Tag: Historic Sites of New Jersey

Historic Cold Spring Village 720 Route 9 Cape May, NJ 08204

Historic Cold Spring Village

720 Route 9

Cape May, NJ 08204

(609) 898-2300

hcsv.org

https://hcsv.org/

Open: 10:00am-4:30pm, Tuesdays through Sundays/Monday Closed

Seasonal: June 23rd to September 2nd

Fee: $14.00 for adults and $12.00 for children 3-12. Children under 3 admitted for free.

Admission is free with membership. Please call (609) 898-2300, ext. 10 for accessibility. Pet Friendly and free parking.

TripAdvisor Review:

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g46341-d268948-Reviews-Historic_Cold_Spring_Village-Cape_May_Cape_May_County_New_Jersey.html?m=19905

Historic Cold Spring Village in the summer of 2023. The 1800’s came to life when you visit.

The welcoming sign

Historically clothed interpreters demonstrate blacksmithing, pottery, printing, basket weaving and more! Visit an Early American schoolhouse, take part in hands-on activities and crafts and sample historic games and horse-drawn wagon rides on weekdays.

The Visitor’s Center at Historic Cold Spring Village

The village is also home to an organic farm complete with a horse, chickens, sheep and more! Visitors will also find a Welcome Center, Country Store, Bakery, Ice Cream Parlor, Cold Spring Grange Restaurant and Cold Spring Brewery.

The Map of the Village

Historic Cold Spring Village is a non-profit, open air living history museum dedicated to preserving the rich heritage of southern New Jersey. During the summer months, interpreters and artisans in period clothing preserve the trades, crafts and heritage of “the age of homespun.” From October-May, the emphasis is on teaching history through school trips to the Village, classroom visits by the education department and interactive teleconferences with schools throughout the U.S.

The Visitor’s Center exhibition is open in off season.

Our Education Program relates the history of the region to the broader scope of New Jersey, American and World History. Historic Cold Spring Village offers programs for students of all ages and programs can be adapted to any grade level. Please contact the Village for a more detailed description of each program.

Historic Cold Spring Village’s educational offerings are designed to comply with the 2009 New Jersey Core Curriculum Content Standards for Social Studies as established by the New Jersey Department of Education.

The Visitor’s Center exhibitions at Historic Cold Spring Village.

Stroll the shaded lanes of Historic Cold Spring Village’s 30 acres as you step back in time to an early American South Jersey farm community. Craft persons, tradesmen, housewives and farmers are eager to share their experience as you visit the Village’s 27 historic buildings. The Village is located on Route 9, four miles south of Rio Grande and three miles north of Cape May City. Visitors from the north, take the Garden State Parkway to Exit 4A and follow the signs to the Village.

For additional information on Historic Cold Spring Village programs, projects or events, please call, fax, email or visit our website.

Telephone: (609) 898-2300

Fax (609) 884-5926

Email 4info@hcsv.org

Web: http://www.hcsv.org

Give the Past a Future: Invest in the future of HCSV by making a tax-deductible charitable contribution, volunteering or becoming a member. For additional information, call (609) 898-2300, ext. 10.

The Village’s educational programs meet the following standards:

6.1 US History, America in the World

6.2 World History/Global Studies

6.3 Active Citizenship in the 21st Century

The Marshallville One-Room Schoolhouse Experience

In the circa 1850 Marshallville Schoolhouse, students experience a typical Early American school day. Students ‘make their manners’, discover the subject studied by Early American students, write with quill pens and learn the consequences of not following classroom rules.

The Schoolhouse

The Marshallville Schoolhouse is available free of charge for teachers who wish to personally recreate a ‘school day of the past’ for their class. Village staff is available to run the program for a fee.

‘Visits to the Past’

Field trips to Historic Cold Spring Village offer students and teachers the opportunity to experience the past first hand. Select Village buildings, like the print shop, schoolhouse, blacksmith shop and inn are open exclusively for school groups. Costumed interpreters interact with students while demonstrating the trades and crafts of Early America. Field trips are held mid-May through early June. Call or email for fees and dates.

