Old City Cemetery and Museums [VA]

Description

The Old City Cemetery is the oldest public cemetery in Virginia, in continuous operation since 1806. The site includes the Mourning Museum, Pest House Medical Museum, Hearse House and Cemetery Caretaker's Museum, Station House, and Chapel and Columbarium. The Station House is furnished in a circa World War I style. The Hearse House contains a circa 1900 hearse and a variety of cemetery caretaker tools. The Mourning Museum presents 19th- and 20th-century mourning attire, jewelry, and etiquette, as well as the history of coffins and embalming. Topics relevant to the site include horticulture, symbolism, ironwork, Civil War medicine, mourning practices of the Victorian era, railways, African American history, the founding of Lynchburg, women, archaeology, and local disasters. The cemetery has been in use since 1806.

The cemetery offers self-guided tours; period rooms; exhibits; Mourning Museum tours; interior tours of the Pest House, Hearse House, Station House, and Chapel; audio tours; customizable guided cemetery tours; and wayside signs. Appointments are required for interior tours of the Pest House, Hearse House, Station House, and Chapel, as well as for guided cemetery tours. The website offers lesson plans, brief descriptions of notable figures interred on site, a virtual African American history tour, and brief informative articles.

Historic Bath [NC]

Description

European settlement near the Pamlico River in the 1690s led to the founding of Bath, North Carolina's first town, in 1705. By 1708, Bath had 50 people and 12 houses. It soon became North Carolina's first port. Political rivalries, Indian wars, and piracy marked its early years, but in 1746 Bath was considered for the colony's capital. However, when county government moved away in the late 1700s, Bath lost most of its importance and trade. Its original town limits encompass a historic district today. Restoration efforts in Bath have saved the St. Thomas Church, the Palmer-Marsh House, Van Der Veer House (circa 1790), and the Bonner House (circa 1830).

The site offers a short film, exhibits, tours, educational programs, film screenings, and occasional recreational and educational events.

La Purísima Mission State Historic Park [CA]

Description

Misión la Purísima Concepción de María Santísima (Mission of the Immaculate Conception of Most Holy Mary) was founded by Father Presidente Fermin de Lasuén on December 8, 1787. It was the 11th of 21 Franciscan Missions established in Alta California. A major earthquake on December 21, 1812, destroyed many of the mission buildings. Father Mariano Payeras received permission to relocate the mission community four miles to the northeast in La Cañada de los Berros, next to El Camino Real. La Purísima Mission was officially established in its new location on April 23, 1813. Materials salvaged from the buildings destroyed by the earthquake were used to construct the new buildings, which were completed within 10 years. The end of the California missions came in 1834, when the Mexican government, which had gained independence from Spain, transferred control of the missions from the Catholic Church to civil authorities. Today, La Purísima Mission State Historic Park is considered the most completely restored mission in California, with 10 of the original buildings fully restored and furnished, including the church, shops, quarters, and blacksmith shop. The mission gardens and livestock represent what would have been found at the mission during the 1820s. Special living history events are scheduled throughout the year. A visitor center features information, displays, and artifacts; and a self-guided tour gives visitors the opportunity to step back in time for a glimpse of a brief, turbulent period in California's history.

The site offers exhibits, tours, living history events, educational programs, and occasional other educational and recreational events.

Rhode Island Jewish Historical Association [RI]

Description

The Rhode Island Jewish Historical Association is Rhode Island's oldest ethnic historic group, and chronicles the history of Jews in Rhode Island. The society works with local educational institutions in order to aid in scholarship and education regarding Jews in Rhode Island.

The society offers teaching aids, historical resources, and artifacts that can be used by teachers in the classroom. The society also offers research resources. The website offers basic information regarding the society and its resources and programs.

Howard County Historical Society and Museums [NE]

Description

The Howard County Historical Society seeks to preserve and share the history of Howard County, Nebraska. To this end, the society operates the Saint Paul Transportation Museum and Village Depot, the Veterans Museum, the Historical Village, and the Gruber House. The transportation museum is located within a 1908 railway depot. The village consists of a historic schoolhouse, containing local history exhibits; a historic store, containing frontier life exhibits; a forge, complete with blacksmithing demonstrations and exhibits; and the depot, which contains the transportation museum. The 1908 Gruber House contains the Veterans Museum, as well as exhibits about Native American life, Howard County religion, Victorian era life, and Jean Catharine Potts. Potts (1910-1999) was a nationally recognized mystery author. Her works include Go, Lively Rose and The Evil Wish.

The society offers period rooms, exhibits, and blacksmithing demonstrations.

Fulton County Historical Society and Museums [IN]

Description

The Fulton County Historical Society seeks to preserve and share the history of Fulton County, Indiana. To this end, the society operates a museum; a 1924 round barn, containing historic farming implements; a living history village; and a research library. Exhibit topics include music, art, living conditions between 1910 and 1935, toys, medicine, Native Americans, education, the military, recreation, trade, religion, and the circus.

The society also manages another site (www.potawatomi-tda.org) which shows the Potawatomi Trail of Death 1838 diary, photos of all 78 historical markers and of the many Potawatomi who had ancestors on the Trail of Death from Indiana to Kansas, exhibits, period rooms, a tour and scavenger hunt for students, and research library access.

Big Springs Historical Society and Museum [NY]

Description

The Big Springs Historical Society seeks to preserve and share the history of the Caledonia-Mumford community, New York. To this end, the society operates a museum. Museum collections include Caledonia’s Seth Green Fish Hatchery artifacts, costumes and textiles, military artifacts, religious artifacts, educational artifacts, natural history samples, fine and decorative arts, and Native American artifacts.

The society offers exhibits and on site research assistance.

Old Dutch Parsonage and Wallace House [NJ]

Description

The parsonage was built in 1751 and first occupied by Reverend John Frelinghuysen, who came from Amsterdam to serve three congregations of the Dutch Reform church in the upper Raritan Valley. The second occupant of the Parsonage, the Reverend Jacob Hardenbergh, founded Queens College in 1766 while residing in the house. While living at the Dutch Parsonage, Hardenbergh sold 95 acres of land and a small farmhouse to John Wallace, a Philadelphia fabric importer and merchant. Between 1775 and 1776, Wallace purchased an additional 12 acres of land and built an eight-room Georgian style mansion adjoining part of the existing farmhouse. It was the largest house built in New Jersey during the Revolutionary War. Naming his estate "Hope Farm," Wallace intended the property to be his country seat and place of retirement.

The site offers tours.

Henry Whitfield State Museum

Description

In 1639, a group of Puritans led by their minister, Reverend Henry Whitfield, built the stone house in which this museum is housed. As well as serving as a home for the Whifield's, it was also a fort for the community. Its massive stone walls and chimneys, steeply-pitched roof, and casement windows reflect the style of post-medieval domestic architecture found in England—rare in 17th-century America and unique today. It is Connecticut's oldest house and New England's oldest stone house.

The museum offers exhibits, research library access, tours, and educational and recreational programs.

Old Dutch Church Heritage Museum [NY]

Description

The Old Dutch Church Heritage Museum presents the history of a working Reformed Protestant church founded in 1659. The church dominies actively promoted the Patriot cause in the Revolutionary War and the Union cause during the Civil War—with the site being used as a state armory and field hospital in the 1860s. The earliest grave on site dates to 1710. The current structure dates to 1859.

The church offers exhibits and archival access. Appointments are required for archival access.