Zabriskie Schedler House

Whether to save the Zabriskie Schedler house on Ridgewood's Schedler Park property and what would be its best use are very current topics in preservation in the Ridgewood area.  The Bergen County Historical Society has expressed an interest in using the house for its library and archives and has used donations to get a "Condition Assessment" from HMR Architects, a preservation architectural firm from Princeton.   The "Condition Assessment" provides the detailed basis for making immediate repairs and determining intermediate and long-term action with regard to the house.  In addition, Ridgewood's Historic Preservation Commission has sent an application for a Certificate of Eligibility for the NJ Register to the State Historic Preservation Office.  Eligibility for the Register would in turn make the house eligible for grants.

Both reports are posted here so that they are available to everyone interested in the future of this historic house.

Zabriskie-Schedler House, Ridgewood, New Jersey:  Condition Assessment.  11/5/2013

Zabriskie-Schedler House, Ridgewood, New Jersey:  Application for Certificate of Eligibility for the New Jersey Register of Historic Places

Using the Past to Move Your Classroom Forward

On Friday, November 22, 8 1m - 12:30 pm, there will be a free program in Hackensack with information on incorporating New Jersey's 350th birthday into the school curriculum.  The event is open to everyone.

Pat Schuber will be the keynote speaker.  There will be four breakout sessions on the Revolutionary War, African and Native American Life, Early Childhood and Education, and Dutch Settlement.  (You choose two to attend.) The last session will be Local History Resources, and I will be one of the speakers.

Register at www.northjersey.com/history

If you have any questions contact me at heritagecenter@ridgewoodlibrary.org or call 973-569-7562.

Veteran's Day and Christmas Ornaments

Operation Bonaparte: Escape from Behind Enemy Lines
In Honor of Veterans Day this program (sponsored by the Ridgewood Public Library, American Legion Post 53, and VFW Post 192) will present Lt. Louis Feingold's escape from Nazi capture as told by his son Rick through original letters, maps, photos and fake ID cards.

Saturday, Nov. 9 @ 2pm, Auditorium, Ridgewood Public Library, 125 North Maple Avenue, Ridgewood, NJ 07450

Bergen County Historical Society Commemorates Veteran's Day
Attended by several Civil War re-enactors, Bob Costello, portraying Abraham Lincoln, will read the Gettysburg Address during the ceremony in special commemoration of the sesquicentennial of President Lincoln's "few appropriate remarks," made on November 19, 1863.   American veterans of all wars will be honored by laying a lay a memorial wreath at the base of Bergen County's Civil War memorial statue.

1 pm on Sunday, November 10, 2013, Hackensack Cemetery, 289-323 Hackensack Avenue, Hackensack, NJ 07601

Ornament & Lights Lecture

Program on vintage and antique Christmas ornaments with guest speaker Craig McManus. Craig is an expert in the field of antique Christmas ornaments, lights and decorations. His 60-minute program will feature a slide presentation of his pre-1966 collection and the collections of Golden Glow of Christmas Past members of which Craig is currently Chair.

Wednesday, November 13, 7:00 - 9:30 pm, The Hermitage,335 N Franklin Turnpike, Ho-Ho-Kus, New Jersey 07423,  Tickets:  $10 per person.  For more information and to register visit the website or call (201) 445-8311, x 36

Added bonus: The Classic Creations Boutiques will remain open until 7:00 pm on this night. Add to or start your own ornament collection! Admissions $8. Click here for information and a $1 off coupon.

Title Searching Workshop

Deed research can reveal amazing things--property shape and location, names of neighbors, residences of the parties involved, whether there was a mortgage, etc., etc.  A great opportunity is coming up on November 16 to learn all about "Title and Records Research."  Hope to see you there.

2:52am Oct 31

Bergen County Title & Records Workshop – November 16, 2013


A free workshop on Bergen County Historic Title & Records Research will be held Saturday, November 16, 2013 from 9:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. in the Bergen County Administration Building, One Bergen County Plaza, Hackensack, NJ.

This free hands-on workshop will equip participants to perform efficient historic deed search of Bergen County’s records. The Bergen County Clerk’s office is an important repository of public records and a treasury of important information. Historic preservationists, historians and genealogists are urged to attend.

