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.

 

 

 

Come One, Come All, to a Country Ball in Honor of George Washington's Birthday

Poor George Washington, your birthday so forgotten, now the Presidents' Day holiday just another sale day, and another day off from work (or for those who don't have off, to be angry they aren't). Not for readers of this blog! We shall attend a Country Ball in River Edge, New Jersey with the Bergen County Historical Society, complete with dancing, cherry pie, and merriment. Full disclosure: I didn't think much about the holiday at all until I got into the spirit by going to this ball the past few years. Re-enactors did the dancing this day, but I had warm memories of getting in on the fun on a warm summer evening in July at the Calico Frolic (flashback here).
I always feel like I'm watching a period movie being shot.

George presenting Martha. He would be the stepfather to her two children from her first marriage, and they would have none of their own (his earlier bout with small pox may have doomed chances for any bloodline descendants).


This American Centennial Quilt was on display, made by Sarah Cooper Hill in 1875 in Hackensack, New Jersey. A true work of art on par with any painting or sculpture.

The detail is extravagant. This is a show piece, but in general, I just love quilts, don't you? I'm not going to add quilting to my seemingly unachievable to do list: speak and write French, learn to tap dance, cook from scratch almost everything, learn to make my own clothes. It is a craft worth admiring.

In the Black Horse tavern, the barman is ready to quench your thirst with some cider.

On the cherry tree myth, Wikipedia notes,
"Apocryphal stories about Washington's childhood include a claim...that he chopped down his father's cherry tree and admitted the deed when questioned: "I can't tell a lie, Pa." The anecdote was first reported by biographer Parson Weems, who after Washington's death interviewed people who knew him also a child. The Weems version was very widely reprinted throughout the 19th century, for example in McGuffey Readers. Moralistic adults wanted children to learn moral lessons from the past from history, especially as taught by great national heroes like Washington. After 1890 however, historians insisted on scientific research methods to validate every story, and there was no evidence for this anecdote apart from Weems' report. Joseph Rodman in 1904 noted that Weems plagiarized other Washington tales from published fiction set in England. No one has found an alternative source for the cherry tree story, thus Weems' credibility is questioned."

Soldiers outside the Dutch Out Kitchen. We tend to not only forget the sacrifices of our founding fathers, but also those who did battle. This observation very much stuck with me on the web site for the Morristown National Park,

"The deep snow was the keystone in the arch of starvation. We were absolutely, literally starved. For four days and as many nights I did not put a single morsel into my mouth except a little black birch bark I gnawed off a limb. Some boiled and ate their shoes. Some officers killed a pet dog for food. If this was not starving, I wonder what was." - Joseph P. Martin


An simple adornment of Indian Corn on the door of the Dutch out kitchen pleases the eye.

The whole foods outside the kitchen, like apples, onions, potatoes and carrots, make you want to a) shun the processed foods too much in many of our diets, and b) go home and make a soup or stew or an apple crisp.

A soldier looks on at the feast being prepared: acorn squash stewed with pears; Brussels sprouts; chicken stew, a corn cheddar chowder, and fresh bread baking.

A woman spinning wool. Think how labor intensive this was.

Something about this piece of Buffalo Pottery just spoke to me in the gift shop. With my 10 percent membership discount, I picked it up for $18. From eHow, "Buffalo Pottery was named for the New York city in which it originated, but the reason the brand became so successful had nothing to do with bison or location. The Buffalo Pottery story began when the owner of the Larkin Soap Company decided to commission a limited edition soap dish to hype flagging sales while differentiating the brand from competitors. Over time, Buffalo Pottery products grew more popular than the soap so the same genius marketer who came up with the idea for the soap dish premium (Mr. Larkin) diversified his holdings and opened a pottery business."
An 18th century bed said to have been slept in by George Washington. A prediction: my IKEA bed frame will not have such a long lifespan.


A young girl walks down a gravel path toward a very modern world, with history in her heart, much like it is in mine.

Today is Presidents' Day

Dear readers,

I am writing to you again in letter format, since a letter would have been more appropriate for the times I'm speaking of. Anyway, my blog is outdated already it seems, according to the New York Times, as people, particularly the younger set, are moving more toward Facebook and Twitter for instant, brief communications. Being the old-fashioned type who won't confine my thoughts to 140 characters or less, I'm writing a letter from my desk in the great state of New Jersey (which is nothing like it is portrayed on television).

As the world focuses on sweeping, fast-moving people's revolutions in Egypt and elsewhere, I'm thinking of our own bloodied American revolution for Independence, which was just a wink of an eye ago. Looking at the snow falling, I'm reflecting on the snow and harsh conditions of the winter in 1777 and 1778 at Valley Forge that faced George Washington and his troops.

"If there was ever one person who was absolutely indispensable to the American Revolution and American independence, it was George Washington," said historian David Walker Howe. Washington showed the world an army of farmers could take on the mighty British.

The Bergen County Historical Society held its annual county ball for George Washington (whose birthday is February 22nd), filled with dancing (the re-enacters were dressed for the occasion) and crullers and cider for guests in the tavern.

Do you know how to dance? I know some more modern couples dances, and the great exercise, joy and social aspect of dancing. In school years, exercise is so often just about competitive team athletics like baseball, football and basketball. But not all exercise needs to be about competition, and I think some form of dancing should be taught in schools (given our lack of emphasis on the arts, yes, I realize I'm dreaming).

In an age of mass production (which has yielded overflowing landfills), consider the craftsmanship of everything in earlier life - from candles to shoes to quilts, some simpler and others showy, like this one, made in 1875 in Hackensack, New Jersey, and was displayed at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition.

In the Dutch out kitchen, potato leek soup was simmering on the kettle.
Reflect on your life now and what it would have been like in Washington's time. Think your dinner routine is complicated? Most of us don't have to harvest our own food, and we definitely don't have to kill our own animals - we leave that work to underpaid labor who have come here for their piece of the American dream. I recall a quote at Ellis Island I once read from an immigrant who said they believed the streets of America were paved with gold, then realized they were not paved at all, then the reality that they had to pave them.

Let us not forget Abraham Lincoln, who made an appearance at a prior Bergen County Historical Society event. His birthday was February 12. With an upcoming film in April, The Conspirator, and Daniel Day-Lewis set to play Lincoln in the Steven Spielberg-directed film adapted from Doris Kearns Goodwin' book Team of Rivals, Hollywood is smitten with Lincoln, and I'm grateful for that.

It seems almost every holiday, the true meaning is being lost on most Americans, who think little about veterans on Veterans' Day or the war dead on Memorial Day. It doesn't help retailers try and persuade us it is just another sale occasion (I stick by a motto I once heard, "It's not a bargain if you don't need it"). I also think Americans are becoming more overworked, and in our technological age, boundaries are becoming erased between home and work life. No leaving the briefcase at the office - your gadget is always with you, and to finish your work, more are expected to be on them as employers try to get more out of fewer workers and capitalize on employees' fears over job security. Any day off - understandably - is cherished.

But I also think knowledge and wisdom are just not really valued by our culture. A lot of lip service is paid about education, but a lot of it is meaningless. Possessions are bragging points, or how a child did on their latest basketball game, but I'm more impressed by: What book did you just read? Is a news story provoking thought or outraging you? What art form - film, music, dramatic, and such - is making your soul smile? Are you reflecting on Presidents' Day?

Sincerely,
Catherine