Riversdale Historic House Museum [MD]

Description

Riversdale, a National Historic Landmark, is a restored, five-part, stucco-covered brick plantation home built between 1801 and 1807. Construction of this elegant manor house was begun by Henri Stier, a Flemish aristocrat, and was completed by his daughter Rosalie and her husband George Calvert, grandson of the fifth Lord Baltimore. The Federal style mansion has particularly fine interior decorative detail. Numerous nationally significant figures later lived there.

A second website, for the Riverside Historical Society, which supports maintenance and interpretation of the house, can be found here.

The house offers tours, exhibits, educational programs, workshops and classes, and occasional recreational and educational events (including living history events).

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.

Healy House Museum and Dexter Cabin [CO]

Description

Visitors to two of Leadville's earliest houses can catch a glimpse of western life in a booming silver-mining camp. James V. Dexter's surprisingly plush 1879 log cabin was the Leadville residence of this mining investor and businessman. August R. Meyer's 1878 Greek Revival clapboard house (now called Healy House) was built for his bride, Emma. The home features lavish Victorian furnishings collected in Leadville, including objects belonging to silver tycoon Horace and Augusta Tabor, along with other Leadville pioneers. For many years it was a boarding house and by 1900 twenty-one people called this home. The boarders included Dan Healy, and his cousin, Nellie, who taught school, and several of the men employed by the railroads.

The sites offer tours and educational programs.

Pierre Menard Home

Description

Pierre Menard (1766–1844), a successful French-Canadian businessman and fur trader, was presiding officer of the Illinois Territorial Legislature and from 1818 to 1822 served as the first lieutenant governor. His restored two-story ca. 1810 home is an example of French-Creole-style architecture, built into gently sloping land at the bottom of a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River. The ground level contains a small museum and an audiovisual room. The second, or principal, floor represents living spaces used by the Menard family. Behind the home, accessed by a covered walkway, is a stone kitchen with a restored brick baking oven.

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

Fulton Mansion State Historic Site [TX]

Description

George and Harriet Fulton began construction in 1874 on their spacious and extravagant home overlooking the Aransas Bay. Completed in 1877, the house featured ornate trim work and furnishings and the latest technological conveniences including modern plumbing, central heating, and a gas lighting system. Restored in the early 1980s, the architectural landmark is open for visitors.

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.

Bartram's Garden

Description

Visitors to Bartram's Garden experience America's oldest living botanical garden, a pastoral 18th-century homestead surrounded by the urban bustle of Philadelphia. They can visit the wildflower meadow, majestic trees, river trail, wetland, stone house and farm buildings overlooking the Schuylkill River, and the historic botanic garden of American native plants.

The site offers tours, educational programs, research library access, and occasional recreational and educational events.

Rockingham [NJ]

Description

Rockingham is believed to be the second oldest house in the Millstone River valley, its original construction dating between 1702 and 1710. Jedidiah Higgins, one of the earliest settlers in the Rocky Hill–Kingston area, is credited with building the house. In 1783, while the Continental Congress was meeting at Nassau Hall in nearby Princeton, Congress rented this house from the widow of Judge John Berrien for use by General George Washington from August 23 to November 10, 1783. Martha Washington joined him at Rockingham.

A second website for the site can be found here.

The site offers tours, exhibits, educational programs, and occasional recreational and educational events (including living history events).

Grover Cleveland Birthplace [NJ]

Description

In 1837, Grover Cleveland was born in this house while his father, the Reverend Richard Falley Cleveland, was the minister to the First Presbyterian Church of Caldwell. Most of the first floor rooms portray the house as it was in 1837. Among the artifacts on display from Cleveland's early years are his cradle and original family portraits. The exhibit gallery features a striking display of artifacts that reflect the financial and political success Cleveland achieved during the last quarter of the 19th century. Here, the mud-slinging campaign of 1884, the public's intense interest in his wife and children, and America's political climate throughout his split terms of office are explored.

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