. As for our claims of valuing "education," it seems at times our society values competitive sports more. Thoughts?

 

 

Off to the Jockey Hollow visitors' center, where you can view a recreated military hut interior.

 

 

 

I considered the harsh realities faced by the soldiers: severe cold unimaginable to us, extended separation from loved ones, the violence they witnessed, and starvation. How long could you survive without food? That day, I had apple cinnamon oatmeal and coffee for breakfast, a pumpkin yogurt parfait and pear as a midmorning snack, for lunch a hearty lentil vegetable soup, raspberry rose tea and then an apple as a snack. By the time we got to Jockey Hollow, we got two small bags of trail mix at the visitors center! I don't think I'd last very long. Never mind poor, poor me when I have to take the dogs outside for 10 minutes in the cold to return to my snug, warm home. History puts everything into perspective.

 

David McCullough thinks if the founding fathers were to come back today they would be amazed  that the constitution and form of government they put into place still exists, and with our dentistry, medicine, our capacity to build, the speed of communication and travel, but would be disappointed about the role of money in our political system and they would find us "soft." I agree.

 

With Grace in the car, we took turns walking up the hill to see the recreated soldiers huts. We both remarked on the sense of peace we felt here walking along the trail.

 

A marker at the bottom of the hill notes the contributions of the sons of Ireland. "Seven out of the eleven brigades at Jockey Hollow were commanded by generals born in Ireland or had Irish parents. It is estimated that one quarter of the entire Continental Army was from Ireland."

 

 

"Saint Patrick's Day was the one holiday General Washington granted in the army in Jockey Hollow during the hard winter in 1779-80. He hoped that by recognizing the Irish holiday that it might further political unrest in Ireland."

 

 

I could have lingered for a long time at the Wick Farm, but dusk was approaching and the air was growing chilly. A sign here notes of the farm's importance in sustaining Washington's army.

 

 

 

 

I just recently learned that pie plant is also the name for garden rhubarb.

 

 

This marker for borage notes it flavors drinks and reduces fever. We've advanced so far in medicine, but I think too have strayed from the knowledge of the healing powers in our gardens. It's easy to take a pill, but is that always the best solution?

 

 

The garden was getting ready for its winter slumber. I already so miss going out in the garden with the baby. I had ambitious hopes for a vegetable garden this year, but with a newborn to care for it never materialized and we just had herbs and flowers. We're a little worried about air quality issues by us with a garden since a nearby quarry often pollutes our air. Where to go to that's clean and safe?

 

 

 

 

The sign for the smokehouse notes, "The farmer packed meat such as fish, chicken, beef and pork in salt to season and preserve.

 

The meat was hung from the rafters, below on the dirt floor. A smoky fire was built using wet hickory wood and apple tree logs. After several days the smoked meats were taken down ready to eat or be stored away for winter meals."  Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote about her family smoking meat in the first chapter of Little House in the Big Woods, which was set a century after this time period. Fast forward about a century and a half later after that novel, think of how many advances we've made in not having to produce so much of our own food, yet also how far removed we are from where are food comes from. Both good and bad.

 

 

Do you know the source of your drinking water when you turn on the tap?  I think of how much bottled water is in our modern life, and all that plastic waste, so much not recycled. When I see this well, I think of Laura's chapter, "Fresh Water to Drink" in Little House on the Prairie in which she describes the laborious, dangerous process of building one and the rewarding results. "The water was clear and cold and good. Laura thought she had never tasted anything so good as those long, cold drinks of water. Pa hauled no more stale, warm water from the creek."

 

 

In our area, there is a multimillion-dollar plan to drain three reservoirs on Garret Mountain and replace them with concrete tanks.

Our local NorthJersey.com reported, "Adopted in 2006, LT2 is a rule that requires all utilities that store treated drinking water in open-air reservoirs to either cover those facilities or re-treat the water. The rule aims to protect water from fecal contamination by birds and wildlife." There are now it seems almost eleventh hour efforts to stop this project. Again, it seems how much we have advanced from with labor in getting water, but how little we think about this life-giving source we cook with, bath in, and lauder clothing in.