Pre-registration is required as space is limited. To pre-register, contact Maria Hopper at reetree@optonline.net or 201-391-7386. The workshop is co-sponsored by the Bergen County Historic Preservation Advisory Board and the Bergen County Clerk’s Office.

Sign-in for the registrants will take place from 9:00-9:45 am when there will be a light breakfast and time for people to network.

The workshop begins at 9:45 with welcomes and introductions from the organizers. The workshop presenter will be Joseph A. Grabas, is an expert in Land Title Research, an Historian and Genealogist. Mr. Grabas is a well-known expert and popular speaker in New Jersey on historic title search. From 10 am – noon, he will present two power-point programs: “Good Deeds: Unearthing your Ancestors in the Land Records” and “Public Burials on Private Grounds: Lost Gravestones in the English Neighborhood (Leonia, NJ).”

After Joe’s presentations, workshop participants will be taken to the County Clerk records on the first floor where Mr. Grabas and County Clerk staff will instruct the participants on the Bergen County Clerk records and systems, where records are located, how to search the County Clerk database and records. There will also be a display of some of the historic maps and documents from their collections.

Mr. Grabas is the founder of the Grabas Institute for Continuing Education (www.continuingeducationnj.com), an institute that brings alternative historically based continuing education to Title, Legal, Real Estate & Insurance professions and supports research into the impact of land ownership and historic deed conveyance. He is active in the NJ historical community, serves on the Monmouth County Historical Commission, the Association of Professional Genealogists, and the Genealogical Society of New Jersey.

The Grabas Institute. www.continuingeducationnj.com The Grabas Institute for Continuing Education offers a comprehensive selection of Real Estate CEU co...

Grave Matters

I'm back to Bergen County history and would like to see you at my upcoming lecture on early cemeteries and monuments and then join the walking tour to the French Cemetery in New Milford.

Harvest Homecoming at Historic New Bridge Landing

Saturday, October 19, 2013, 1 pm to 4 pm
 
1 pm Grave Matters: the Zabriskie-Hopper Burial Ground in Paramus
Peggy Norris, BCHS Trustee, will share her research on the Zabriskie-Hopper Burial Ground and discuss the people buried there, how the graves were marked, and what we can all do to preserve family cemeteries. Examples from other Bergen County cemeteries will be used to highlight the unique features of this burying ground and the changing fashions in commemorating the dead.

At 2 pm join Kevin Wright on a walking tour from Historic New Bridge Landing to the French Cemetery in New Milford, (one mile each way).

Click here to see more information about the French Burying Ground. The cemetery is located behind New Milford Boro Hall, 930 River Road, New Milford, NJ. Turn onto Patrolman Ray Woods Drive. The gate to the cemetery is normally locked.  Many residents from New Bridge are buried here including John J. Zabriskie who lived at the Steuben House. Family tradition: he was crushed trying to free the tidewheel at age 25 in 1793.

$7 adult, $5 children, BCHS members free. 

For more information and location www.bergencountyhistory.org

 

Brooklyn Eagle Almanac

For those of you with New York City research, have you ever checked the Brooklyn Eagle Almanac?  The Bolger Heritage Center (Ridgewood Public Library) has a collection of 13 volumes from 1894-1926 (HERITAGE REF 974.723 BRO).  I used them to find all sorts of information about the New York City Public Schools, which includes all five boroughs.  Information includes qualifications (such as degrees, experience, and examinations), salary for various positions (for example, $5 per night as an evening elementary school principal and $3,500 per year for an elementary school principal with six years experience), and even provisions for retirement.  The principals (both boys and girls) and janitor (?) are listed for each public school, along with the number of students registered and the number of seats (often not enough) and the average attendance. Sometimes the number of classrooms and number of teachers are listed.  Class sizes ranged from 32 to 55!  Can you imagine teaching 55 1st graders by yourself?  These figures are interesting whether you are researching a staff member or a student. 
 

In addition, there are maps, lists of politicians and city workers, lists of organizations, unions, and churches, and lots more.  You're unlikely to find a specific name, but the context you can draw for a specific time period or in a specific neighborhood is amazing.  Some of these volumes are also available online, but sitting in the Heritage Center, using almost a complete run for these years is research heaven.

