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Lambert Castle/Passaic County Historical Society 3 Valley Road Paterson, NJ 07503

Lambert Castle/Passaic County Historical Society

3 Valley Road

Paterson, NJ 07503

Phone: (973) 247-0085

Fax: (973) 881-9434

info@lambertcastle.org

http://www.lambertcastle.org

https://lambertcastle.org

Hours:

Museum Wednesday-Sunday-1:00pm-4:00pm

The Castle closed for a five year renovation starting January 2020.

Library & Archives Wednesday-Friday-1:00pm-4:00pm/2nd and 4th Saturday of each month 1:00pm-4:00pm (Memorial Day through Labor Day: 12:00pm-4:00pm)

Admission: $5.00 Donation

My TripAdvisor Review:

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g46718-d1880569-Reviews-Lambert_Castle-Paterson_New_Jersey.html?m=19905

I have visited Lambert Castle a few times, most recently to see the Christmas decorations before they were taken down for the season. I found out from one of the director’s that they had not been put back up since their Holiday Bazaar back in November. I had seen them the year before and they had been very impressive.

Lambert Castle during the renovation in 2025

Right now the Castle is decorated for the Annual Christmas Craft Bazaar and it is just loaded with handmade crafts for the Christmas holidays. There are three floors of crafts and then on the third floor, there is a small restaurant to relax and look over the court of the house. After the bazaar in 2019, the Castle will close for a much needed five year renovation.

The Lambert Castle Christmas Bazaar 2019

I had a chance to visit the floors when they were not decorated for the holidays . The first floor is set up as if the family still lived there with the Billiards Room, Dining Room, Sitting Room, Music Room and Atrium still set as the family resided there. There is period furniture and decorations in all the first floor rooms to give a feel of what it must have been like to live there at that period.

The view of Lambert Castle from the second floor

The second floor galleries hold the collection of the Passaic County Historical Society with all sorts of objects, signs and historical items from all eras of the collection. You are able to see the footprint of the living quarters of the family.

The stained glass windows

The third floor at the time I was there was dedicated to the work of an Italian stone worker and artist who migrated and lived and worked in Paterson.

It is a very interesting way to see life at the turn of the last century in Paterson and the home offers a beautiful view of the City of Paterson and New York in the distance. I have never seen the grounds in the Spring but I am sure that they are quite lovely.

The view alone is worth the visit.

Don’t miss this virtual tour of the Castle and await until the renovations are done to visit again.

Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. commercial on Lambert Castle in 2019.

Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. Project: “Take me back to Paterson, NJ”.

Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc.

History of Lambert Castle:

Catholina Lambert and his Castle:

Catholina Lambert was born in 1834 in Goose Eye, England. In 1851 at the young age of 17, Lambert left home to seek his fortune in the “Land of Opportunity” that was America. After several successful ventures in the silk industry, Lambert decided to build a home that would be reminiscent of the castles he recalled from his boyhood in England. In 1892, he built his own castle on Garret Mountain in Paterson, NJ, then known as the “Silk, City of the New World.”

Catholina Lambert

Lambert’s home was built to showcase his elaborate art collection of fine European and American paintings and sculpture. At one time, his collection was so vast that it was considered to be “the nucleus of an American Louvre.” In 1913, Lambert fell into debt and his fortune started to dwindle. As a result, he was forced to mortgage the Castle and eventually sell much of his art collection. The proceeds allowed him to live comfortably in the Castle until his death at age 89 in 1923.

After Lambert’s death, his son, Walter sold the Castle to the City of Paterson, which later sold it to the County of Passaic. Today the Castle is still owned by the County and serves as the headquarters of the Passaic County Historical Society. The Society, a private not for profit organization, owns the historical artifacts and works of art.

Catholina Lambert and Company

The home and the museum, exist as a reminder of a bygone era and as a tribute to the great accomplishment of the Castle’s creator. Although most of the furnishings today are not original to the Lambert’s home, they represent period furnishings that would have been found in the Castle during the Lambert era.

For more information about the rooms and decor, visit The Lambert Castle Blog at:

https://lambertcastleweb.wordpress.com/museum

Passaic Historical Society:

The Society & Museum:

The Passaic County Historical Society is a private non-profit educational organization founded in 1926 and dedicated to cultivation of interest in the history and culture of Passaic County and former home of silk magnate Catholina Lambert was built in 1892. The Castle is owned by the County of Passaic and has been the home to the Society since 1934.