The gift shop offers all sorts of old fashioned goodies

We see America Learning: Teaching Early American History through ‘I Visits’

Distance learning programs are offered to schools nationwide. The programs are delivered via a state of the art broadband IP (Internet Protocol) systems and are adaptable to any grade level. If your school does not have a teleconference camera, our distance learning programs are also available through Skype using just your classroom computer and a webcam.

An Early American School Day: A typical day in an Early American rural school.

The Story of Old Glory: The origins and early history of the flag of the United States, using a collection of reproduction historic flags from the 17th Century through the Civil War.

Past Versus Present: A comparison of contemporary everyday objects with their Early American equivalents for example, a flashlight vs a lantern; digital camera vs daguerreotype.

Four Great Inventions (and one that almost was): Explores the creation of the steam boat, the steam locomotive, the daguerreotype camera, the telephone and difference engine, an 1832 attempt to build a mechanical computer.

Hearth and Home: An exploration of the role of the domestic arts practiced by 1800’s housewife with an emphasis on food preparation including hearth cooking.

Gone for a soldier: A day in the life of a Civil War Infantryman: Includes discussions of uniforms, equipment, camp life, food and weapons.

Welcome Centers: Taverns, Inns and Wayside Stops: A presentation utilizing our circa 1836 Dennisville Inn, A former stagecoach stop in Dennisville, NJ to explain the important part buildings such as these played in a community.

The Inn at the Historic Cold Spring Village

Revisiting the Country Store: An Important Community Resource: A look at the vital role of a general store in the life of rural America as a purveyor of goods, social center, post office, etc.

The War of 1812: More than the Star-Spangled Banner: An overview of the “Second War of Independence”,

Fiber Arts: A domestic program primarily including weaving and spinning interpretations.

The First Frontier: Whaler Yeomen in Colonial New Jersey: The story of the first permanent European settlers in New Jersey as well as a discussion of how the Eastern Seaboard was the original American Frontier.

Early American Trades: Explores the important role a printer, woodwright, blacksmith, bookbinder or tinsmith, had in an Early American community. Includes in-workshop demonstrations.

Disclaimer: This information is taken directly from the Cold Springs Village pamphlet. Please call them at the above number or email address for more information.

The Wortendyke Barn 13 Pascack Road Park Ridge, NJ 07656

The Wortendyke Barn

13 Pascack Road

Park Ridge, NJ 07656

(201) 930-0124 (in season)/(201) 336-7267

http://www.co.bergen.nj.us

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Wortendyke-Barn/107718765917899

Open: Seasonal April-October

Fee: Free (concerts are free)

TripAdvisor Review:

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g46713-d12591229-Reviews-Wortendyke_Barn_Museum-Park_Ridge_New_Jersey.html?m=19905

The Wortendyke Barn Museum, a National Register landmark, is all that remains of the original Wortendyke family farm. The barn, built circa 1770, is an outstanding example of the vernacular architecture referred to as a “New World Dutch Barn”, which could be found throughout 18th and 19th century Bergen County.

The Historic sign of the barn

The Wortendyke Family sign

Most were built between 1624 and 1820 wherever Dutch farmers settled along the Hudson, Hackensack, Passaic, Raritan and Mohawk rivers. Today there are probably fewer than 100 of these barns left in various states of use and repair.

The Wortendyke Barn from Pascack Road

It was completely made of local wood, down to the nails called trunnels. Massive anchor beams support by posts creating an H-Frame, support the entire structure. These beams in turn support the ‘pulin’ plates, which support the roof. These barns were wider than long with steep, sloping roofs and low sidewalls, which created large storage areas. Farmers were able to store a variety of crops, keep many animals in the side bays and store hay in the large, roomy lofts. Because they were raised off the ground on a sill, the wood plan floors could last for decades. Large entrances on both gable ends allowed for the efficient unloading of wagons.

The Wortendyke Barn’s Museum exhibits include handmade 18th and 19th Century farm implements and tools and the history of the Wortendyke family farm and exhibits showing the agricultural history of Bergen County from the first settlers through the 20th century. The Wortendyke family settled in northern New Jersey in 1735 and maintained the land as a working family farm for over 115 years. After 1851, the land was sold several items but the barn continued to be used for its original purpose until well into the 20th century.

