Bay Head Historical Society & Museum – Visiting a Museum: The Unique, Unusual, Obscure and Historical

Bay Head Historical Society

1643 Bay Avenue

Point Pleasant, NJ 08742

https://www.bayheadhistoricalsociety.com/

Open: Sunday 1:00pm-4:00pm/Monday-Friday Closed/Saturday 1:00pm-4:00pm/Seasonal

Admission: $5.00 donation

My review on TripAdvisor:

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g46744-d10596027-Reviews-Bay_Head_Historical_Society-Point_Pleasant_New_Jersey.html

The Bay Head Historical Society & Museum at 1643 Bay Avenue in Point Pleasant, NJ during the Summer

The Museum was also decorated for the Christmas holidays

The bay at Bay Head, NJ

The lake views near the historical society

I took a detour over the weekend to Bay Head, NJ to visit their wonderful historical Society. What an interesting museum whose collection shows the town’s nautical past and present. The museum has something for everyone. For the kids, the museum has a wonderful dollhouse with interesting furnishings that any kid would want to play with everyday. across from that is a Bottle Collection of old milk and soda bottles found in the town showing its retail past.

The historical doll house on display

The Bottle Collection

The museum delves into the town’s Native American past with a small collection of artifacts found in the area when tribes used the area during the summer season for fishing, hunting and recreation. One of the members of the community contributed her experiences to the museum as well. Several items have been donated on permanent loan from other museums and the museum displays them beautifully.

The Lenape exhibition

The Native American exhibit

The Native American exhibit

The highlight of the museum is its latest exhibition ‘Maps: A Journey Through Time’, which is an extensive collection of old maps of the State of New Jersey. This was fascinating in the the collection starts even before the creation of the state when it was under the control of Lord’s Berkeley and Carteret, two English nobles who according to the Society President never stepped foot in the state but collected money from it.

The sign for “Maps: A Journey Through Time” exhibition

The map collection shows the progression of the State of New Jersey through population growth and development. With the advent of the railroads and then through automobiles, transportation has changed the entire state of where we live and play.

The Historical Map exhibition

The Historical Map exhibition

The pictures of Lord John Berkeley and Sir George Carteret who once split the State of New Jersey East and West

History of the split of the State of New Jersey

Old maps of Bay Head, NJ

The Exhibition during the Holiday season was “Victorian Christmas” where parts of the museum was decorated for the holidays of the late 1800’s in post Civil War America. The museum had their Christmas tree up laden with antique ornaments from all eras decorating the tree.

The “Victorian Tree” decorated with antique ornaments

The museum was also decorated with vintage toys and all sorts of garland and decorations

The furniture in the museum as well as the rest of the museum was decked with all sorts of holiday decorations.

The “Victorian Christmas” display was very nice and created a very festive environment for the museum goers. The Christmas tree was a blast from the past as I saw decorations from my Grandmother’s tree on their tree. It brought a lot of memories from Christmas’s past.

The last part of the tour I had was of the Slade Dale Nautical Cottage, a local boater and fisherman’s collection of items from his dock cottage. Here I saw an extensive collection of nautical tools and boating items including displays of sailing items. The collection shows how important the boating and pleasure sailing industry is with the town.

The museum is a wonderful place to visit on an afternoon out when you tire of the beach and you want to know more about the town of Bay Head. It also on the edge of their quaint downtown filled with interesting stores, restaurants, bakery and parks. The small historic downtown is very nice to walk around in the summer months.

The Bay Head Historic District sign

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

https://www.livingplaces.com/NJ/Ocean_County/Bay_Head_Borough/Bay_Head_Historic_District.html#google_vignette

https://www.claytonandclayton.com/blog/best-historic-monuments-in-bay-head-nj.html

Downtown Bay Head, NJ

The canal downtown

It was a bit more gloomy in during the holiday season as the rains came right after Christmas. Still I liked the decorations in this festive and very active downtown.

