Category: Historic Homes of New Jersey

Somers Point Historical Society 745 Shore Road Somers Point, NJ 08244

Somers Point Historical Society

745 Shore Road

Somers Point, NJ 08244

(609) 927-2900

http://www.somerspointhistory.org/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/239626702903267/

Open: Sunday-Wednesday Closed/Thursday 7:00pm-9:00pm/Friday Closed/Saturday 10:00am-1:00pm

Admission: Free

My review on TripAdvisor:

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g46825-d24142966-Reviews-Somers_Point_Historical_Society-Somers_Point_New_Jersey.html

The Somers Point Historical Society at 745 Shore Road

I visited Somers Point, NJ recently to see the historical shore town and explore their small museums. The Somers Point Historical Society differs from its neighbor down the road, the Atlantic County Historical Society in that its concentration is on the Town of Somers Point and not the entire county.

The Somers Point Historical Society sign welcomes you

The Somers Point Historical Society started in 1987 as part of the “Save City Hall” campaign to save the historic City Hall building. The plan was to highlight the history of Somers Point and its place in the community and to save some of the older buildings in the town.

The City Hall was saved and it was renovated for the new library. The organization was also helped with funding and applying for National Historic Recognition for the Bayfront Historic District that lies between Shore Drive and Bay Avenue on the waterfront district of the town (Somers Point Historical Society website).

The building that the society is housed in was originally a Baptist Church that was built in 1886 and later became the Somers Point Library. When the new library was built, the Society bought the building and the organization was formed. The museum started with about 600 artifacts and it has grown much largers since.

The Somers Point Historical Society main room

The museum is based around the one main room that tells the history of the Town of Somers Point. One display is on the USS Somers named after Commandant Richard Somers. Our tour guide told us that there is always a Somers named vessel in service with the Navy. There was a complete display on the navel vessels including a section on Master Commandant Richard Somers.

Master Commandant Richard Somers

http://www.richardsomers.org/

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

Richard Somers and the Intrepid video

Display on items from the USS Somers plus ships and boats

The number of items in the collection includes weapons, dishes, photographs, nautical items and pictures of all the Navy vessels named after Richard Somers. These historical items show the contribution that Richard Somers made to the armed forces of the United States. There were also family hierlooms among the artifacts. It was told to me there will always be a USS Somers in service dedicated to him.

More items from the USS Somers

There was a nice display on the trolley car system that used to line the shore traveling from Atlantic City down the coast to Somers Point. This was a picture taken during the holiday season when shopping at the shore was pleasant experience.

Christmas shopping at the shore must have been fun

When the Lindenwood Historical Society folded for business, the Society inherited their impressive collection of ship models. There are all sorts of styles and designs of ships that line the entire room. There is very interesting display of clamming and shellfish harvesting equipment that is on display along with period clothing. It really showed how much shellfish production has not changed much over the years. There was an extensive display of shipbuilding materials showing the town’s shipbuilding yards and production that used to be part of the town’s businesses.

Fishing equipment and shipbuilding tools along with period clothing

There is also a very extensive theater and arts program that is part of the town’s past and current social life. Being so close to Ocean City, NJ and its most famous summer resident, Grace Kelly there is a strong sense of theater and the arts around the community.

The theater playbills and items dealing with the local ‘arts’ scene.

The one thing that the historical society helps you remember that this is still a shore community and tourism plays a huge role in the history and make up of the town. You can see by the artifacts that things are geared towards the water and the extensive shipbuilding and fishing industries.

The Society also runs all sorts of fundraisers, movie nights and car shows to help raise money for the Society and does a lot of outreach to the community.

It is a fascinating look into the past of the shore community of Somers Point, NJ.