The rustic fence looks out onto the sleepy fields, with so many ghosts of the revolution. My visit here left me with so much to think about. You do not have to travel far or have a lot of money to have a rich and rewarding vacation. We had more to come...

 

We had a tired baby, so we ate at home. Inspired by the garden, an arugula, corn, pepper, tomato and cheese salad, on apple plates (thrifted from the Goodwill, and made in China, incidentally). I'm going to start using more of our blue and white antique dishes. Our vacation of day trips (often they were just afternoon trips) saved so much on dining and lodging. It's cosier in our own home with our dogs by our side anyway. There really is no place like home.

 

 

 

In Pursuit of Happiness and Betterment: A Visit to Historic Philadelphia

Think of the people that inspire you, and make you richer. Not in the monetary sense, but in the path for a more rewarding life. Surround yourself often and abundantly with these forces.

David McCullough is one of our national treasures. This great historian has an infectious love of seeking the past and his storytelling in his books, speeches and interviews never fails to inspire me. Out of anyone, he gets me the most excited about learning more about history. He reflects in this 60 Minutes interview,

"The only way to teach history, to write history, to bring people into the magic of transforming yourself into other times is through the vehicle of the story. It isn't just a chronology. It's about people. History is human. Jefferson when in the course of human events. Human is the operative word." See part one below of his tour in Philadelphia, and part two in Paris and in wonderment of the Brooklyn Bridge here.



For my November birthday this year, I asked my husband Steve if we could take a long planned but never materialized trip to visit historic sites in Philadelphia. We've managed to vacation abroad and in the American West, but sometimes planning a trip so close to home (less than two hours for us) took so long. Maybe because it's always there, seemingly so easy to get to. Or maybe I needed the perspective of storytellers and time to take this trip in its due course. Our journey was less than two full days, one night, but really it was hundreds of years in time.

"You understand those other times by being in the buildings, walking the streets, hearing the music and eating the food," says Mr. McCullough. When asked about the last presidential election, he bemoaned the unconscionable  amount of money being spent and despite all the words being produced, none of them memorable.

"We should demand more of them. We should get to be like people who go to the theatre all the time or go to symphony all the time and they know a punk performance when they see one and don't like it. That's the way we should be." We should demand more of them, but we should demand more of ourselves. To better ourselves. Part of this trip was about the pursuit of happiness, but my own course of personal betterment. Education is a lifelong process.

Carpenter's Hall, where delegates form the 13 colonies met for the first time in 1774 to air their grievances.

We couldn't visit the lending library in the 60 Minutes piece since it's not open for public viewing, but a page here showed us a photo of it. Mr. McCullough talked about Benjamin Franklin starting the nation's first lending library.

"At the very beginning comes the idea of learning, of books and ideas."

My friend, scientist and author J.J. Brown, was interviewed by daughter and actress Lillian Rodriguez about what she loves about libraries in front of the stunning Brooklyn Public Library.

"You can meet people that you've never met through their books. Cicero said that if you have a library and a garden you have everything you need. So if you have a pubic garden and a public library lots of people have everything they need." Authors are communicating years after they've left the physical world.

I think of the words of Rose Wilder Lane, daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder, both authors, "The longest lives are short. Our work lasts longer."



Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence and Constitution were debated and adopted. In the mood for a fairytale, I watched the Pixar film Brave, about a young princess named Merida in the Scottish Highlands who reminded her countrymen, "Our kingdom is young. Our stories are not yet legends." I think of the youth of our nation, and when these legendary figures decided our fate.

Listen closely. Can you hear the debates? Are you tuned into the debates and issues of our age? Are you a witness? Or an activist?

The Signer, in remembrance of those who signed their names to the Declaration of Independence and Constitution of the United States, forever changing the course of history.

The Liberty Bell. The crack seems almost fitting, since liberty at the start of our country wasn't equal for all.

Little Big Chief beside the bell at the Panama Pacific Exposition in 1915 in San Francisco. As the sign here reminds us, "Forced to choose between segregation and assimilation that insisted upon suppression of their unique cultural practices, Native Americans may not have seen the hope of fair treatment and equal rights embodied in the Bell."

