While I was searching for the Cape May Maritime Museum, I made a detour into a parking lot and came across the Garrett Family Preserve
The sign that welcomes you to the park
Visiting the Preserve:
(from the Cape May Visitor website)
The Nature Conservancy protects the 180-acre Garrett Family Preserve situated between Seashore Road and Cape Island Creek, offering a tranquil setting for walking, picnics, painting, biking, and observing nature.
The preserve offers six trails ranging from 0.2-0.5 miles in length, and a two-mile perimeter loop along the forested edge–four miles in total. Explore year-round on foot or by bicycle. Sights vary by season, with bird migration peaking in the spring and fall, and the wildflower field blooming from May through July. Beginning in late August into the fall, Monarch butterflies stop here to feed before their journey south.
Preserve amenities include a mobile bird blind, welcome kiosk, shaded pavilion with picnic tables, benches and picnic tables along the trails, and three adjustable art easels. From November 1st to March 1st, leashed dogs are welcome. Because this is a preserve, the Nature Conservancy does not provide trash receptacles. Be sure to take anything you’ve brought with you.
The size of the preserve
The history of the Garrett Family
History of the Preserve:
(From the Nature Conservatory website)
Originally slated for development, TNC acquired the property in 2000, as the preserve offered an unusual opportunity to manage a significant piece of land for migratory songbirds, whose stopover habitat, especially at the southern tip of the peninsula, has been all but wiped out.
In 2013, the generosity of the Garrett family enabled TNC to further protect Cape Island Creek for future generations by acquiring crucial land, improving and stewarding habitat, performing coastal research and installing enhanced visitor amenities.
After reading some of the history of the preserve, I decided to take a walk down the paths. I ended up walking down several paths that took me through woods and many natural gardens. I could see by how dry everything was how the lack of rain was affecting the preserve.
The pathways leading to different parts of the preserve
Following the pathways through the preserve
My first stop was the picnic area and rest stop
The Insect Hotel
The Insect Hotel
The description of the insect hotel
I thought this was an interesting concept of creating a place for insects to have a breather. It is a place of reproduction and in helping pollinate the preserve.
The fields of plants and wildflowers that make up the preserve
The flowering plants and wildflowers in the fields
Each of the paths took me through different parts of the preserve that were wooded or with meadows or an array of wildflowers that attracted birds, butterflies and bees.
The batches of wildflowers in the meadow
The Salt Marsh part of the Preserve was filled with more wildflowers that had bees and butterflies swarming them.
The Salt Marsh Habitat
The sign for the Salt Marsh Habitat
The the pathways though the meadows
The fields of flowers and plants in the marsh area
Th e next section of the preserve I visited was the Wildflower Meadows
The Wildflower Meadows in the late summer
The Wildflower Meadows paths
As I left this part of the preserve, I took many paths around the park lands. There are all sorts of fields of flowers and woods to shade the way during touring the preserve.
Going on the different trails throughout the preserve
I walked down the paths to the Bird Habitat area
The golden rod flowers attract all sorts of bees and butterflies
Flowering Honey Suckle
Beautiful flowering plants in the woods area
The colorful paths of flowers that lined the Bird Sanctuary
This all led to the end of the trails and a wrap up of how the pollinators work. How the plants, insects and birds play a role in nature.
The last thing I saw at the preserve was this butterfly sculpture by the parking lot
The history of the Garrett family
The park changes its complexity with each season. What I noticed at the end of the summer with no rain is how dry the fields were and the trees were changing colors early because the lack of moisture.
It will be interesting to see the preserve in the Spring and early Summer in the future. It was a nice walk through the preserve.
The entrance to the Harriet Tubman Museum of New Jersey
The History of the Museum and House it is located in:
(From the Museum website):
Lafayette street and Franklin Street: the center of abolitionist activism in Cape May
The Harriet Tubman Museum building is located on a block that anti-slavery activists called home in Cape May. Lafayette Street and Franklin Street became a center of abolitionist activity centered around three important buildings developed in 1846.
The Stephen Smith House stands at 645 Lafayette Street, across from the site of the Harriet Tubman Museum, where Stephen Smith built his summer home in 1846. Smith was a founder of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society.
The Banneker House was next to the Stephen Smith House. The Banneker House became a first-class hotel and one of the only summer resorts for free Black people in the country and was developed by James Harding, a friend of Stephen Smith.
The white Baptist Church was located directly across the street from the Stephen Smith House and Joseph Leach frequently preached there. Leach was a political leader and editor of the Ocean Wave newspaper, where he often wrote accounts of enslaved people that fled to Cape May. The congregation of the church issued a strong condemnation of slavery.