Somers Mansion 1000 Shore Road Somers Point, NJ 08244

Somers Mansion

1000 Shore Road

Somers Point, NJ 08244

(609) 927-2212

https://www.nj.gov/dep/parksandforests/historic/somersmansion.html

Somers Mansion

Open: Sunday 9:30am-3:30pm/Monday-Friday Closed/Saturday 9:30am-3:30pm

Admission: Free

My review on TripAdvisor:

https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g46825-d5970174-r844645596-Somers_Mansion-Somers_Point_New_Jersey.html?m=19905

The Somers Mansion at 1000 Shore Road

(There is no indoor picture taking allowed)

The mansion sign

I visited the Somers Mansion, the three story former home to five generations of the Somers Family. The mansion sits on a buff overlooking the bay and the bridge to the barrier island where Ocean City is located. The original part of the house was built in 1725 and in 1920 the last family members moved from the home and deeded it to the town. The modern additions of the home have been stripped off so you see the original house.

The historic marker of the home when it was donated by the family

I have to say that I was very disappointed with the condition of both the house and of the rooms and displays inside the house. There was not much to see. The lower level of the home has the main room with the hearth known in most early homes as the “Keeping” or “Everything” room where all the cooking, household chores and socializing was done because of the warmth of the fire.

Here and there were pieces of furniture but nothing labeled or decorated to make the room look ‘period’. Just old furniture here and there to fill the space. Some of the original family china was in the cupboards built into the walls.

The upstairs which must be reached by a rope bannister lead up a narrow stairs to two upstairs bedrooms. The home is not handicapped safe. The front bedroom had a fireplace with a small side room that held spinning wheels and some children’s furniture. There was not much to see in the upstairs.

The tour guide did not offer much in the way of information on the house and the only period pieces of the Somers family that were left inside the house were a chest, a clock, some of the china that was in the side cabinents and a bedwarmer.

Outside the house the Somers Point Garden Club planted a period garden of fruits and vegetables on the back lawn and lead tours of the gardens.

The Somers Mansion Kitchen Garden

The Garden Club planted fruits and vegetables that would have been grown in the time periods of the late 1700’s to early 1800’s. You can walk amongst the beds to see the plantings.

Somers Mansion Kitchen Garden planted by the Garden Club

The whole tour takes less than a half hour and it is more impressive from the outside. You are also not allowed to take pictures of the house for security reasons.

The History of the Somers Mansion:

(From the NJ State Historical Site.com):

The mansion and surrounding city bear the name of the family who owned and occupied the house for 200 years.

The original mansion after it was stripped of the modern additions

The Somers Mansion, a three story home constructed of brick in the Flemish bond pattern, sits overlooking the Great Egg Harbor Bay at Somers Point. In the late 1600’s, the property which surrounds the mansion was acquired by John Somers, who operated a ferry service across The Great Egg Harbor Bay to Cape May. He referred to it as Somers Plantation and Somers Ferry and the surrounding settlement, the olders in what became Altantic County and then Somers Point in the mid-18th Century.

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

http://www.richardsomers.org/

The mansion is considered to be the oldest existing house in Atlantic County, predating the County itself. His son, Richard, the first of the family to be born in New Jersey, built what is now referred to as the mansion by 1726. That year the local Society of Friends (Quakers) used the home for a meeting and memorialized it in their minutes, making the earliest recorded date of the home’s existence.

By the end of the 19th century, the mansion’s architecture had been added to and changed to reflect a Victorian style. The house remained in the Somers Family until 1937 when it was deeded by Florence Hayday Brooks and Lulu Hayday Smith, daughters of Hannah Hayday Somers to the Atlantic County Historical Society for the purpose of creating a permanent memorial to the Somers family.

In 1941, it was transferred to the State of New Jersey, dedicated on September 26th, 1942 and in the early 1940’s was restored to its colonial appearance as a Works Progress Administration (WPA) project. Laborers for the WPA both renovated the surviving furnishings and conducted a historical restoration, including the elimination of rooms and architectural details dating to the 19th century. The site was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1970 and is now a State Historic site.

