The last museum on my tour during the Sussex County Heritage Weekend was the Stillwater Historical Society Museum in Stillwater, NJ, a small town just west of Newton, NJ, the County Seat of Sussex NJ.
The Historical Society is set up like a General store on the first floor with displays with merchandise of the past and household items. They have recreated the recreation of the past with a modern twist. How did a small town buy and sell a hundred years ago? How did they socialize when this was the place of communication?
The sign for the museum
The Historical Society of Stillwater Township:
(from the museum pamphlet)
Since its organization in 1977, the mission of the Society has been to foster and promote an interest in Stillwater area history by maintaining a museum and reference library of historic artifacts and genealogical records of area families and support preservation efforts of historic structures sites and events.
Through the generous foresight and planning of Mr. Amos F. Dixon and his wife, Mrs. Mary W. Dixon, the museum associated with the Historical Society of Stillwater Township has been located within the Neighborhood House on Main Street in Stillwater since 1954. Originally a one room schoolhouse from 1842 to 1909 and the home of Mary W. Dixon Library, within the building are interpretive displays of a restored schoolroom and a general store with a post office. A collection of artifacts depicting the early life of the village and surrounding area is on display as well as a costume collection, mineral collection, Native American artifacts and military items dating back to the Revolutionary War. Genealogical records, photographs and newspaper clippings of historic significance to the area and its families are part of the Reference Library.
The first floor gallery of the Stillwater Historical Society is set up like a general store.
The first floor gallery
The History of the Museum:
(from the museum pamphlet)
The museum’s collection has grown and flourished throughout the years thanks to generous donations from the Stillwater community. The Society is always seeking locally-relevant physical artifacts and genealogical information. Dedicated members are working to preserve the artifacts and we are currently computerizing our collections to make the information.
The Preservation of the Museum:
(from the museum pamphlet)
Along with the continued preservation of the Museum and its artifacts, the society has supported the concept of an historic district in Stillwater and recently assisted in the historic registry designation of the Shafer Grist Mill in Stillwater village. The Society & the Casper Shafer residence on Main Street previously assisted with the preservation of Keen’s Mill in the Swartswood Lake area.
The Van Horn family burial plot is also preserved and maintained by the Society. The Society supports all efforts to preserve these and other important historic structures and to make them available for public enjoyment and educational purposes.
To support Stillwater’s community life, the Society hosts educational programs and fund-raising events throughout the year. Past topics have included the evolution of grist mills, herbal remedies used during the 18th Century, Revolutionary War weaponry, the Tocks Island Project and historic cemeteries. Fundraising events range from festivals featuring music, food and games to seasonal bus tours.
The General Store display
The General Store display
The old pot belly stove the center of the General store
The stove of the old General Store
The pot belly stove
Kitchen artifacts
Local artifacts from the Stillwater community
The second floor galleries were broken up into two different sections, Native American and early settler artifacts plus part of the building was once a schoolhouse so the museum also set up a schoolhouse display.
The Lenape Native American display
Native American artifacts
Native American artifacts
This was the old stage of the elementary school now being used to house the Children’s display.
The Children’s Schoolhouse display on the old second floor stage
The other side of the second floor galleries houses clothes, accessories and household goods. The clothing was beautifully displayed.
The second part of the second floor galleries
The back part of the second galleries
It really was an interesting little museum with wonderful artifacts nicely displayed throughout the museum. The museum did a nice job with this.
The Morning clothing display
Day and Evening dresses
Hats and gloves and other accessories
Military outfits and some formal clothing
Farming equipment
Farming equipment
Shoes and sewing items from the turn of the last century
Stillwater Township is located in Sussex County, eights miles west of Newton. Its encompasses an area of 28 square miles. Three small villages: Stillwater, Middleville and Swartswood, together with residents now residing in what was only a few years ago a farming community, compete its population of approximately 4,500.
After my tour of the Stillwater Historical Society Museum, I took a walk in the rural downtown of Stillwater, NJ. I felt like I was in a quaint New England village and not twenty miles from Manhattan.
The original farmhouse decorated for the Halloween holidays
The ghost on their porch
The picturesque farmland
The farm stand in front of the house (on the honor system)
The plant and pumpkin stand on the farm (also on the honor system)
The also had a arranged flower stand with colorful Fall flowers
The back of the old Shafer farm in the Fall
The town was so beautiful and picturesque and it was so much fun just walking around looking at the foliage. It was also a nice way to end my tour on the Sussex County Heritage Tour for the afternoon. I could not believe I was still in New Jersey.
