Travelrific® Travel Journal
Picture postcards in prose.™ Check out the blogroll on the front page for official merchandise and other resources!Archive for new jersey
Women’s Heritage Trail
By Linda Tancs
New Jersey history boasts its fair share of influential women, like Annis Boudinot Stockton, a Colonial poet; Clara Barton, a Civil War nurse and the founder of the first public school in New Jersey; suffragist leader Alice Paul; and aviator and writer Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Their contributions to society and those of many others are commemorated along the New Jersey Women’s Heritage Trail, a collection of nearly 100 sites across the state illustrating the role of women in American history. Women’s heritage sites are being developed across the United States. Check with your local historical society for a trail near you.
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Old Wood in North America
By Linda Tancs
Located along Swedesboro Road in Gibbstown, New Jersey, the Nothnagle cabin is one of the oldest log cabins in the United States and the oldest standing wooden structure in North America. All but one of the cabin’s original logs are intact. Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976, it is believed to have been built in the 1600s by Finnish settlers. Privately owned, it is open for scheduled tours with the owners, Harry and Doris Rink. They reside in a newer part of the structure added in the 1900s.
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Great American Main Street
By Linda Tancs
What do New Jersey, Wyoming and Missouri have in common? For the current year, at least, the answer is that each state boasts a winning town in the 2015 Great American Main Street Award® contest. Each year the National Main Street Center (a subsidiary of the National Trust for Historic Preservation) bestows honors on those communities it deems to be a shining example of commercial district revitalization. This year’s honorees are Cape Girardeau in Missouri, Montclair Center Business Improvement District in New Jersey and Rawlins, Wyoming. Thanks to the art of reinvention, you won’t find them rolling up the sidewalks at night.
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Historic Mount Holly
By Linda Tancs
Revolutionary War history abounds in New Jersey, even in a small town like Mount Holly in Burlington County. It was there that a diversionary tactic was executed that resulted in a reduction of enemy forces in Trenton, enabling George Washington to capture the state’s capital city. Known as the Battle of Iron Works Hill, it’s just one of several sites in town with ties to the war. Another notable is The Old School House, used by the British army as a temporary stable for their horses during their retreat from Philadelphia in 1778. The Friends Meeting House, used by the British as a commissary in 1778, is where the New Jersey State Legislature met in 1779. A private residence, the Stephen Girard House is where the Girard family resided and operated a business during the war. Girard later became a prominent financier and philanthropist, funding the government’s battle during the War of 1812. In 2006, he was ranked the fourth wealthiest person in United States history.
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Free Haven
By Linda Tancs
Black history abounds in the tiny borough of Lawnside in Camden County, New Jersey. Both freedman and escaped slaves settled there when Philadelphia abolitionist Ralph Smith purchased land in the 1800s and sold it in lots to blacks at reduced prices, earning the place the moniker Free Haven. Not surprisingly, the locale was a stop on the Underground Railroad. Later, the hamlet now known as Lawnside became the only black-governed town north of the Mason-Dixon Line. The predominately black community’s heritage is represented on the borough’s seal.
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The Spy House
By Linda Tancs
During the Revolutionary War, Thomas Seabrook spied on British troops from his one-room cabin near Raritan Bay in Port Monmouth, New Jersey, earning it in later years the moniker the “Spy House.” One of the oldest surviving houses in the bayshore, it began as a small cabin in the 1700s and grew along with the prosperity of its owners, the Seabrooks and the Wilsons. The Spy House (also known as the Seabrook-Wilson House) is listed on the state and national registers of historic places. It’s also credited with being one of the most haunted houses in America, boasting up to five active apparitions. Given that the house remained virtually unscathed despite the ruinous effects of Hurricane Sandy all around it, you might think that its otherworldly visitors have been looking out for the joint.
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Mount Holly Boasts Historic Prison
By Linda Tancs
Burlington County Prison Museum, located in historic Mount Holly, New Jersey, is a National Historic Landmark. Until its closing in 1965, it operated continuously for 154 years, rendering it the oldest continuously used prison in the United States. It might be better known for its hauntings, though. After all, public hangings for capital crimes took place in the prison yard. Now a museum, the facility is open from Thursday to Sunday.
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Gastronomical Artistry in New Jersey
By Linda Tancs
From the Eiffel Tower to towering Chinese pagodas, the world is your oyster (or shall we say, in this case, gingerbread) at the annual Gingerbread Wonderland exhibit at the Frelinghuysen Arboretum in Morris Township, New Jersey. Great event for armchair travelers–and tasty, too! Hundreds of edible structures will be on display from 5 December to 14 December.
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Hippo Haven
By Linda Tancs
If watching hippos bask along the shoreline in sub-Saharan Africa isn’t on your bucket list but you want an armchair traveler’s experience of them in their habitat, then look no further than the Adventure Aquarium in Camden, New Jersey. The only aquarium in the world with hippos on exhibit, their 60,000-gallon pool offers visitors the chance to get nose to nose with the third largest land mammal on earth. The experience is enhanced with lighting designed to mimic African days and nights as well as a soundtrack comprising bird chirps and other sounds likely to be heard in the wild. The pool’s residents, Nile hippos Button and Genny, can’t wait to meet you.
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Little Las Vegas
By Linda Tancs
The glitzy past of New Jersey’s shore town, Wildwood, once earned it the nickname Little Las Vegas. In fact, in its heyday in the 1950s, all the major acts would ply their trade among the nightclubs and supper clubs, including talent like Tony Bennett and Jerry Lewis. The old clubs are long gone, but the doo wop era is in full swing thanks to the Doo Wop Experience Museum & Back to the ’50s Neon Night Tour. Enjoy the history lesson along with the beautiful beaches and legendary boardwalk.
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