COURT HOUSE – The Cape May County Historical and Genealogical Society is hosting its second annual spring Historic House & Garden Tour on Saturday, May 21th. Twelve historic homes, many with resplendent gardens and several never before opened to the public, can be visited that day. The tour runs from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m., rain or shine.
Participating houses range in date from ca. 1690 to ca. 1904 and are located in Marshallville, Upper Township, Cape May Court House, West Cape May, Goshen, Wildwood, and Lower Township.
The oldest house on the tour is the Carman-Norton House at the corner of Seashore and Ferry roads in Lower Township; it was built between 1690 and 1722. Directly across the street is the ca. 1760 Aaron Eldredge House, which will also offer tours of its barn and barnyard, home to several goats and donkeys. Both of these houses have been featured in Early American Life magazine. Open for the first time in many, many years is the Judge Nathaniel Foster House, built about 1728 and located in Villas. It features its original cooking fireplace in the kitchen and exposed ceiling beams; lovely mantels in the parlor and one of the bedrooms date from a remodeling in the early 1800s.
In Marshallville, the stately brick Marshall House and its gardens overlook the lazy Tuckahoe River. The house was built in the mid-1800s for the Marshall family who established a glassworks here.
Three interesting houses—all on Mechanic Street—in Cape May Court House are open. The Coleman Leaming House was built in 1866 and is the most ornate Victorian house in the county seat. The Gandy House and the Hettie Hand House were built a few years earlier and sheltered working class families.
The ca. 1870 Thomas Beesley House, now home to the Cape May County Division of Culture and Heritage and located just south of the Cape May Zoo, features an art gallery that showcases local talent. The J. Thompson Baker House, built about 1904 in Wildwood, was the home of Wildwood’s first mayor and features superb Colonial Revival detailing. Other houses on the tour include the ca. 1810 Corson House in the Palermo section of Upper Township, and the Mehitable Simpson House in Goshen (built in 1849). Also open will be the kitchen in the Historical Society’s Cresse-Holmes House, which has been recently restored to its ca. 1704 appearance.
A box lunch with your choice of 3 sandwiches, chips, a beverage, and homemade dessert will be available for $8 the day of the tour at the Cape May County Historical and Genealogical Society’s headquarters at 504 Route 9 North, Cape May Court House. Light refreshments (free of charge) are offered to all tour goers at the TreeHouse Antiques Shop at 742 Seashore Road in the Cold Spring section of Lower Township, not far from Historic Cold Spring Village.
Tickets are $20, but are discounted at $15 if purchased in advance. Members of the Historical Society receive a 10% discount. Tickets can be purchased at the Cape May County Historical and Genealogical Society, 504 Route 9 North, Cape May Court House, NJ, by calling the Historical Society at 609-465-3535, or on-line at http://www.cmcmuseum.org/. Tickets can also be purchased the day of the event at the Historical Society.
The Cape May County Historical and Genealogical Society is a non-profit organization that was founded in 1927; it opened the Cape May County Historical Museum in 1930. In 1976, it moved into the ca. 1704 Cresse-Holmes House, which it operates as a house museum. Also on the site are a research library, meeting space, and the Society’s offices. A historic barn behind the Cresse-Holmes House also has local history museum displays.
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