Every semester for my Business Marketing, Management and Communications classes, I create one big Team assignment for my students. In a Commuter College, it is a lot tougher for students to get to know one another between their studies and their jobs, so I create these projects to foster learning, creativity and especially Teamwork.
This was the first time I had ever taught International Marketing and it was a challenge I really wanted to tackle. With International Tourism in a state of flux due to the economy and politics, what type of creative programming and offerings do we have to attract a foreign customer?
Promoting Bergen County, NJ for tourism has been one of biggest challenges I have had and how we get all these places to enter the modern era with a fresh approach to getting people to visit their establishment. The ‘Bergen 250-the 250th Anniversary of the Revolutionary War in Bergen County’ has been our most ambitious project to date. We took the website and plans the County of Bergen had planned and expanded it in every direction.
We added in special events, fundraising ideas, scavenger hunts and walking tours along with a new direction in promoting these sites through Digital Marketing and outlets like Tik Tok, YouTube and using QR codes so that the younger generation can use their phones interactively.
In the past, I have created these projects under the Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. banner, the main consulting company, the Orion Malls banner, a Mall design company and the Buscomonzefi.com banner, my Tech Division. Each business does its best to be creative, forward thinking and have a thought producing presentations. I also challenge the students to top on another in their presentations and build on what they have seen others do in the past.
Professor Justin Watrel, CEO Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc.
Our Corporate site (created my one of my former President’s:
As my International Marketing class entered its second month and before I ran the Midterm, I introduced the Team Project, similar to the one I created in 2020 just as COVID hit “From Revolution to Renewal-Exploring Historic Bergen County, NJ”:
The project that we started right before COVID closed the college:
With that class, I had planned a series of field trips once we got back from Spring Break but we never went back to campus. That project was done with work that had to be done online and with what we had because we could not leave our houses at that time. This project was to do what that project could not accomplish.
So I approached Vivian Davis, of the Bergen County Historic Division, who I had worked with for years in my time at the Department of Disabilities Services for the County, and who I initially worked with on the first project and asked her to help me again. She is running the ‘Bergen 250-the 250th Anniversary of the Revolutionary War in Bergen County’ event. Would she let me help her coming up with a different angle on advertising the event and some new ideas for special events and a fresh perspective on looking at the event from the students viewpoint?
It would be one of the most ambitious projects that I had ever attempted for this company model. She agreed to let me help in my own way plus be available for being a listening ear for the students and assist us on the Team site visits and tours.
It was a great partnership as she got much needed research and ideas for advertising while the students learned something new about their communities that they did not know. Even I learned about historical sites that I never knew existed and I have lived here off and on for the last thirty years. Everyone got something positive out of it and it was a win-win partnership.
I put together the project and had Vivian look it over and with some adjustments, it was a go and I presented to my students two weeks before the Spring Break in March. We would work on this project for the next seven weeks along with a series of site trips to places in the ‘Bergen 250’ roster. It would be an eye opener project for everyone involved.
The initial project concept for the Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. Team Project “The Bergen 250”:
I chose my Executive Team from a series of what I call “Alumni Students”, who I had in other classes and I knew their work and how they had performed in other Team Projects that I had run. I chose the remainder Student Executives from a look series of papers I had them write for the class promoting Foreign Tourism and Advertising.
Paper Two: Promoting McDonalds Foreign Food items for the American Market:
These two papers are how I determined who would be on what Teams and how they might perform on that section of the project. For the most part I was right. I saw this at the end of the project.
I broke the class into the following Teams: Marketing, Talent, Historical and Food Service with each Team having their own responsibilities (Please read the project). They were led by the President and Senior Vice-President of Operations, who reported to me as their CEO. Both of these students had participated in previous projects that had been equally ambitious.
The two weeks before the Spring Break, the Student Consultants got their game-plans together, divided the responsibilities and started their research on the historical sites being promoted by the ‘Bergen 250’. There are a lot of historical sites in Bergen County that date back to the Revolutionary War and before To the time of Dutch settlements.
When we arrived back from the break, I arranged a series of Field Site visits that I took my student to so that they could experience and tour the sites up close. These were also location trips for of Food Service division who would be arranging a series of special meals at these sites.