I've been negligent in my posts for two reasons. I've been involved in working with others to save the Vanderbeck House and get the Naugle house (both in Fair Lawn) preserved and protect Open Space.  I also have the good fortune to have a leave from work to write up a 15-year research project on William L. Bulkley, only tangentially related to Bergen County.  He is the first African American principal of an integrated school in Manhattan (in 1909) and a founder of the NAACP and National Urban League.  (Thus, my interest in the Brooklyn Eagle Almanac.)  I thought my life would be more balanced with control over my days.  Actually, it's been upended by my obsession with writing and my desire to at least get a first draft done by August 23 (and a few historic preservation issues).

Enjoy summer and research!

History and Open Space

History and open space are both threatened in Fair Lawn.  The proposed development of the residential Vanderbeck property as an assisted living facility in Fair Lawn threatens the destruction of open space, paving of land immediately next to the Naugle house, and surrounding the Jacob Vanderbeck, Jr. house with parking lots.  Fair Lawn is preparing to re-zone the 3-acre Vanderbeck property from residential to a classification that would allow an assisted living facility and big profits for the developer and no big tax windfall for Fair Lawn.  Developing the property for several luxury homes in an idyllic setting would keep the residential neighborhood intact, preserve the open space around both historic houses, and allow the property owner fair use of his property.  There is no point in saving historic  houses only to surround them with parking lots.  Historic properties should be kept in the residential market (the Vanderbeck house) or re-habbed by a public owner for a non-profit, governmental, or educational use (the Naugle house).  Fair Lawn has a powerful tool to stop this travesty:  refuse to re-zone the property. 

 

See today's Opinion piece in the Record from H. Gelfand, Joe Suplicki, and myself.  http://www.northjersey.com/news/opinions/fairlwan_070913.html

 

More to come.

The History Backups:  we've got our backs up for history (and open space)

More American Accents

Ok, Bill Carbone sent me this link and I took the test. The blog it comes from is mainly political and advertisements, but you can ignore all that. The questionaire asks whether two words are pronounced alike or differently, etc.  Then it calls your accent.  It "pegged" mine!   

What American accent do you have?

Your Result: The Midland 95%

"You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania (YES), southern Ohio (YES for mother), southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio. (New career?)

What does yours say?

I know we've gotten a little far afield from Bergen County research and genealogy.  Stay tuned, I promise the next post will be on-topic.

Do you pronouce the "l" in "yolk"?

Language has always fascinated me.  Perhaps because my parents were from Ohio (two different parts) and I grew up in northwestern Pennsylvania and I've lived most of my adult life in New Jersey.  In Pennsylvania growing up and in New Jersey early on (and sometimes even now), people think I talk funny or ask "where are you from?"

So here's a website you can get lost in: North American English Dialects, Based on Pronunciation Patterns.  This guy's hobby is dialects.  He has read a lot of academic literature, listened to a lot of online videos or audio clips, and done some surveys.  The result is a very detailed map of native speech patterns in North America and links to people speaking them.  Of interest to genealogists is that the dialects, to some extent, follow migration patterns.

My mother's southern Ohio speech (before being Pennsylvania-ized) pronounced "creek" like "crick" and I still don't know if I pronounce "roof" like "rooof" or "ruf".  If you catch me saying it let me know.

I can't wait to dip more into this one.  I looked at "-alm" words and find that I pronounce the "l" in the first column of words, but not the next 3, except "balk."  What about you?

Summer Fun

I'm off for a few days to Florida.  We will visit St. Augustine, the "oldest, continually occupied, European-established settlement in the continental United States."  (Thank you wikipedia.  BTW, in the non-continental United States San Juan, Puerto Rico is the oldest city.)  This got me thinking about what fun things there are to do in Bergen County this summer.

Bergen County Historical Society 
For more information on any of these events:

Saturday July 6, 2013, 11 am - 2 pm.  Vintage Baseball
 
Saturday, July 13, 2013, 6:30 - 9 pm  Calico Frolic at Historic New Bridge Landing for St. Swithin’s Day; come watch or join the dancing!
 