Library & Archives:

Located in the lower level of the Castle is the Elizabeth A. Beam Memorial Historical Research Library, operated by the Passaic County Historical Society. Here scholarly researchers, genealogists and historical enthusiasts may find books, manuscripts, maps, photographs, genealogy records and other information that reveals the history of Passaic County. Access to the library is included with regular admission to Lambert Castle.

Membership:

The Society depends upon the support of its membership as well as museum admission to sustain its important mission. Please consider becoming a member and helping to preserve the history of Passaic County.

The Second Floor Galleries:

The Castles’s second floor has several exhibition galleries, each presenting a different historical display from the Society’s collections. To the right of the fireplace on the walls of the second floor balcony is an exhibition of works by noted Paterson artist Julian Rix. On the opposite side are portraits of notable Passaic County residents and a collection of historic engravings of the Passaic Falls. Behind the fireplace are the Lambert’s private rooms. To the left, in the former sitting room and bedroom of Mr. Lambert, are the Curiosities and Local Folk Art galleries and the famous Brass Dog Sculpture that served for many years as an advertising sign for a tinsmith’s shop in nineteenth-century Paterson. In the adjacent room, the former bedroom of Mrs. Lambert, is the Local History Gallery which features historical images of prominent businesses and people.

The Third Floor Exhibition Gallery:

The Third floor of Lambert Castle is reserved for changing or seasonable exhibitions.

Disclaimer: This information comes directly from the Passaic County Historical Society & Museum pamphlet and I give them full credit of it. Rather than transcribing the whole pamphlet with the description of rooms, I attached their website and blog on WordPress.com for more detailed viewing.

The Van Allen House/Oakland Historical Society 3 Franklin Avenue & Route 202 Oakland, NJ 07436

The Van Allen House

Oakland Historical Society

3 Franklin Avenue & Route 202

Oakland, NJ 07436

(201) 337-9652

Open: Seasonally; please check their website

http://www.oaklandhistoricalsociety.org

http://www.oaklandhistoricalsociety.org/

TripAdvisor Review:

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g46693-d10359401-Reviews-The_Van_Allen_House-Oakland_New_Jersey.html?m=19905

The Van Allen House in 2023 during the next History Coalition

I visited the Van Allen House on my first trip on the Northwest Bergen History Coalition 6th Annual History Day tour of Upper Bergen County in 2016 and in 2019. It is mentioned on ‘Day Forty-Three’ of my blog, ‘MywalkinManhattan.com’. It had been my last stop of the day. The historic home is currently closed due to renovations on the house and will open in the Fall of 2019.

The Van Allen House during the renovation in 2023 with the added dormers

Of all my stops that day, I found that the Van Allen House was in need of a renovation. From the outside, it is very quaint. On the inside, the house needed a lot of fixing up and restoration work. The upstairs had water marks all over the ceilings. The gardens also needed some serious weeding and planting. IN 2023, the renovations of the upstairs had been completed and the home was replastered and painted. Most of the artifacts were stored in a few rooms that were being finished.

The kitchen is as you enter the home

During the renovation, a lot of the artifacts were being stored in the addition to the house that took place in the early 1800’s. Many of the things that had been donated were showcased in this room off the kitchen and shows the wide variety of the society’s collection. There were all sorts of items from the home, decorative pieces and a variety of things that would have been used at the house as it being a working farm. There were also many Native American artifacts.

Some of the artifacts in the downstairs room

Artifacts in the room downstairs

Household items donated to the society

More household items of the Van Allen House

More artifacts of the Van Allen House Collection

The vast array of items in the downstairs addition of the house will be used all over the house once the renovation is completed sometime in the next two years. There was still a lot to do around the house. There had been so much damage to the house over the years that it needed a major renovation.

The upstairs had been finished with the addition of the domers which a few of the society members had said that these were not part of the original house. They can debate about it but the house looks really nice with them and makes the house look realistic. Still from what the people said that they were not part of the original design.

You could see the vast improvement in the house over the last three years and the extent of the work that had been done already. All the outstairs rooms had been plastered and painted. The rooms looked very modern,

The upstairs has been nicely restored

The upstairs rooms now house many of the home furnishings of the collection along with clothes and personal items of families that have donated them over the years. The upstairs is just finishing the renovation so things will have to be organized in the future but at least you can see the things that the Historical Society has in the collection.