The Somers Family burial ground further down off Shore Avenue off New York Avenue

A Short History of Somers Point:

(From the Trail of Richard Somers pamphlet)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somers_Point,_New_Jersey

https://visitsomerspoint.com/

Somers Point was originally settled by John Somers, an Englishman and practicing Quaker, who bought the land from Thomas Budd. Early names for the area were Somerset Plantation, Somers Ferry and Somers Plantation named after the first settlers in 1693. The land purchased originally covered all of Somers Point, part of Linwood and went into Egg Harbor Township. In the early years, it was part of Gloucester County, because Atlantic COunt had not yet been named.

The name “Somers Point” was adopted in 1750. It was a seafaring town and sloops, schooners and barges were built in the many shipyards located along the Greate Egg Harbor Bay, Greate Egg Harbor River and Patcong Creek.

The estate overlooking the bay

The Sooy Boatworks was located on Shore Road and the completed ships were rolled on logs down Shore Road to Delaware Avenue and then down to the bay. Shipbuilding and life along the waterways was a very important part of life in early Somers Point.

The statue of Robert Somers in Robert Somers Park

Hancock House State Historic Site 3 Front Street Hancocks Bridge, NJ 08038

Hancock House State Historic Site

3 Front Street

Hancocks Bridge, NJ 08038

(856) 935-4373

https://nj.gov/dep/parksandforests/historic/hancockhouse.html

https://www.facebook.com/FOHHNJ/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hancock_House_(Lower_Alloways_Creek_Township,_New_Jersey)

Open: Sunday 1:00pm-4:00pm/Monday-Tuesday Closed/Wednesday-Saturday 10:00am-12:00pm/1:00pm-4:00pm

Admission: Free but donation suggested

My review on TripAdvisor:

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g46491-d14113448-Reviews-Hancock_House-Hancocks_Bridge_New_Jersey.html

The Hancock House

I took an extensive tour one weekend of historical sites of southern New Jersey to see how the lower part of the state was impacted by the Revolutionary War and one of the most important sites was the Hancock House. The family was extremely prominent not just in Salem, NJ but in New Jersey politics as well.

The Hancock House and grounds during the early Fall 2022

The house once stood on an very busy road between Salem and Bridgeton and where most commerce passed by. When I was taking the tour, you could see that the house was built in two parts. When I was listening to the lecture I found that the side of the house that faced the road had once been a leased space for a tavern.

The tavern section of the house that faces the road

This commercial enterprise brought in income for the family. Later on when the Hancock family sold the house in the early 1800’s, they sold it to the tavern keeper. After he and his family sold the house, it went on to various owners before the State of New Jersey bought it in the 1930’s.

Recreation of the Tavern section of the house

A copy of the old menu at the Tavern

There are no family heirlooms in the house and while some of the rooms have period pieces and are decorated to show how the family might have lived at the time as well as how the tavern functioned, many rooms in the house needed some direction on what they wanted to say about living at the time. There needed to be more artifacts to complete the look of the room.

The Downstairs at the Hancock House:

The example of the main bedroom downstairs was used for business as well. The room was furnished with period furniture.

The downstairs bedroom at the Hancock House. The built in shelves are the only thing from the Hancock family

The Kitchen area was set for dinner and functioned as the Dining Room as well,

The kitchen set for lunch

The kitchen area for entertaining

The old kitchen at the Hancock House

The Dining Room at the Hancock House:

The Living Room

The Living Room at the Hancock House

The Gallery at the Hancock House with artifacts from the era.

The Gallery at the Hancock House

The Upstairs at the Hancock House:

The upstairs bedrooms were an example of that. One of the rooms was fully furnished to look like a period bedroom while the other had a mish-mosh of decorations and furniture. There needed to be more to capture the time period of the house.

The upstairs bedroom is the only one furnished upstairs

Still, the house was steeped in history and it was fascinating to hear what the tour guide said about the goings on during the war years to the family. Many of the rooms also could have used a good plastering and painting to bring them back to life.

