Category: Exploring Historic Cape May, NJ

The Garrett Family Preserve at Cape Island Creek 801 Wilson Avenue Cape May, NJ 07204

The Garrett Family Preserve at Cape Island Creek 801 Wilson Avenue Cape May, NJ 07204

The Garrett Family Preserve at Cape Island Creek

801 Wilson Avenue

Cape May, NJ 07204

(908) 879-7262

https://www.nature.org/en-us/get-involved/how-to-help/places-we-protect/garrett-family-preserve-at-cape-island-creek/

Garrett Family Preserve

My review on TripAdvisor:

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g46341-d7190574-Reviews-Garrett_Family_Preserve-Cape_May_Cape_May_County_New_Jersey.html

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 Friendship School Museum 859 South Shore Road (Route 9) Palermo, NJ 08223

The Friendship School Museum 859 South Shore Road (Route 9) Palermo, NJ 08223

The Friendship School

859 South Shore Road (Route 9)

Palermo, NJ 08223

(609) 628-3303

http://uppertwphistory.org/Friendship-School.htm

https://hpsout.tripod.com/

https://capemaycountynj.gov/DocumentCenter/View/5497/CMC-Heritage-Brochure

Open: Please call for a appointment and special tour

My review on TripAdvisor:

The front of the schoolhouse

The entrance to the property

The historic marker

The outside sign

The Friendship School was an interesting look at early rural education where students of various ages would be educated together.

The hours would vary with the growing seasons and students would be educated in the basics to educate them to the next level.

During the school day, children would have various chores to do such as gather wood, collect water, mind the fire and watch the day’s lunch. It would be a full day for both the teacher and the students.

My tour guide confirmed that nothing was easy during the school day and children had a lot of responsibility for what went on in their lives.

The tour was an interesting look at the lives of children of that period of time and the education they received.

The history of the Friendship School:

(from the Museum’s website)

This historic property contains the circa 1930 Friendship School, a circa 1900 privy, and a circa 1917 coal storage shed.  The Friendship School was originally donated in 1976 by William Wells, grandson of Enoch Clouting to the Upper Township Bicentennial Committee during a time when Upper Township was particularly interested in its earliest buildings.

The historic plaques

The school’s hand pump

The committee, headed by the late Curtis T. Cordon, evolved to become the nucleus of the Historical Preservation Society of Upper Township (HPSUT) in 1977. Virginia M. Wilson was its’ first President.

 The history of the Friendship School begins when it was incorporated in May of 1831 with Jonathon Corson, Lewis Corson, and Seth Young as trustees. The students’ tuition was paid for by parents in 1830, but by 1869, public funding for schools was established. In the 1862-63 school year, 52 students crowded into this 15’x 20’ structure, and of those students in the teacher’s roll book, 24 were Corsons!

The grounds of the school grounds

The school itself is standing on its fourth known location! It was originally located 6 houses southeast of its present location. It was used for classes until it was replaced with a larger building in the 1860’s.

The abandoned school house later owned by resident, Lot Corson, became known as “Lot’s Temple” because church services were held there. Then, it was moved to Enoch Clouting’s farm where a corn crib was placed on one side. It is Enoch’s grandson who kindly donated the school.

 The barn on the grounds

The school building was in extreme disrepair when it was moved from the Clouting property to the corner of Ocean Ave. and Shore Road.  According to an undated news article, “mere fragments of the (original) building remained” although “some of the heavier corner posts were salvaged.”

The school’s outhouse (pricey)

The historic sign

Nevertheless, restoration of this Friendship School was researched and planned by Kyle Fleetwood of Tuckahoe and James Wilson of Marmora; with assistance from Matt Unsworth, Robert Entirkin, Curtis Corson III, Somers Corson, Marshall “Ted” Behr, Guy Himmelberger, Harry “Hap” Folger and other members of the Bicentennial Committee. It was completed in 1980.

 All replacement wood matched the original in size and material and great care was taken to restore it to its original appearance. Locally sourced materials for the restoration/reconstruction came from the Van Vorst sawmill in Petersburg, the Hess sawmill in South Seaville and the Brewer sawmill in Dennisville. Benches donated by Myra Clouting Biggs, were reproduced by Matt Unsworth.

The inside of the school house

The teacher’s desk is a reproduction also made by Matt Unsworth. Hardware for the building was hand-wrought by Robert Entrikin of Petersburg. Although it does not qualify for the State and National Registers listing because it retains little original historic building fabric, the building is important to the historical time line of Upper Township.

 The schoolbooks and school equipment

Also on this site are two old frame buildings: a circa 1900 privy donated from the property of the Seaville School on Kruk Drive and a circa 1917 coal/storage shed donated from the Palermo School on Route 9.  The coal storage shed, was donated by Wes and Doris Nickerson with Jim and Nancy Siegrist helping with its restoration. It was added to the property in 1993. Three three-seat privy (outhouse) from the old unused Seaville School was donated by Sharon Kruk in honor of her father, and was restored by Lewis Albrecht and Jim Siegrist. It is a work of art (with a French style roof), but is non-functional.

 The school room reproduction

A special item, the cedar flag pole, from which flew a U.S. flag that flew above the capitol in Washington, DC, was donated by former Deauville Inn owners, Walter and Gloria Carpenter in December of 1983. (Since replaced)

 The school bell and flag

The Friendship School was dedicated on September 10, 1983 by Virginia M. Wilson, President of the Historical Preservation Society of Upper Township, Upper Township Mayor Leonard Migliaccio, HPSUT members: Ebbie Unsworth and her son, Matt Unsworth, and guest speaker, New Jersey State Senator, James R. Hurley.

 The children would collect water and fire wood for the class room during the school day

The reproduction of the school

Upper Township continues to own and manage the property and the school, while HPSUT members manage the inside and its activities. Each Upper Township Kindergarten class is invited to the annual Kindergarten Day to learn what a student classroom life is like in a one room school house in the early

The outside of the school

Harriet Tubman Museum of New Jersey 632 Lafayette Street Cape May, NJ 08204

Harriet Tubman Museum of New Jersey 632 Lafayette Street Cape May, NJ 08204

Harriet Tubman Museum of New Jersey

632 Lafayette Street

Cape May, NJ 08204

Open: Sunday 2:00pm-4:00pm/Monday-Tuesday Closed/Wednesday-Saturday 11:00am-4:00pm (Check the website for the seasons)

My Review on TripAdvisor:

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g46341-d23550005-Reviews-Harriet_Tubman_Museum-Cape_May_Cape_May_County_New_Jersey.html

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.

Life of Charles Sumner in Cape May, NJ

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Sumner

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charles-Sumner

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Henry_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

Harriet Tubman, Activist and Transporter

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_Tubman

Many voices told at the museum

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'.
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 creation of the Harriet Tubman Museum

Forgotten Warriors Vietnam Museum Cape May Airport 529 Forrestal Road Rio Grande, NJ 08204

Forgotten Warriors Vietnam Museum Cape May Airport 529 Forrestal Road Rio Grande, NJ 08204

Forgotten Warriors Vietnam Museum

Cape May Airport

529 Forrestal Road

Rio Grande, NJ 08204

(609) 374-2987

https://forgottenwarriorsvietnammuseum.com/

Admission: Free but Donations are accepted

Open: Please see website as the museum is closing for the season. By Appointment

My review on TripAdvisor:

https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g46775-d1170025-r971025114-Forgotten_Warriors-Rio_Grande_Cape_May_County_New_Jersey.html?m=19905

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.