Event Category: Historical

As part of Morven’s Generation Declaration speaker series, Morven welcomes John Bidwell, Curator Emeritus at the Morgan Library. The Declaration of Independence became a work of art during the nineteenth century as new printing technology enabled elaborate ornamentation and put owning a copy within reach of the masses. Bidwell delves into these artistic styles, which included everything from portraits of founders to the Liberty Bell, and describes how Declaration prints and broadsides impacted American popular culture. 

Date/Time: Thursday, April 9, 6:30 pm. 

Location: Morven Museum & Garden, 55 Stockton Street, Princeton, NJ 08540

In-person tickets: $20 general admission, $15 Morven Member, $10 student

Virtual tickets: $10 general admission, $5 Morven Member, $5 student  

Register at https://www.morven.org/events/the-declaration-in-script-and-print

Eat, drink, and rest your legs as we tell you a tale of West Windsor’s historical inns and taverns. Did you know that our local government formed in an inn once owned by counterfeiters? And that the same inn was later owned by someone who also kept many inns and taverns in Princeton, Trenton, and Philadelphia, including the 9th capitol building of the United States? Or that another belonged to a loyalist who fled town during the Revolution? And yet more were “speakeasies” during Prohibition, or converted to local community churches?

Join Paul Ligeti, President of the Historical Society of West Windsor, for a fascinating tour of this history on March 17, at 7PM, via Zoom. Please register to get the Zoom login info – use the form below.

Part of the Township-wide, year-long “Revolution West Windsor” events calendar!

When we think of the American Revolution, we often imagine a local struggle between thirteen colonies and the British Crown. Historian and author Richard Bell challenges that familiar story, revealing the Revolution as a global war that reshaped lives and power across six continents. From the Caribbean and Canada to Africa, India, and South America, the conflict sparked migration, rebellion, and transformation far beyond North America. This program re-examines the Revolutionary War as a complex, high-stakes global event whose consequences continue to resonate in the modern world.

Sponsored by the Friends of the West Windsor Library.

Registration with an email is required, so the library can send you a link to connect through GoTo Meeting. You will receive the link approximately 24 hours before the program.

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 April 16, Morven welcomes Brandon Stone (Director Research and Preservation) for an illustrated presentation on Middleton Place in Charleston, SC, the primary home of Declaration signer Arthur Middleton. More than 2,800 men, women, and children were enslaved by the Middleton family from 1738 to 1865. The estate was heavily impacted by the Civil War when Union troops razed most of the property. The plantation’s extensive and transformative gardens, established in the 1740s, were awarded the Garden Club of America’s highest honor, the Bulkley Medal, in 1941.

Doors open at 6 pm for light refreshments. 

Student discounts are available. 

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

Virtual tickets: $20 virtual/single program

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 April 16, Morven welcomes Brandon Stone (Director Research and Preservation) for an illustrated presentation on Middleton Place in Charleston, SC, the primary home of Declaration signer Arthur Middleton. More than 2,800 men, women, and children were enslaved by the Middleton family from 1738 to 1865. The estate was heavily impacted by the Civil War when Union troops razed most of the property. The plantation’s extensive and transformative gardens, established in the 1740s, were awarded the Garden Club of America’s highest honor, the Bulkley Medal, in 1941.

Doors open at 6 pm for light refreshments. 

Student discounts are available. 

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

Virtual tickets: $20 virtual/single program

This virtual program takes place on Monday, April 6 at 7:00 pm.

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 26, Morven welcomes Peter Hatch (Gardener, Historian, and Emeritus Director of Gardens and Grounds for the Thomas Jefferson Foundation) for an illustrated presentation on Thomas Jefferson’s Revolutionary Garden. The Monticello vegetable garden, a 1,000-foot-long terrace, grew new and unusual edible plants from around the world. Jefferson was a strong believer in a vegetable diet, and this revolutionary garden inspired a revolutionary cuisine in the kitchen at Monticello. Much of the work constructing, cultivating, and maintaining the gardens would have fallen to enslaved labor. Today, these gardens have been mostly restored to the early nineteenth century. 

Doors open at 6 pm for light refreshments. The final program in the series takes place on April 16. 

Student discounts are available. 

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

Virtual tickets: $20 virtual/single program

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

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