Saturday, August 24, 2013, 12:00 pm - 5:00 pm, Wine Festival at Historic New Bridge Landing:  10 NJ Wineries • Live Music • Food
Pre-Event Ticket $20 - Day of Event $25 - Designated Driver $10

The Hermitage   

For more information on these events:

Saturday and Sunday, June 15–16, 2013, 1–4 pm  Civil War Weekend with the 2nd Rhode Island
 
Saturday, July 20, 2013, 1–4 pm  Second Annual Revolutionary Social Day

Sunday, July 28, 2013, 1–4 pm  Play Day: Summer Activities for Kids
 
Saturday, August 17, 2013, 10 am–4 pm PJs Promotions Annual Outdoor Craft Show

Attend some of these events or check out an historical society near you!

Digital Bergen County Maps

I have compiled a list of Bergen County maps available at the Heritage Center at the Ridgewood Public Library and available from your computer anywhere.  Not every map is available digitally, but many are and they are great fun to explore for the place and time period your ancestor lived.  See the page on the Ridgewood Library website.  It's not beautiful (yet), but it gathers in one place maps that are available online from institutions as diverse as Library of Congress, Fairleigh Dickinson University, and the University of Alabama.  (Who would think that Alabama would have Bergen County maps!)

This is Ridgewood area in 1840--before the advent of the railroad.  There were a few roads, a church, and a few farms.  (from US Coast Survey map #32  available from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)

Twenty years later the same area looks like this.  (from 1861 Corey Hopkins map of Bergen and Passaic Counties available from the Library of Congress)

The railroad linking Ridgewood with Jersey City (and via ferry, New York) has been there for 13 years, farms have gone up for sale and commuters are moving in.

Enjoy the maps! If you find any additional ones online, please let me know.  (I'm addicted.)


Thank you to T. Robins Brown of the Bergen County Division of Cultural and Historic Affairs for a bibliography of Bergen County maps used in compiling this list.

Vanderbeck house on Ten Most Endangered Historic Places in NJ

Last month the Jacob Vanderbeck, Jr. house in Fair Lawn was named one of the Ten Most Endangered Historic Places by Preservation New Jersey.  It's sobering to look at the entire list.  There's also a Record article about the listing.

Fair Lawn has some great preservation advocates.  The property is being considered for the site of an assisted living facility and is also a residential developer's dream--large, sub-dividable property with views across the Saddle River into the park.

Just as with the Zabriskie Tenant House on Dunkerhook Road, there could be a win-win development that keeps the home in the private residential market and still provides space for new residential development.  Will there be a creative buyer?

Catherine Taub

History of the best kind requires passion.  Catherine Taub had that passion for Varian Fry and the example he set for all of us.  Fry went to Marseilles in 1941 with a few visas for artists stranded in Vichy, France and in danger of losing their lives.  In the end he rescued some 2,000 people.  Catherine, age 64, passed away this week after a brave fight with esophageal  cancer.  She lived her life to the last with passion, concern for others, and joy.  Her legacy includes that she told Fry's story and shared his lesson that ordinary people can do extraordinary things.   

More information about Fry
Catherine's obituary

More information about Catherine

 

Catherine Taub at the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of Varian Fry's birth.

 

Thank you, Catherine.  Rest In Peace.

One thing leads to another....

I have a brand new grand-nephew to add to the family tree!  So, I was working on his quilt ...

AND ....

1.  I made some mistakes and had to rip out stitches (lots of stitches), so...
2.  I went to some genealogy sites that had free military records for Memorial Day weekend, so...
3.  I don't have many veterans in my regular research quarries, but I remembered that David Wilborn was in the Spanish American War, so....
4.  I searched for him and didn't find anything, so...
5.  I looked back at my notes and he was a veteran and he was in company A, so...
6.  I decided to google him instead, and...
7.  One thing led to another and I found a record of his service as Q. M. Sgt. and a history of his unit...
8.  I also found  a photo of a picnic group that included him, his wife, and children!

Lessons:

• Never let an opportunity for procrastination go unused. 
• Check what you already have.  It's so easy to go from memory, but memory can be vague, if not downright wrong.  "Company A" was very helpful.
• Go beyond the databases. Sometimes google will dig out the sources that don't exist in the genealogy databases.  One of the sources was in google books, one a website (the unit history), and one a post on a message board!

What am I willing to give up for convenience?