Household items in the collection upstairs

Clothing and bedding items at the Van Allen House

The smaller bedroom of the Van Allen House

One of the best things of the house is its gift shop. It has some of the most unusual handmade gifts that it was worth the trip out to the house. One of the members makes handmade cloth dolls for $5.00 that are just quaint and make a beautiful gift.

The Oakland Historical Society, who operates the house, was putting a lot of time and effort in the renovations of the house and their volunteers I was told would be working on the gardens. Either way, it is an interesting house to visit and it is steeped in history.

The upstairs beams leading to the bedrooms

The toy collection at the top of the stairs

The History of the Van Allen House:

The Van Allen House was built around 1740 as the home of farmer Hendrik Van Allen. During the Revolutionary War, it served as the headquarters for George Washington on July 14, 1777. At the time, he moving his troops from Morristown, NJ to New York (Wiki).

In 1778 and 1779, Bergen County used the house as a court. Edward Day Page, a dairy farmer, businessman and Oakland’s second mayor, owned the house as well as the northern fourth of Oakland in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century (Wiki).

Household items at the Van Allen House

It was saved from demolition by the Oakland Historical Society with aid from the Woman’s Club of Oakland. It is now maintained as a museum displaying colonial Dutch life. The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places on July 24, 1973. There were several branches of the family in the Paterson, Passaic and Bergen Counties in New Jersey (Wiki).

Items in the family collection

The Oakland Historical Society:

The mission of the Oakland Historical Society (Oakland, NJ) is to bring to life and help maintain the history of the Borough of Oakland by activating and preserving especially the Van Allen House site, with the Vygeberg Farm Office Building and by keeping a museum there showing living displays and memories of Oakland’s past. We support living displays and memories of Oakland’s past. We support the Borough’s efforts to continue and complete the renovations of both buildings with the help of the Bergen County Office of Historic Preservation (OHS).

The Children’s bedroom at the Van Allen House

During the year we offer opportunities from people to visit the Van Allen House and experience local life as it was in the 18th and 19th Centuries on a farm settlement in northern New Jersey. The Lenni-Lenape Indians are known to have used the path which followed the Ramapo River Valley north and south and has now become an interstate roadway, Route 202, which goes from Maine south into Maryland and beyond. Copies of letters George Washington wrote at the House are available there during open-houses, usually the 3rd or 4th Sunday afternoon many months during the year. Please check our events page to see when the house will be open (OHS).

The Van Allen House on that gloomy Saturday morning

The site also has a building from 1902, built by Edward Page, one of the industrialists who settled along Route 202 to develop agricultural for the growing cities of Northern New Jersey, such as Paterson or Newark (OHS).

The Van Allen House Marker

The house was really interesting to visit during the Northwest Bergen Historical Coalition. The docents were really nice and they gave some interesting insights about the family and the house itself.

The Christmas holiday event celebrating Sinterklaas and the Dutch Christmas:

The outside of the house decorated for Christmas

The front door wreath

The wreath

In December of 2025, I visited the historical site for the Sinterklaas celebration for the Christmas season. It was a nice festival with making in the hearth and gingerbread man decorating for the kids. These were delicious.

Baking in the hearth

Decorating gingerbreadmen

Indulging in freshly baked gingerbreamen

There was a woman playing Christmas songs on the harpsichord to the group of patrons in the main room of the house and an old fashioned Christmas tree decorated for the holidays.

The colonial woman playing the harpsichord

The performance

Sinterklaas, the Dutch version of Santa Claus was on hand to talk to the children and give out well wishes to everyone.

Sinterklaas talking to the guests

The jolly man greeting all of us

The house both inside and out was decorated for the Christmas holidays and had that early colonial look about it. Back then things were not as elaborate as the Victorian era and were simple pines, green and berries.

The simple table tree

The pines and greens decorating the mantle

The wonderful artifacts that are part of the collection

In the gift shop area there were very reasonably priced handmade dolls and ornaments made by one of the members. These one of a kind pieces are a perfect gift for the holidays. These are a very special gift for a lucky child.

The handmade items in the gift shop area

The grounds of the house and outside doors were decorated with wreaths and greens as well.

The wreath outside the Dutch doors

It was a nice event and the perfect way to start the holiday season. These Oakland Historical Society did a nice job with popular family event. It was a nice way to start the holiday season. The house was beautifully decorated for the season and the Society was planning all sorts of events for the Spring.