When I visited the Hancock House in October of 2022, they were having a Halloween festival with pumpkin patches, face painting, watching the film “The Legend of Sleepy Hallow” by Disney films. The kids were engaged with all sorts of activities and there would be Trick or Treating on Halloween day.

Halloween festivities at the Hancock House

The pumpkin patch at the Hancock House for Halloween

Halloween festivities at the Hancock House

History of The Hancock House:

(from The Hancock House Pamphlet)

The story of the Hancock House begins in 1675 when John Fenwick, a lawyer and Quaker from England, arrived in West Jersey (now Salem Country), With land purchased two years earlier, he established the first permanent English Settlement here, called “Fenwick’s Colony,” and founded the town of Salem. Eager to populate the area with skilled, industrious individuals, he advertised the area’s assets by stating, “if there be any terrestrial “Canaan” ’tis surely here, where the Land floweth with Milk and Honey.”

The Hancock House sits on property that was purchased from John Fenwick in 1675 by William Hancock, an English showmaker. Upon his death, the property passed to his wife and then to his nephew, John Hancock.

John’s inheritance of approximately 500 acres made him a major landholder in Fenwick’s Colony. he contributed to the development of the area by building a bridge across Alloways Creek in 1708. Now known as “Hancocks Bridge,” it permitted passage on an important highway between Salem and Greenwich and gave the settlement its name.

The site of the Hancock Bridge

When John Hancock died in 1709, he left his property to his son William. William became a Justice of the Peace for Salem County and served in the Colonial Assembly for 20 years.

The site of the historic Hancock Bridge

In 1734, William and his wife, Sarah built the Hancock House. Their initials (WHS) and the construction date (1734) can be seen in the brickwork on the house’s west elevation.

Upon his death in 1762, William left his house to his son, William who succeeded him in the Assembly and became His Majesty’s Judge of the County Court for the County of Salem. It was this William who figured in the massacre of March 1778.

The Hancock House remained in the family until 1931, although the extent to which the house was used as a private residence and the property farmed is uncertain. There is evidence to suggest a section of the house was leased for a tavern during the 18th & 19th centuries.

A recreation of the old Tavern section of the home

The State of New Jersey acquired the Hancock House for $4,000 in 1931 and opened it as a museum in 1932.

The Smoke House at the Hancock House property:

The Historic Significance of the house:

Historic Marker at the Hancock House

The Architectural Significance:

The Hancock House earned a place in history on the fateful day in March 1778.

The Hancock House

Yet the story of its architecture also is important. With its distinctive patterned and wall brickwork, simple lines and little ornamentation, it reflects the building traditions of the Quaker’s English Homeland.

The land around the Hancock House

Other elements of this architectural style include Flemish bond brickwork; a pent-roof that wraps around the front and back of the house; simple entrance steps; interior paneling and the use of such local materials as Wistarburg glass.

The Hancock House

The Hancock House property:

Day Forty-Three: Touring the historic homes and museums of Bergen County during ‘The Sixth Annual Northwest Bergen History Coalition’ History Day May 14, 2016

Exploring Historic Bergen County is very interesting.

Don’t miss this event when it comes up every two years.

mywalkinmanhattan

The Northwest Bergen History Coalition
6th Annual History Day
Theme: ‘Spreading the News: Rail, Mail & the Press in Days Gone By’

BC History Coalition

Special Exhibitions at each Museum

Come discover how we communicated when letter were left at the local inn, when postcards were our ‘twitter feed’ and the operator listened to all our calls on the party line. See how mail was delivered by train and what our local newspapers were like in 1900.

I took a day out of touring in the city to tour my own county, Bergen County, New Jersey is rich in Revolutionary, Civil and WWI &II history yet we still have a big link to our Colonial past in each town in Bergen County.

The unfortunate part of this tour is that it only covers a small portion of the county and it was hard to get to all of the sites in one day…

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