The sign that welcomes you
The Museum at Christmas time
Santa greets you at the door
Cape May: A nexus between North and South
(from the museum website):
Cape May played a pivotal role in the fight to end slavery. Several historic figures critical to the fight against slavery spent their summers in Cape May.
The children’s dolls at the entrance
I visited the Harriet Tubman Museum when I was in Cape May and this small museum tells two different stories. It tells of Harriet Tubman’s time living in Cape May as a cook before her return down South and about the Free Black community in Cape May that built their own Society within the community. Their businesses catered to both Black and White residents of Cape May.
The museum tackles several different topics including the life of Harriet Tubman in Cape May when she lived here as a cook, earning money and probably developing a strategy for helping enslaved people reach their freedom through the Underground Railroad. It discusses the success many Black residents found as business owners in Cape May and the surrounding towns.
The last topic the museum discusses in the affects of Integration and Segregation on society in general and its causes and results. There is no one solution to this as we as a society cause this by our own actions.
The History of Business’s owned by Blacks in that era of Cape May
The freed black population settled in the Cape May area and opened many businesses that contributed to the whole population. This developed into many successfully run businesses by Free Slaves and residents of New Jersey.
The history of Harriet Tubman in Cape May
(From the museum website):
Harriet Tubman’s life and work in Cape May
Harriet Tubman lived in Cape May in the early 1850s, working to help fund her missions to guide enslaved people to freedom. After her initial journeys conducting freedom seekers to Canada, her friend and abolitionist leader Franklin Sanborn wrote, “She returned to the states, and as usual earned money by working in hotels and families as a cook. From Cape May, in the fall of 1852, she went back once more to Maryland, and brought away nine more fugitives.” The New Jersey Historical Commission says she spent two other summers in Cape May.
The history of Abolitionists in Cape May and in New Jersey. Being so close to the border, New Jersey was a big part of the Slavery Underground. Even during the Civil War, Delaware was a more neutral state of the South.
The story of the Abolitionist Movement and William Furness
History of the war years and the people who shaped it
The progressions of Blacks in that era
The affects of Segregation and Integration in a society that does not always see eye to eye. This attitude unfortunately still survives into today. There is the history of Harriet Tubman’s life as a child into adulthood.
The stories of Integration and Segregation in that era
The museum offers many voices and stories about life before, during and after slavery and its part in the shaping of New Jersey. Since New Jersey was the last Northern state to abolish slavery on January 23rd, 1866.
The History and End of Slavery in New Jersey:
(From the website of the New Jersey Department of State-Historical Commission website)
New Jersey, The Last Northern State to End Slavery
Image collage: Peter Lee who may have been illegally enslaved as a young man by the Stevens Family in Hoboken, NJ, and Lockey White’s 1860 census entry indicating that she was a “slave for life.”
By Noelle Lorraine Williams, Director, African American History Program The New Jersey Historical Commission
This year forty-seven states including New Jersey will observe Juneteenth (also known as Freedom Day or Emancipation Day) as a state holiday—a holiday that commemorates when enslaved Blacks in Galveston, Texas learned that they were, in fact, freed by President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation two and half years earlier. The date was June 19, 1865. Juneteenth then is a holiday of celebration and a mournful remembrance of deep injustice and loss. It reveals the injustice of slavery and the legal repression of African American freedom, extending beyond the nineteenth century.
But we must remember that there were still enslaved Black men and women in New Jersey even after Juneteenth. Imagine, New Jersey’s death grip on slavery meant that until December 1865, six months after enslaved men, women, and children in Texas found out they were cheated of their freedom, approximately 16 African Americans were still technically enslaved in New Jersey.
But Why and How?
While there were many Black, mixed-race, and white people in New Jersey who fought against slavery, most legislators refused to condemn the institution. Profits from slaveholding organizations had built and maintained the state’s major cities and regional centers like Newark and those in Bergen County.
Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation did not free enslaved African Americans in the Northern States; it freed only those in the mostly southern “rebellious states.” Two years later, New Jersey bitterly refused to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment, the United States Constitutional Amendment that abolished slavery and involuntary servitude across the country.
Slavery’s final legal death in New Jersey occurred on January 23, 1866, when in his first official act as governor, Marcus L. Ward of Newark signed a state Constitutional Amendment that brought about an absolute end to slavery in the state. In other words, the institution of slavery in New Jersey survived for months following the declaration of freedom in Texas.
To understand this historical development, one needs to take a step back to 1804 when New Jersey passed its Gradual Abolition of Slavery law—an act that delayed the end of slavery in the state for decades. It allowed for the children of enslaved Blacks born after July 4, 1804 to be free, only after they attained the age of 21 years for women and 25 for men. Their family and everyone else near and dear to them, however, remained enslaved until they died or attained freedom by running away or waiting to be freed.