Pascack Historical Society Museum (John C. Storms Museum) 19 Ridge Avenue Park Ridge, NJ 07656

The Pascack Historical Society Museum (John C. Storms Museum)

19 Ridge Avenue

Park Ridge, NJ 07656

Phone: (201) 573-0307

Open on Sundays from 1:00pm-4:00pm; Admission is Free. Gift Shop hours are when the museum is open. (Holiday Excepted).

http://www.pascackhistoricalsociety.org

http://www.facebook.com/pascackhistoricalsociety

TripAdvisor Review:

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g46713-d12610386-Reviews-Pascack_Historical_Society_Museum-Park_Ridge_New_Jersey.html?m=19905

The Pascack Valley Historical Society is now celebrating their 75th Anniversary.

The Pascack Historical Society Museum (John C. Storms Museum), headquarters of the award-winning Pascack Historical Society, is located in the 1873 church building that was dedicated by the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher. The building and all the exhibitions have gone through an extensive renovation and have been reinstalled with more signage and information. Please check out their new displays.

The sign that greets you in the front of the building.

The Historical Marker in front of the building.

As you enter the building, you are welcomed to a comfortable spot.

The extensive exhibits include a general store, colonial kitchen, a Victorian Living Room, dolls, clothing and other displays of American life in the Pascack Valley. The front gallery as you enter serves as a classroom and lecture hall for the society. There you can see a variety of artifacts in the collection from china to guns and clothing.

Artifacts in the front room.

Artifacts in the first gallery.

A collection of antique guns in the front gallery.

A selection of hats in the front gallery.

There is also a special exhibition that features the world’s only wampum drilling machine as well as a collection of early colonial currency.

The Wampum Machine sign and how Wampum is made.

Their early Colonial Financial exhibits include an early wampum machine that the tour guide had said that it was the only one of its kind that made a type of rolled wampum from the inner section of a conch shell. Early New Jersey currency is well represented in the collection with several types of dollar bills at a time when states printed their own currency for its citizens. Really take a look at the early detail work of these bills.

The Wampum display of shells and tools.

The uses of Wampum and how it is made.

The oldest working Wampum machine in the world.

The Van Ripper General Store exhibition features many types of early Colonial artifacts that include weights and measures, food items found in an early grocery store, turn of the last century bottles and many types of appliances for cooking. Several treasures are tucked here and there to create the mood of shopping at the turn of the last century in Bergen County. There are classic groceries, weights and measures to weight groceries and several artifacts from the Van Ripper and Stockdale Farms which used to be located in the area.

The General Store sign

The General Store display.

Stockdale’s Dairy Farm was a popular farm in Park Ridge before the 1960’s.

Tools need on the farm and in the home.

The Tool display at the General Store.

The Toy Collection is extensive and covers several time periods. They have a interesting collection of dolls over the ages that include cloth and china dolls that would cater to children from different economic status. There are also games, wooden and metal pull toys and hobby toys such as marbles and jacks.

The Early Dutch Farmhouse Kitchen & Dining Room features one of the first beds that has no mattress but constructed by a series of ropes that are tightened. The tour guide explained that this might be where the expression “Sleep tight and don’t let the bed bugs bite” might have come from as the ropes needed to be tightened each evening before the family went to bed.

Early Dutch life sign.

The exhibit also had early furniture hatches, chamber pots, a butter churner, various chairs that were manufactured in the area and several detailed decorative pieces.

The Early Dutch Kitchen and Living Space

The Victorian Dress of the church visitation.

The Victorian Living Room features many plush pieces of furniture, decorative knick-knacks that used to dominate the décor and a graceful piano with mother of pearl keys and decorative carved sides. This model was one of maybe a hundred made for a very elite client. The display also featured one of the early record players that still works.

The ‘Victorian Afternoon’ exhibition in 2024:

The sign for the Victorian home:

The ideal Victorian Home ‘Parlor’

Early Edison products

Early Edison recording equipment was not just musical but decorative.

The horse display.

The new exhibition 2025: ‘Collignon Chairs’

The exhibition is on the Collignon Chair factory of River Vale, NJ and the selection of chairs that the factory once manufactured.

The sign from the exhibition

Some of the collection of Collignon chairs on display including the popular deck chair used on streamlines.