The first place the Team visited was the Garretson Forge & Farm in Fair Lawn, NJ. This historic home and grounds were going to be one of the locations for a special event for the Food Service Division.
The Garretson Forge & Farm at 4-02 River Road in Fair Lawn, NJ
We had done a promotional project on the site a few semesters before with much success and now we would be arranging a ‘rustic’ Afternoon Tea on the grounds and promoting the gardens with a Flower sale.
The Student Consultants starting a tour of the Garretson Forge & Farm led by historian Vivian Davis.
The students touring the historical kitchen
The students touring the historical room at the Garretson Forge & Farm
Our class picture at the site
Our host and ‘Client’ Vivian Davis joining us in the group picture
The trip to the Garretson Forge & Farm was one of a series of trips that I thought would be important to the students to get a feel for these sites rather than just passing by. We also could incorporate layouts and use of historical items for our Scavenger Hunt that people could download to their phones that our Marketing Team was creating for their part of the project.
The next week we went out into the field again, this time to the Baylor Massacre site in Old Tappan, Nj and the Haring Farm Cemetery, a tiny family plot on what used to be the Haring Farm both in Old Tappan, NJ.
The Baylor Massacre site is where the Patriots had gotten ambushed by the British on a tip from a local resident and instead of following protocol of war, the British bayoneted the troops and through their bodies in a ditch. The bodies had been rediscovered only in the last fifty years when they wanted to develop the land.
With the Haring Farm Cemetery, this was the final resting place of Abraham Haring, a prominent farming family in the area, on what was once hundreds of acres of land of the Haring family. As Vivian explained to us, these families always assumed that the farm would be there and in the family hands.
The Baylor Massacre site at 486 Rivervale Road in River Vale, NJ
Walking around the site before the students arrived
The site of the graves
The location of the old mill where the bodies were thrown
Vivian’s counterpart in the Historic Division, Colin, joined us on this day for this tour and was better than me on explaining everything.
Before everyone got there, I had been to the sites the day before and while the Baylor Massacre site is well taken care of by the County, the Haring Farm Cemetery was a mess of fallen fences, fallen trees and branches all around the site, making it dangerous to walk around. I even touched a dead branch and it came crashing down.
The entrance to the Haring Farm Cemetery at Old Haring Farm Court in River Vale, NJ
The cemetery looked so much nicer when it was cleaned up
I always felt like the family was watching me as I had such a positive feel at the site
Even the family tombstones looked a lot better
Being married into the Haring family via my father’s older brother’s wife sister in law, I felt an obligation to clean this place up. So in a two piece suit the next day, I got to the graveyard early, removed all the branches, raked the whole site, fixed the fence and raked the entire site, cleaning the tombstones while I was doing all this.
There is a good feeling when you honor and respect the dead
After cleaning the site, I got myself together and went back to the Baylor Massacre site and started to meet the students. Some arrived early and started to walk around to get a feel for the site.
Colin and I talking to the students about the incident at the site during the Revolutionary War
The Baylor Massacre site was going to be used for a Jazz Concert to honor the soldiers and Patriots whom had passed with a food truck event to go with it along with historical walking tours that evening. The evening event was planned with luminaries lining the paths and the gravesite being lit for the evening to honor those who had passed.
First we walked the entire site to understand the logistics of the event
After the tour and discussion of the site we took a few group pictures of us at the site. In some cases, this was the first time almost all the students had visited the site. This shows how these sites need to be better publicized.
My class at the site with the Memorial in sight
The Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. Team Picture at the Baylor Massacre site
After the tour of the Baylor Massacre site, we headed up to the Haring Farm Cemetery, which was up the road. When we all got there, Colin explained to us that rather than burying their loved ones in a church graveyard, some families wanted to have their loved ones buried close by and again these families thought these farms would always be in the family hands.
Vivian had explained to the students at the initial meeting that one of the past times people had during the Revolutionary War was picnics at cemeteries and graveyards. This is where we got the idea of graveyard tours with a box lunch. We would create an interactive map with QR codes that people could tour with their ‘to go’ lunch.
We arrived at a cleaned up cemetery
The renovation of the site was done by an Eagle Scout
We took some time to understand burial rights of farming families and get a feel for the family members
We toured the small site and Colin explained to the students that Bergen County was dotted with these types of sites because of the number of family farms that once made up Colonial Bergen County, NJ.
We took our group shot while respecting the resting place
After all my students left after the both tours, I went back for one more look and again, I felt such a positive presence as if the family were so happy that we visited.