In a period when the average life expectancy was 40 years old, the 1804 law essentially took more than half of these people’s lives to satisfy the economic and political demands of New Jersey enslavers.
In essence, Juneteenth, not only marks the day African Americans in Texas realized that they had been robbed of two years of their freedom, following the Emancipation Proclamation. It also commemorates all of our ancestors here in New Jersey who were the last Blacks in the North to be ensnared in that bloody institution.
The New Jersey Historical Commission (NJHC), a division of the New Jersey Department of State, is a state agency dedicated to the advancement of public knowledge and preservation of New Jersey history.
The front of the Forgotten Warriors Vietnam Museum at 529 Forrestal Road
The entrance to the museum
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial outside the museum has the names of those who fought in the war
The museum’s Chapel dedicated to the Veterans
The Chapel is dedicated to those who lost their lives in the Vietnam War and is a very emotional display of the value of a soldier during the war years.
The History of the museum:
The museum was created in 2008 by the late Vietnam Veteran Thomas E. Collins. His committed passion for over 15 years to create a unique, realistic, educational experience to live on the memory of the men and women who fought in the war.
The museum honors and protects the thousands of men and women’s legacies and artifacts on the museum that will not be forgotten. The museum continues to preserve and welcome home veterans, their families and educate future generations.
This one room museum is packed with information and memorabilia from the war years.
The display in honor of Thomas R. Collins
The main gallery of the museum
In Memory of Thomas E. Collins
Very touching memory to the founder of the museum, Thomas E . Collins.
The map of North and South Vietnam at the time of the war
The equipment and artifacts from the Vietnam War
One of the small tanks inside the museum
The outfits warn in Vietnam during the war by the natives and the nurses
Various weapons and uniforms on display
Array of uniforms that had been used in the war
The gift shop by the entrance of the museum has some interesting gift items.
This museum is a very touching memorial to all those who have served during the war in Vietnam and some fascinating items in the collection to see and observe.
Hours: Seasonal Hours Sunday-Monday-Tuesday/Wednesday 10:00am-2:30pm/Thursday Closed/Friday 10:00am-2:30pm/Saturday Closed. Tours are at 10:00am and 12:00pm.
Admission: Donations Accepted/ (I paid $5.00 for the hour tour)
After three years of trying to visit the museum, I finally got on a last minute walking tour of the Museum of Cape May County and have to say that it was well worth the wait. What an interesting set of buildings that have a fascinating set of artifacts and so nicely displayed in a series of buildings.
The museum campus is broken up in a series of buildings on a two acre site. There is the main office which has an art exhibition, the family homestead of the family, who lived here for several generations, the carriage house which displays several carriages and stage coaches that were used in the area.
The back of the main house where you can see the three additions to the house
The barn where the Military, Native American and Farming displays are showcased
The Carriage House is to the left and the barn is to the right
The Carriage House on the property
The History of the House and of the Cape May County Museum site:
(from the museum website)
Housed in a building that dates back to 1704, the Cresse House, and its 1830 Holmes addition, as well as a historic 1780 barn and carriage house have rooms devoted to a subject or time that will hold you spellbound as you make your way through the past. The 11 room Cresse Holmes house treats you to a glimpse of life as it was in Cape May County from colonial to modern times. From the 1704 colonial kitchen and loft bedroom to the Victorian dining and sitting rooms all are decorated and furnished with period pieces. Special exhibit rooms include a children’s playroom teeming with toys, a doctor’s room with instruments, glassware and vials filled with a colorful array of pharmaceuticals and a Victorian music room with dozens of fascinating players and instruments (Cape May County Museum website).
Our first part of the tour was the family home which had been lived in for generations. The first part of the house was built in 1740 and you could tell by the open hearth and the flooring.
The hearth of the original section of the Cresse home
The kitchen was set up and furnished as the main part of the house. Because of the heat, this was the main part of the house that habituated. Here the family would gather, eat and socialize.
The back bedroom shows the families affluence in the late 1700’s
Having a separate room for sleeping was considered quite extravagant. The heat would circulated through the home and warmed this room next door. The main part of the house was built in 1840 in the Federalist design.
The main dining room showed the affluence of the Holmes family in the early pre-Civil war era
The main part of the house that faced the road was the 1840 Holmes family addition with the Federalist design. This part of the house was the main part house that was used for every day living and entertaining. The house was furnished in a combination of family heirlooms and donated period pieces..
The house well furnished with period pieces
The beautiful side table of the Dining Room
Both the Living Room, Dining Room and the Parlor were all tastefully furnished and what I thought were interesting parts of their collection. It was like someone had just left the room.