The popular folding rocker from the collection

The display of chairs and a drawing of the old factory

Off to the side, there is an early sleigh and horse display, an exhibit of typewriters and carbon paper as I found out the area was once the leading manufacturer for carbon paper and a complete workshop with tools from all eras.

Typewriter collection at the museum.

Early Electronics

The schoolhouse desk of the school master.

The workshop is a very detailed in its artifacts with early saws, hammers and items that even I could not figure out what they were.

In the main room, there are more cases of toys, Revolutionary items and Native American artifacts to explore.

Native American Artifacts

The Lenape display

The Native American display.

A small gift shop is off to the side selling items donated by members.

Become a Friend: From the Friends of the Pascack Historical Society Museum pamphlet:

Pascack Historical Society Information and History:

The Corner Cupboard of early American china.

(From their pamphlet):

Membership Benefits:

Become a member of the Pascack Historical Society, a 501C3 organization. Dues are modest and membership has its privileges!

One year of free admission to the museum and most of its activities.
A one year subscription to the Society’s award-winning quarterly newsletter, RELICS.
10% discount on museum gift shop items (Sale items and new books excluded).
50% discounts on programs for children and adults.
You will receive Members Only advance notice mailings and emails about upcoming events and activities.
Members only “behind the scenes tours” of the museum. (By Appointment Only).
You will have the satisfaction of knowing you have joined the ranks of the area’s most passionate historical preservationists, who have a commitment to educate and enrich their neighbors’ lives-young and old.

The Military embellishments

In 2026, the museum was celebrating the ‘250th Anniversary’ of the Revolutionary War and had an exhibition of artifacts from the Pascack Valley.

The ‘250th Anniversary’ of Revolutionary War

This included all the stops that General Washington made in Bergen County, battles and confrontations with British soldiers and family battles by members who were loyalists and patriots.

The currency of the war years

The exhibitions shows New Jersey’s contributions to the war effort. This part of the exhibition has Colonial currency from New Jersey.

New Jersey Colonial Currency

The full exhibition of the ‘250th Anniversary’ of the Revolution War

Uniforms and accessories of the War years

The Baylor Massacre attack

The Tarlatan Calvary helmet

The Lenape artifacts from that era

Membership Opportunities:

Preserving and disseminating local history is a labor of love when you become a PHS member. It is a partnership between you and your fellow members. We encourage you to think about volunteering at some level at the museum or its events. Check out the volunteer opportunities below and give us a call if you would like to participate in any of them.

Docent: Act as a guide when people visit the museum. A simple one-day training session is all it takes.
Researcher: Do you like to wander through books and archives searching for answers to questions?
Archivists: Preserve and catalog the history of the Pascack Valley.
Educators: Work with youngsters and licensed teachers at Society events.
Tech Savvy: Volunteer your time to help with our website or graphic design.
Handy Helpers: Do you like to repair things? Can you sew, do carpentry? This might be for you.

*Disclaimer: Information on Volunteer and Membership opportunities are taken directly from the Pascack Historical Society Museum pamphlet. Most of the descriptions of the displays is what I was able to see in my short time visiting. The museum has a treasure trove of items to look at in detail.

The Reformed Dutch Church with its Colonial cemetery and the Wortendyke Barn is right down the road so take a few hours to explore the area. The members of the Wortendyke family are buried in the church’s cemetery.

Visit from Bergen Community College for the Bergecco- Parc Consulting Inc. on April 9th, 2025: for the ‘Bergen 250’ project:

The project we created for the “Bergen 250: the 250th Anniversary of the Revolutionary War” that was created:

https://mywalkinmanhattan.com/tag/bergen-250-the-250th-anniversary-of-the-revolutionary-war-in-bergen-county-nj/

As part of my International Marketing class, I took my students to visit the three sites for our project on the ‘Bergen 250’:

The students toured the museum with the assistance of the Museum’s Board members

As part of the assignment for our ‘Farm to Table Dinner’, the project starts here with a Cocktail Party and tour of the museum. The back room of the museum was where the party takes place and then the guests would tour the museum before heading to dinner at the Wortendyke Barn down the road.

Peter Meany, the First Vice President of the Board explaining the Wampum machine to the students. This form of Native American currency is the only machine in the world like it and is a rare artifact.

Our Team group picture at the Pascack Valley Historical Society with members of the Museum’s Executive Board Peter Meany, Ralph Donnell Jr. and Christopher Kersting.

We want to thank the Board for taking time out of their busy schedule to support the students on this project.

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