Event Category: Historical

  • Grand Homes & Gardens: Stratford Hall

    Blending history, architecture, and horticulture, this year’s Grand Homes & Gardens speaker series, Freedom at Home: Telling the Full Story of America’s Founding Homes and Gardens, showcases the estates of signers of the Declaration of Independence, telling the stories of the people who lived and worked in these grand spaces. 

    On March 12, Morven welcomes Dr. Gordon Blaine Steffey (Director of Research and the Jessie Ball duPont Memorial Library) for an illustrated presentation on Stratford Hall, the boyhood home of Richard Henry Lee and Francis Lightfoot Lee. It was also the birthplace of Robert E. Lee, General in Chief of the Armies of the Confederate States during the Civil War. Four generations of the Lee family lived at Stratford, as did hundreds of enslaved Africans and African Americans who lived and labored at the plantation. Today, the site stands as a model of Georgian architecture, standing almost entirely as it did in the 1740s. 

    Doors open at 6 pm for light refreshments. The next programs in the series take place on March 26 and April 16. 

    Student discounts are available. 

    In-person tickets: $40 in-person/single program

    Virtual tickets: $20 virtual/single program

  • Grand Homes & Gardens: William Paca’s Annapolis House

    Blending history, architecture, and horticulture, this year’s Grand Homes & Gardens speaker series, Freedom at Home: Telling the Full Story of America’s Founding Homes and Gardens, showcases the estates of signers of the Declaration of Independence, telling the stories of the people who lived and worked in these grand spaces. 

    On March 5, Morven welcomes Glenn Campbell (Historian Emeritus, Historic Annapolis) for an illustrated presentation on William Paca’s Annapolis House, built in the 1760s as the Annapolis home of an ambitious young lawyer who would become a patriot leader, signer of the Declaration of Independence, and third governor of the state of Maryland. After the five-part Georgian mansion was sold, it was home to two other elite households.

    Doors open at 6 pm for light refreshments. Other programs in the series take place on March 12, March 26, and April 16. 

    Student discounts are available. 

    In-person tickets: $125 in-person/full series; $40 in-person/single program

    Virtual tickets: $60 virtual/full series; $20 virtual/single program

  • The Life and Times of Captain Daniel Bray: From Waterman to Militia (1741 to 1840)

    Family Program!

    Enjoy a first-person interpretation about Captain Daniel Bray– from his boyhood as a farmer, to building Durham boats to becoming a waterman on the river, to marrying Mary Woolverton, to obtaining the boats for George Washington– then back to farming and finally the War of 1812. Presented by Daniel Nurmi McAuliffe, who has been a reenactor for 32 years with the 5th PA Regiment, crossing the Delaware numerous times. Sponsored by the Friends of the Ewing Library.

    The program takes place on Thursday, April 16 at 7:00 pm at the Ewing Branch Library.

    Registration is requested.

  • The Ingenious Mr. Hopkinson: A Life in Words in Musick

    Francis Hopkinson, a member of the Continental Congress and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, was also an inventor, designer, accomplished poet, and multi-talented musician, credited as the first native composer of the United States. This lecture/performance, led by The Practitioners of Musick’s John Burkhalter, will include a rich and diverse selection of music, the same repertory owned and enjoyed by Hopkinson in printed and manuscript copies that survive to this day.

    Presented in partnership with Morven Museum & Garden and the Historical Society of Princeton.