This has been on my mind for some time.  What am I willing to give up (in the long run) for saving money (in the short run)?  I'm as cheap as they come.  I grew up that way and haven't changed much.  But lately I've been thinking--if I buy a screwdriver or a garbage can at Home Depot or Lowes, how does that impact my local hardware store.  I actually don't live near one anymore.  But, what is better than a real hardware store with real help?  If I only seek them out when I need a special kind of screw or help figuring out what indeed I do need, will they still be there next time? 

More to the point of being a genealogist,  if I buy my books online what happens to my neighborhood bookstore?  Or even, what happens to my "neighborhood" Barnes and Noble? 

But sometimes, I need to buy my books online--I can't find them otherwise.  If I buy my my new and used genealogy books online at amazon.com, what happens to the online genealogy bookstore?  As genealogists, we should consider patronizing online genealogy book-sellers, such as genealogical.com (Genealogical Publishing Company and Clearfield Company), Colonial Roots, and Heritage Books.  They seek out and publish and categorize the books we need.

And, by the way, let's also patronize libraries.  They need our business, too, to remain competitive in this fast-changing world.  (Yes, libraries are competitive; they have to vie for tax money and donations, both of which are in short supply.)

Enjoy books, and support the organizations and businesses that give you value added to your purchase.

Sources:

Find independent bookstores near you with indiebound. It's green to shop locally and supports the local economy as well as encouraging your bookseller to stay in business.

There are socially-conscious online booksellers, some with very good prices.  I've used Better World Books for purchases and find their prices good and their shipping fast.  They donate some of their profits to literacy projects around the world.  See this blog at Socialbrite for more ideas for socially conscious online bookstores.

To see all the online booksellers for a used book go to addall.com, click on the "used" tab, and search.  Click on "No print-on-demand results".  (Even at that some of the "booksellers" reprinting from googlebooks and other free online sources will appear in your search results.)  If I can download it for free, I generally don't want to pay someone for a reprint. 

After the Bergen County Maps Celebration

Saturday's events at the Bergen County Maps Celebration were really exciting.  I especially liked seeing folks with the magnifying glasses focused on the maps, following a site through more than a century of development.  It was also a great cooperative venture with volunteers to help with the maps and atlases during the viewing times and to run the workshop and give the lecture. Thank you to all who participated!

Some people asked about digital versions of the maps.  The Ridgewood Library doesn't have any, but some are available and I've started a Bergen County Maps page on the Library Website.  Enjoy!

Visitors peruse the Maps at Ridgewood Public Library

Maps on display at Ridgewood Public Library

Bergen County Maps Celebration

I'm really excited.  I guess there's nothing for it, but that I'm a Map-Nerd.  We have 7 Bergen County wall maps hanging outside the Heritage Center at the Ridgewood Public Library, with one more to come.  I can't stop looking--what happened to those wetlands so clearly delineated in 1867.  How many country clubs can you fit in Alpine?  What did this county look like without Rts 17, 80 and the Parkway?  How did the county get fractured from a few townships to 70 municipalities?

 On Saturday, May 11 the Library is celebrating Bergen County Maps with the display and programs.

9:00 AM  Sanborn Maps Workshop.  Learn how to use Sanborn Insurance maps for local history research.  Auditorium.  Registration suggested.  (email pwnorris@ridgewoodlibrary.org)   

10:15 AM  Writing a House History.  How to make the walls of your house tell stories.  Several Ridgewood buildings will be used as examples.  Auditorium.   

11:15 AM Children's Event: Map Story, & Craft.  Open to Ridgewood Cardholders.  Contact the Children's Room (201-670-5600, x 110) or register online.   

11:00  AM Bergen County Map Displays.  8 Bergen County wall maps and 2 Bergen County atlases will be on display.  The maps will be on display through May 19.

1:30 PM  Bergen County, 1860.  Guest lecturer, Kevin Wright, looks at Bergen County on the eve of the Civil War through the lenses of the 1860 census and the 1861 G. Hopkins map (also on display).  He will discuss the growing political and cultural divide between the County's agrarian northern townships and the suburbanizing southern townships.  Kevin is Past-President of the Bergen County Historical Society and one of Bergen County's premiere historians.

All events at the Ridgewood Public Library, 125 North Maple Avenue, Ridgewood, NJ 07450.  Free.  If you're a map nerd you won't be able to resist.