A woman beside a replica of a bell in the fight for women's suffrage. I've written previously and still believe the culture now is a disappointment for women in terms of role models, who is getting the media spotlight on a daily basis, and the values that are promoted. After Miranda Lambert appeared on the country music awards after some weight loss (I thought she looked fine before), and the next day all the talk was about her slimmer frame and how she achieved it. Steve said, "See how quickly she's praised in the media." I'm so tired of these value being emphasized. How about emphasizing education?

"At no moment in history has a bright young girl with plenty of food and a good constitution perished from too much learning." - from Elizabeth Gilbert's The Signature of All Things.

One of my most memorable storytellers of 2013 was Gilbert's The Signature of All Things, a sweeping novel bout Alma Whittaker, a female botanist born in 1800 in Philadelphia. I thought of Elizabeth and Alma at once when I saw this poster for the Cornelius Varley exhibit at the American Philosophical Society Museum.


"Alma wished to devote even more time to the study of plants. She had bizarre fantasies. She wished that she lived in an army barrack of natural sciences, where she would be awoken at dawn by a bugle call and marched off in formation with other young naturalists, in uniforms, to labor all day in woods, streams, and laboratories. She wished that she lived in a botanical monastery or a botanical convent of sorts, surrounded by other devoted taxonomists, where no one interfered with another's studies, yet all shared their most exciting findings with each other. Even a botanical prison would be nice! (It did not occur to Alma that such places of intellectual asylum and walled isolation did exist in the world, to a point, and that they were called "universities." But little girls in 1810 did not dream of universities.")

"She also loved her microscope, which felt like a magical extension of her own right eye, enabling her to peer straight down the throat of the Creator Himself." - The Signature of All Things.

Benjamin Franklin writing in 1751 said the microscope, "has opened a world to us...a World utterly unknown to the ancients. There are very few substances in which it does not shew something curious and unexpected."

Off to the Betsy Ross House.

It's hard to conceptualize in our age of documenting so much digitally, but a sign revealed no one actually knows what Betsy Ross looked like. 

Not having money for luxuries such as sitting for a portrait, this image was painted by Charles Weisberger in 1892, decades after her death.

Betsy, I learned, was born at a farm in New Jersey on New Year's Day in 1752, the eighth of 17 children into a Quaker family. She was shunned for marrying outside her faith and was widowed three times, twice by the age of 30, her first husband dying while serving with a local militia, the second in an English prison after his ship was captured by the British. Two of her seven daughters died as infants, and her mother, father and sister died within days of each other during the Yellow Fever epidemic. Did you know the Yellow Fever outbreak in Philadelphia in 1793 was one of the worst epidemics in U.S. history? Nearly 5,000 people perished - 10 percent of the city's population, in three months. Recommended for readers young and old is Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson, a fictitious tale set during the fever. Learn more about the Free African Society, the city's coffeehouses, farmers' market, and historical figures of the day.

A "No Stamp Act" teapot. I caught a few episodes of the Sleepy Hollow television series, with Ichabod Crane transported from hundreds of years ago. Examining a receipt, he can't believe the taxes imposed and that no protests were happening against these levies. Maybe we're too distracted, I think intentionally, to protest as much as we should. I believe one of the strongest forms of protest is how you spend your dollars.

David McCullough champions the teaching of history and worries how historically illiterate we are. History puts everything into perspective for me.

An interactive kitchen invites children how to make a turkey pot pie as Betsy would (mine would be a vegetable pot pie). Cooking is another lost art.

An 18th Century garden getting ready for winter's slumber. A sign noted, "Neat pathways, geometric flowerbeds, small orchards, and gazebos are characteristics of early Philadelphia gardens."

My birthday dinner at City Tavern. A raspberry shrug (fruit sweetened vinegar with soda water) and a bread basket with Sally Lunn bread (chef Walter Staib described this in a video as an 18th century brioche), a bread with molasses, and Thomas Jefferson's sweet potato pecan biscuits (find a recipe and history for the biscuits here).

Creamed mushrooms on Sally Lunn bread. So comforting on a cold night.

Fried tofu over linguine and vegetables. On City Tavern's menu it notes, "In a 1770 letter to Philadelphia's John Bartram, Benjamin Franklin included instructions on how to make tofu."

