State of New Jersey
Makes Exhibit Grant to Vanderveer House

 

Funds to Support New Executive Director
and house exhibits, displays, and artifacts from the Pluckemin Artillery Encampment

At its end-of-the-year meeting, the New Jersey Historical Commission, a division of the Department of State, announced a grant of $17,820 to The Friends of Jacobus Vanderveer House to design permanent exhibitions for the museum. Grants given out by the Commission totaled $514,000 to 39 organizations for history-related projects in 2008.

“The activities funded by these grants will help residents and tourists alike experience the wonderful history of our state,” noted Secretary of State Nina M. Wells. The Historical Commission grant gives the Friends a boost to their overall fundraising so that we can open our museum sometime in 2009.

The funds will support hiring an executive director, who will work part time, and filling the expanded house with exhibits and artifacts to tell the story of the Pluckemin Artillery Encampment. Several rooms in the 1770 block of the main house will interpret the residency of the Artillery Encampment’s brilliant commander, Gen. Henry Knox, and his family during 1778 and 1779 when the Vanderveer family graciously lent them their home. The exhibits are being designed by Steve Feldman Design of Philadelphia, which started work Jan 2. The firm is known as innovative planners and designers specializing in the creation of interpretive exhibitions and environments.

Among recent projects the Feldman firm designed are the Fairmount Water Works Interpretive Center in Philadelphia, the Conner Prairie Museum in Fishers, IN, Historical Speedwell in Morristown, and the Museum of Early Trades and Crafts in Madison. Furnishing the house and addition is equally as important. A board committee is hard at work researching the kind of furniture, textiles, and decorative arts that may have been in the house during its occupancy by Knox and his wife Lucy. Any pieces that Knox may have brought with him when he moved down from Boston are especially high on the committee’s list.

The Friends of JVH have hired noted antiques consultant Jacquetta Haley of Ridgefield, CT, to advise them on the furnishings plan. For research, among many sources, Haley has used the ledger from the old Boylan Store in Pluckemin. The ledger, housed at Dillon Library, lists purchases made by Jacobus Vanderveer and his brother Elias and their wives from 1773-1774.

 

Grant History

2007 - $17,820 - New Jersey Historical Commission (see above) -The funds will support hiring an executive director, who will work part time, and filling the expanded house with exhibits and artifacts to tell the story of the Pluckemin Artillery Encampment

2007 - $60,000 - Somerset County Historic Presevation Trust Fund to Bedminster Township for the Pluckemin Archaeological Project. The application was prepared by the Friedns and granted to the Towhship of Bedminster and will be administered by the project consultants and the Friends.

2002 - New Jersey Historic Trust - $16,590

2000 - $322,840 -New Jersey Historic Trust  - The Trust grant funded the restoration of the house to its nineteenth-century appearance for use as a center interpreting the Pluckemin encampment. The project is part of a larger plan to link the house to the encampment site by a pedestrian/bicycle trail.

 

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Submitted: January 2, 2008