The Parlor of a Victorian house held its finest pieces
The furnishings in the Parlor
The painting of Henry Clay stood above the fireplace
Since I joined the tour late, I had seen just the first floor of the home before we continued on to see the rest of the building.
The front entrance room of the house
As we exited the house, we moved on to the most important room of the house, the outhouse which was located behind the main home.
The outhouse in the back of the home
We next moved on to one of the galleries of the Nautical collections.
The collection of nautical artifacts
Mantel’s for navigation
Items from the shipping industry
What beautiful items
Our next part of the tour was of the Carriage House and its collection of buggies and carriages owned by by local residents.
The Barn and Carriage exhibits:
(from the Cape May County Museum website)
Our barn is home to a maritime exhibit including Cape May County’s crown jewel, the original first-order Fresnel lens from Cape May Light House. In addition to our collection of farm implements the barn is also the site of our recently dedicated military room that pays homage to those who served our nation in time of war.
Period pieces range from the Revolutionary War to our country’s most recent involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of special interest is the American flag that was carried by soldiers who hailed from Cape May County during the Civil War. The flag survived numerous battles, including Gettysburg, Spotsylvania, Bull Run and was at Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. The Carriage Shed houses items related to transportation – a vintage horse-drawn market wagon, a doctor’s sulky and an early stagecoach that ran between Bridgeton and Pennsville (from the museum website).
The collection of carriages and buggies
A local buggy from a member of the community
The history of the Cape May Stagecoach
The Cape May Stagecoach
This stagecoach was used on the route between Bridgeton and Pennsville
The funeral cart used to transport bodies once people die to their last destination
The last building on the museum’s property housed military artifacts, farm equipment and artifacts from what would shape the local community
The Maritime History of Cape May and of the Museum:
(from the museum website)
Since its earliest days the area we now call Cape May County has been linked to the water. With the tumultuous Atlantic Ocean on one side, the Delaware Bay on the other and lush forest and field between it served its residents well. Early Native Americans thrived, whalers found whales in the ocean and refuge in the bay. All worked the shores and tributaries for birds and shellfish. As the population grew, shipbuilding and coastal trade took on greater importance. Come visit us and explore this aspect of our museum (from the museum website).
Many of the artifacts, photographs and manuscripts associated with maritime activities have found their way our museum collection. From the original first-order Fresnel lens that sat atop the Cape May light to whaling implements, marine skeletons, ship parts and Native American exhibits there is something for everyone. Of special interest is our recently acquired Cresse Journal, an original manuscript by Lewis Cresse detailing the life of a whaler in the mid-eighteenth century (from the museum website)
Hunting and military items from around the turn of the last century
Household and farming items
Artifacts from the Shipping industry
Artifacts from the Counties Ship Building past
Items from the Whaling Industry in Cape May
The museum also houses the original Cape May Lighthouse light
The history of burial and old cemeteries in Cape May
Old tombstones from Cape May cemeteries
The family cemetery on what was once the family farm that now sits down the road and across the street
The family plot
The museum’s extensive collection of arrowheads and other Native American artifacts
The Cape May Civil War flag is most of the most interesting pieces in the museum’s military collection
The Cape May Civil War flag
Military artifacts from the war years
The extensive collection of military uniforms from the different wars in the museum collection with ceremonial drums on display on the top of the case
The gun and pistol collection at the museum
The Pistol collection at the museum
The collection of military items in the collection
The early military collection at the museum
The grounds of the museum before I left for the day
The family home that faces the Highway
The museum is not just an extensive collection of City of Cape May but the history of the County as a whole and its rich development from a farming, whaling and shipping town to a major tourist hub and recreation community.
It also shows it has never lost it nautical or farming past as well as this legacy still carries on in Cape May. The development of the community and the progress it has made over the years is showcased in the galleries and buildings on the museum property.
The Development of the Cape May County Museum:
(from the museum website)
The Cape May County Historical & Genealogical Society (CMCHGS), doing business as The Museum of Cape May County, was founded in 1927 as a private, non-profit organization by a number of local families who wanted to ensure the history of Cape May County was preserved and documented. In 1930 the CMCHGS established a museum and genealogical library which were housed in the basement of the County Court House building for 45 years.
In 1976, the current facility, the Cresse-Holmes House containing eleven rooms along with a five-room barn was purchased to accommodate the growing collection. By 1988 the construction and dedication of the genealogical library and administrative offices had taken place. In the last 90 years, thanks to the generosity of many individuals and families with a connection to Cape May County. the collections have grown to contain many thousands of Cape May County artifacts and documents.
Today the museum and library are run by full time, part time and seasonal staff members along with an enthusiastic group of active volunteers to assist with greeting visitors, guiding tours, researching, assisting with programs, and staffing events.
Visiting a Museum: The Unique, Unusual, Obscure and Historical 