Researching this post, I found a video Chef Staib preparing the mushroom toast and fried tofu. He said the tofu is one of his restaurants top sellers. I love the reaction of the host's first bite of the mushroom toast in using the word "earthiness."



The orange cake in the 60 Minutes piece isn't on the menu anymore, but fortunately Martha Washington's chocolate mousse cake is.

We stayed right across the street from City Tavern at the historic Thomas Bond House bed and breakfast.  A wine and cheese hour with local Pennsylvania wines.

Their inviting parlor.

Benjamin Franklin was an enthusiastic chess player, and a marker in a museum about him noted, "Franklin realized his passion for playing chess helped him be an effective colonial representative and later diplomat for the United States. Chess cultivated important traits of the mind. Strategic thinking in the game helped him anticipate moves during negotiations and checked him from making rash decisions. Chess led him to listen better, be patient and hope for positive change, especially called for during the debates creating the Constitution of the United Sates."

 Do you play chess? My husband loves playing and one day must show me how.

Breakfast at the Thomas Bond House. After strawberries and honeydew melon in almond syrup and banana bread, we savored eggnog pancakes with caramel vanilla syrup, cranberry juice and English breakfast tea.

The table decorations remind us to give thanks. Since reading the Signature of All Things, I've taken to visiting Elizabeth Gilbert's Facebook page, which I love for inspirational quotes, images of readers with her books, and their happiness jars. She shared this quote I love, "It is not happy people who are thankful, it is thankful people who are happy."

Inspiring me, this quote by Benjamin Franklin, and giving me pause if we shifted our attentions away from chasing after lost youth and pursuits of vanity, what would our country look like if instead we asked,

"The Morning Question, What Good shall I do this day? Evening question, What Good have I done today?"

At the Christ Church cemetery, pennies on the grave of Benjamin Franklin.

There are so many stories here, such as the resting place of Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, a yellow fever survivor and a founder of the American psychiatry movement. From the appendix of Fever 1793,

"Dr. Rush was one of the most famous doctors in the country.

He gave patients mercury, calomel, and jalap to make them throw up and have diarrhea. He drained blood from them (a common practice) to get rid of "pestilence" in their bodies. Medical experts speculate that Rush's treatments killed many of his patience.

Rush's insistence on perilous remedies for yellow fever patients was a rare misstep for the energetic doctor. He was far ahead of his time on many issues. He fought against slavery and capital punishment, and argued for public schools, the education of girls, and the compassionate treatment of the mentally ill. He treated his insane patients with gentle understanding."

Most resters here have little fanfare and lie in quiet anonymity, but their lives mattered too.

"Fall is my favorite season because it reminds me of death. When the leaves fall and they turn a beautiful color and the tree gives up its year's leaves it reminds me of death and that there's something that endures and sustains beyond death because there's the tree and there's the trunk of the tree and the tree continues to live. So it reminds me although there's death, there's sustained life, there's strength." - author J.J. Brown.

Christ Church, founded in 1695.

Inside lie some resting places. Above one soul, a stone on the floor here noted the earth had been bountiful to him. I want to be kind to our earth and give thanks for her bounty. I loved Merida's reflection in Brave, "Some say our destiny is tied to the land, as much a part of us as we are of it."

Carmen's Cheesesteak and Hoagies at the Reading Terminal market. 

They had a vegetarian Philly cheese steak! Wheat protein is the substitute for the steak, and I added hearty mushrooms here too, with a root beer.

Elfreth's Alley, said to be our nation's oldest residential street, dating back to 1702.

A word I found invoked so often in historic or older homes: character. They seem to have a soul to them. What stories lie here untold?

I love the welcoming pineapple over the front door.

It was starting to get cold and blustery, the perfect excuse to duck into the City Tavern's pub area for dessert: an apple ginger cobbler with cinnamon ice cream and hot apple cider.

 



I had the Woodlands on my list to see after I learned it was an inspiration for the White Acres estate in The Signature of All Things, but we arrived just as dark was settling in and we needed to make our journey home. They have haunting cemetery grounds all around.

 

 

 

 

So many journeys to take in our short time here. I'll never reach all the lands I long to see. Thankfully we have the portals of books  to access those places and times beyond our reach.