At the time the barn was built, most of the families living in the Hackensack Valley were independent farmers some owning hundreds of acres of fertile farmland. People of Dutch ancestry were numerous in Bergen County, speaking Dutch in their homes and churches. The Wortendyke family settled in this area in 1735, when Fredrick Wortendyke Senior moved from Tappan, NY and purchased 465 acres in present day Woodcliff Lake and Park Ridge. The family home, a sandstone house originally built around 1750, still stand directly across the street from the barn.

The Wortendyke Homestead that is privately owned.

The Wortendyke Homestead across the street from the barn.

The Historical marker for the Wortendyke Homestead.

From 1735 to 1851, from before the French and Indian War until nine years before the start of the Civil War, when the farm was sold, the land was maintained by the Wortendyke family as a working farm. After 1851, the land was sold several times. From 1960 until the middle of the 1980’s, the Pascack Historical Society displayed some of their collections in the barn showing it on occasion. After restoration was completed in 1997, Bergen County opened the barn as an accessible museum and County Historic site.

The Wortendyke Barn

The site now contains the barn and landscaped property that surrounds it. The old family homestead is now a private home but you can still see it from across the street. Many of the Wortendyke family are buried in the Dutch Reformed Church up the road, so take some time to visit the cemetery when you are in the area. The whole area is just beautiful this time of the year with all the trees and flowers in bloom and the woody areas close by. The Pascack Historical Society is also right up the road so plan your day wisely.

The historic sign of the barn.

During the Summer and early Fall months, they have a nice array of outdoor concerts on the lawn outside the barn. These usually take place on the last Sunday of the Month so please check the County of Bergen Website for details.

The inside of the Wortendyke Barn

The Ceiling of the barn

The back of the barn after one of the concerts

Also visit the Reformed Church up the road and the family homestead across the street while visiting the barn. You will see more of the family history in the homestead and in the family cemetery at the Church.

Bergen Community College Field Trip-Bergecco-Parc Consulting April 2025

A tour with my students on the Wortendyke Barn for the Bergecco- Parc Consulting Inc. Team Project on the ‘Bergen 250’: the history of the Revolutionary War in Bergen County’.

On April 9th, 2025, my students in my International Marketing class at Bergen Community College did an extensive tour of Park Ridge, NJ to the Wortendyke Barn, the Pascack Reformed Church and the Pascack Valley Historical Society as part of this extensive marketing project.

We toured the barn and the grounds on this spectacular day with County Historian, Vivian Davis, who I am partnering with on this project. We discussed the history and architecture of the barn and of the Wortendyke family. It was a very interesting tour for all of us.

The barn in the early Spring

The Wortendyke Barn in the Spring

The grounds in the Spring

The Wortendyke Barn

Old farming equipment

Old equipment at the barn

Touring the outside of the barn and grounds with Vivian Davis, the County Historian

My class touring the inside of the barn

Our class picture after the tour of the barn and grounds

The Bergen County Division of Cultural and Historical Affairs publication is funded by a general operating support grant from the New Jersey Historical Commission, a Division of the Department of State.

*Disclaimer: This information about the Wortendyke Barn Museum was taken directly from the Bergen County Division of Cultural and Historical Affairs pamphlet. The barn is a beautiful example of Dutch architecture and really should be visited in the Spring and Fall for the areas true beauty shines. Please call the above number and ask about extended hours, programming and accessibility for the disabled.-

Baylor Massacre Burial Site Rivervale Road & Red Oak Drive River Vale, NJ 07675

The Baylor Massacre Burial Site

486 Rivervale Drive

Rivervale Road and Red Oak Drive

River Vale, NJ 07675

http://www.bergencountyhistory.org/Pages/baylormassacre.html

Open: Dawn to Dusk

My review on TripAdvisor:

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g46777-d12277914-Reviews-Baylor_Massacre_Burial_Site-River_Vale_New_Jersey.html?m=19905

Don’t miss this little hidden site in Old Tappan, NJ. The Baylor Massacre site holds a rich history in the county and in the country’s founding. It will make you realize what an important role that the State of New Jersey had in the Revolutionary War and the lives sacrificed to win the war. My hats off to these brave men and women who helped fight for our freedom.

The Baylor Massacre site in the Fall

This quiet little park sits off to the side by the river and you will need to take time to walk the paths and enjoy the reading the signing. The sacrifice that these men made during the war effort and the way they were treated by the British in the act of war was deplorable. That and the fact that their own countrymen from Bergen County turned them into the British was unbelievable.