The weather prevented the next field trip and we had to concentrate on the project so after lecture, the students worked with their groups. Throughout this part of the semester, I would alternate between lecture one day and being ‘out in the field’ the other. This the students had a better experience of being ‘in the industry’.
As the project progressed and started to come together, we took our last and most ambitious field trip to Park Ridge, NJ, to the sites of the ‘Farm to Table Dinner’. This site tour included the Wortendyke Barn, the Pascack Reformed Church, where the Candlelight Tour of the Wortendyke family graveyard would take place and then to the Pascack Valley Historical Society, where the Cocktail Party would take place to open the event.
Then after the site visit, I would be wrapping the afternoon with lunch at Pompilios Pizzeria in Downtown Westwood, NJ for a Team dinner. It was a long afternoon but the students got to experience so much and see a lot.
Our first stop was the Wortendyke Barn, one of the few surviving Dutch-American examples of early American barns.
The barn in the early Spring on one of the few nice days of the week
Vivian met us again for the first part of the tour and explained how the barn was designed, who the Wortendykes were as a family presence in Bergen County and the use of the barn since it became County parkland.
We then moved on to take the next tour at the Pascack Reformed Church, one of the oldest churches in the State of New Jersey. Our tour was hosted by Pastor Sharon Gross-Gill, who had joined the church and loved the idea of the project promoting the church and its historic values.
The Team touring the second level of the church
The team touring the bell tower of the church
Our Vice-President of Marketing ringing the church bell. Each Team member could ring the bell if they wanted to try it.
We were then joined by the church historian who gave us the tour of the Wortendyke family plot
Touring through the Wortendyke family plot
Our Team picture with Pastor Sharon Gross-Gill at the Pascack Reformed Church graveyard
We then moved on to a quick tour of the Pascack Historical Society, which has an interesting display of early Dutch artifacts and only Wampum making machine (Native American currency) in the United States Almost all my students had not seen these things before.
The Pascack Valley Historical Society at 19 Ridge Avenue in Park Ridge, NJ
I have to thank the amazing support of the Pascack Valley Historical Society Board for coming out in full force to help support this project.
The Board touring with us at the museum
The Team with Board member, Peter Meany, as he explains how the Wampum machine worked.
Our Team group picture with the Board of the Pascack Historical Society
I wanted to thank Board Members Kristin Beuscher, Peter Meany, Ralph Donnell Jr., Christopher Kersting and Patrick Dolan for being our hosts, leading the tours and some of them showing up for our presentation of the final Presentation.
After the tours were all over, I took the entire Team to lunch in Downtown Westwood for a Team building pizza lunch/dinner. It had been a long day and the students had worked so hard the whole day, it was nice to break bread with the Team plus the pizza here is excellent. We had a really good time at lunch and everyone got to know each other a little better.
Pompilio’s Pizzeria & Restaurant at 233 Westwood Avenue in Westwood, NJ
Members of the Talent Team with the Marketing Team
Members of the Historical Team dining with the Executive Team
The pizza here is delicious and I love taking my Teams here for lunch
This was the last of the field trips before the presentation two weeks later. One of the pitfalls of the projects that I did that semester was the Spring Break in March and then the Easter Break in late April which had some of my students traveling for the break. I am happy to say that everyone showed up and did their work.
The presentation went by really well and was well attended for an afternoon event. Several parents as well as boyfriends and girlfriends showed up. Vivian and Colin both showed up with their boss from the Division, so the real life ‘clients’ were there for the presentation.
The formal Presentation on YouTube of Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. “Bergen 250-The 250th Anniversary of the Revolutionary War in Bergen County, NJ”:
Senior Vice-President of Operations Gabriela Chavasco welcomes everyone
The Executive Team leading the Presentation
Vice-President of Operations Brandon Robertson leads the presentation of Foodservice Special Events
Vice-President of Marketing Bart Potensky leads the Marketing Team in their presentation of the Advertising gameplay
Vice-President Kate Trinidad leads the Talent Team on the inside operations of keeping the company well supported from Corporate
After the successful Presentation was over, we took the official Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. Corporate pictures.
It was a job well done for the entire Team. I also want to thank Vivian Davis and Colin Fitzpatrick from the Historic Division of the County of Bergen in New Jersey for all their support and guidance and feedback on this assignment. It really was a “Team Effort” from everyone involved.