The church decorated for Christmas on a gloomy Saturday

The downtown businesses decorated for the holidays

The bridge over the canal was beautifully decorated for the holidays

The Bay Head Fire Company One decorated for the holidays

Santa guarding the firehouse in Bayhead, NJ

Bayhead really got into the Christmas spirit during the holiday season. It put me back into the holiday spirit even though it was drizzling the whole time. It must have looked really nice on a sunny afternoon.

The Bay Head Historical Society & Museum information:

(from the Museum website)

This 1867 farm home with outstanding interior woodwork has been restored to its former glory. The museum is home to memorabilia and history of life in this part of the Jersey Shore. An exhibit of turn-of-the-century photographs of the area plus artifacts and heirlooms donated by local residents are on permanent display during the season. The front salon is a gallery for changing displays of local art and special area exhibits. The Victorian garden, the sea grass garden, and the lilac memorial garden are outstanding. Completing the complex is the Dale Cottage, which celebrates the maritime heritage of the area.

The History of the Loveland House (home of museum):

The Loveland Homestead built in 1867, addition in 1887
Slade Dale Cottage 1925:

When members of the Loveland family settled in this area around 1837, the land at the head of Barnegat Bay was sheltered from the sea by high sand dunes covered with sea grasses where bay berries and beach plum bushes grew in abundance. There were cranberry bogs, marshlands and fresh water lakes which provided a habitat for the birds and migratory fowls that later attracted gunners to the region.

The Loveland House

The Loveland Homestead historical plaque

The first purchasers of this land, which later became the hamlet known as Lovelandtown, were Judah Allen, who came here from New England in 1685, and John Hance. At the time this area was part of Shrewsbury Township, County of Monmouth, Province of East Jersey under the reign of King James II of England.

As the Loveland family grew, the family steadily increased its land holdings in the area. The members married into prominent local families from Point Pleasant and Brick and continued to develop their neighborhood throughout the late 1800’s.

Inside the old Homestead of the Loveland family

At the same time in the mid-1800’s three land developers from Princeton, Messrs. Howe, Mount and Harris arrived and bought the land eastward that was to become Bay Head. Developed from the beginning as a resort community for the upper middle class, Bay Head attracted many affluent families from both New York and Philadelphia, thanks to the developers attracting two railroad lines to the town. The Jersey Central arrived from New York in 1882 while Pennsylvania Railroad came across the bay through Trenton and Toms River. Last stop for both was Bay Head.

John W. and Samuel Loveland were the largest landholders in the area. They were joined by other early settlers, notably the Cook family and the Stout family, and were linked to these through marriage. In 1867 the Loveland Homestead, currently the home to The Historical Society Museum, was built by Charles Stout for his daughter Lorah Stout upon her marriage to Charles Cook. By 1887 the family had grown and the back part of the house was added on to accommodate their 7 children.

The Loveland family acquired the house in the early 1900’s and continued to live here until the Bay Head Historical Society purchased the property in 1997. At that time the house had fallen into disrepair and after a two year renovation (mostly exterior), the homestead opened as The Historical Society Museum in 1999. The Dale building was acquired by The Historical Society and moved to the property in 2001.

The Loveland Homestead houses artifacts, memorabilia, photographs, furniture, decoys and other treasures from the early Bay Head/ Mantoloking/Lovelandtown years. Worthy of note are the original Gerald Hardenbergh paintings and the carved Kenneth Loveland and Birdsall decoys. All three off these local artists have gained recognition in many areas outside New Jersey.

The photo collection contributed by William Schoettle is equally noteworthy for its comprehensive look at the area as it was in its heyday (mid-1880’s to about 1940). The collection is part of the museums archives and is exhibited frequently.

The Slade Dale Cottage history:

(from the museum website)

The Slade Dale cottage is, in part, a celebration of the sailors of Barnegat Bay. It is also an homage to the man who, as a young man, was a noted sailor in the area and who continued throughout his life to engage in truly memorable sea voyages and bay races. He built his dream marina, the Dale Yacht Basin, through his foresight of bringing outboard motors to the area. He then promoted boating of all kinds throughout the years from the 1940’s to mid-1960’s. For many of those years he lived in his cottage at the end of the dock at the marina.