The Baylor Massacre history:

After midnight on September 28, 1778 during America’s Revolutionary War, the brutal surprise attack by the British forces on the sleeping men of the 3rd Continental Light Dragoons began. Today this is known as the Baylor Massacre. Nowa County-owned historic park and burial ground, the Baylor Massacre Site is located along the Hackensack River in River Vale in Northern Bergen County, New Jersey.

In the Autumn of 1778, British General Cornwallis occupied southern Bergen County with a force of 5000 soldiers. Their purpose was to gather and forage for food to feed the army that would be garrisoned in New York City during the upcoming winter. Bergen County, with its fertile land and industrious Jersey Dutch farms, was a major source for food for both armies during the Revolution.

The Third Continental Light Dragoons, under the command by Lt. Colonel George Baylor, was one of four regiments of dragoons authorized by the Continental Congress. On the 27th of September, these 104 officers and men were dispatched to watch the bridge over the Hackensack River at the intersection of modern Rivervale and Old Tappan Roads to support General Wayne and his men in Tappan, New York.

The British forces were lead by General Charles “No Flint” Grey, who earned his nickname in the 1777 battle with General Wayne’s Pennsylvania troops when he ordered his men to remove the flints from their muskets to prevent an accidental gunshot and to use bayonets to insure the surprise of a nighttime attack. These tactics were used again in River Vale.

Grey’s men used their muskets to club and their bayonets to stab the sleeping dragoons. Eleven were killed immediately. Three more including 2nd in Command Major Alexander Clough (Washington’s Chief of Intelligence for the Hudson Valley), died of their wounds in Tappan the following day. Records indicate that as many as 22 men died some several weeks later. Two officers and 37 men, most of who were wounded, managed to escape into the night. One British soldier was killed when shot by a dragoon.

Grey’s men quickly gathered their prisoners and captured American equipment and continued up North. Fortunately General Wayne had been alerted of the movement of the British and had evacuated Tappan. The next day a detachment of the Bergen County Militia was dispatched to River Vale to locate any survivors. Finding six of the dead patriots at the bridge and fearing the possible return of British troops, they hurried to bury them in three abandoned leather tanning vats by the river.

The burial location was passed on by word of mouth for many generations. The only physical maker was the abandoned millstone from the tannery. Abram C. Holdrum removed the millstone from the site around 1900. For many years it was displayed in from of the local Holdrum School.

In 1967, a local resident became alarmed that a new housing development would destroy this historic burial site. Through careful research the approximate location of the burials was identified. County Freeholder D. Bennett Mazur was contacted and as a result, the County sponsored an archaeological dig that located six sets of remains. The County eventually acquired the site and dedicated it as a County Park. In 1974, the patriots’ remains were re-interred in the park and the original millstone was donated to serve as their gravestone.

In 2003, the County dedicated new interpretive panels and accessible pathways at the Baylor Massacre site. It is open year round during daylight hours.

WWW.BERGEN.NJ.US

Disclaimer: This information was taken from the County Pamphlet: 2015 Bergen County Division of Cultural and Historic Affairs. The Bergen County Division of Cultural & Historic Affairs received an operating support grant from the New Jersey Historical Commission, a division of the Department of State. I give them full credit for this information.

The Baylor Massacre site in the fall of 2022

The Park in the fall months

Note from the Blogger: it is easy to miss the site so watch for the markers. For those interesting in the historical background of the Revolutionary War and New Jersey’s role in the war, take the time to visit this and other sites around Bergen County, New Jersey. They may be small but very significant.

Watch this interesting video that someone posted on YouTube.com

The grounds of the park

The grounds of the park in the fall

The site in the early Spring of 2025

The information signs of the site

The pathways by the river

The gravesite and memorial

The pathways around the park

The pathways around the park

The historic marker in the early Spring

In April of 2025, I took my students from Bergen Community College to the site for a project that we were working on for the ‘Bergen 250’. Most of the students did not know this place existed.

A talk with Colin Knight from the County Historical Division with my students

Me with my students at the Baylor Massacre site

A group picture near the county marker and garden with my students

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