The Press Release is a PDF linked here: Vought House Press Release 3-3-12

Please join us  in celebrating the transfer of title to the Vought
House property from the Clinton Township School District to
The 1759 Vought House,A Revolutionary War Loyalist
Homestead non-profit.
The celebration begins at 2pm on Saturday March 3rd at the
Vought House 34  Grayrock Road, Clinton, NJ 08809
- with a reception to follow in the school cafeteria. 

The 1759 Vought House Trustees look forward to seeing all of you
who have helped to make this exciting  event possible.

RSVP by reply email   info@1759house.org

Don Sherblom
The 1759 Vought House, A Revolutionary War Loyalist Homestead
PO Box 369, Annandale, NJ 08801

We will be putting together a significant grant application for Hunterdon County Open Space and Historic Preservation funds.  Ownership is a requirement of that application.  A few board members are currently developing estimates for the most pressing work, such as the cost of a historically accurate cedar shake roof and writing the grant.  We will ask key stakeholders for a written statement of support for this grant. At the meeting, we also decided to seek resolutions of support for the overall project from the Township governing body and from the Superintendent of Schools, among others.

We need to start thinking seriously of what the title transfer event will look like.  This house and land was confiscated by Hunterdon County and sold to a patriot at an auction in 1779.  Two and a quarter centuries later, another government entity, this time the township school district, will be selling this boarded-up old house (for a nominal $17.76) to The 1759 Vought House Inc. (a non-profit public charity). This is an historic event.  This non-profit will re-open the doors to this house and invite people to imagine stepping into an earlier time, when this was a thriving farmstead, a beautiful well-furnished home, before the tranquility of this community was shattered by the American crisis of the mid-1770s.

As The 1759 Vought House restores this artifact, that imagined past will come into focus, what the house looked like and the farm, the conflicts which spurred local events, the personal sacrifices that played a role in making this an independent nation, in short the contest of patriot and loyalist that defined America’s first civil war, of neighbor against neighbor. The transformation of this house from an eye-sore into an asset for the wider community begins when the schoool district sells this house to The 1759 Vought House Inc. and continues with the supprt of that community.

Next Step:  School board probably vote on approving the contract on JANUARY 23rd – CTMS at 7:30.
Our next  meeting – a breakfast roundtable – will be January 26.  We’ve also set the yearly meeting schedule:

• Regular board meetings, the 2nd Monday of every month at 5 pm at 44 Leigh St. Clinton
• Breakfast roundtable, the fourth Thursday at 8 am at the Clinton Country Griddle
• the dates are: Monday at 5 pm:  2-13, 3-12, 4-9, 5-14, 6-11, 7-9, 8-13, 9-10, 10-8, 11-12, 12-10
• the Breakfast at 8 am: 1-26, 2-23, 3-22, 4-26, 5-24, 6-28, 7-26, 8-23, 9-27, 10-25 and Exception= 11-15  (no Dec breakfast)

Please email any thoughts or suggestions, etc.  Hope to see you at the January 23 Board of Ed meeting as we move ever closer to 1776.

In other news,
-Michael and I were warmly received and had an animated discussion with the Clinton Township Educational Foundation.
-Tim and I got a copy of the revised contract back from the school district attorney and asked for the exhibits – including the preservation easement and survey – before we settle on the language.

-Looks like the school district will go forward with plan of new YMCA across the street from the Vought House – audience at last night’s meeting was mostly approving. I spoke for preserving the historic landscape of the Vought House.

I also formatted this as an eBook (that’s a chore) and uploaded to Amazon where it is now available for Kindle and other devices (smartphones and computers with the Kindle app).  The free sample includes the three-page first chapter, “Tea”.

Here’s a link to the Amazon page of Neighbors at War:  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005IDL1KM

Also, if you search Amazon: Neighbors at War NJ and it’ll be near the top of the page.

Only 3 Dollars!  Download the free sample then buy one for your computer, smartphone or Kindle today!

_________________________________

John Adams is frequently misquoted as saying a third of the population supported the revolution with an equal number opposed. Adams was actually referring to attitudes toward the French revolution during his presidency, not the American Revolution yet the notion that a third of colonists were loyalists has persisted. Of course, nearly everyone was a loyalist when the political crisis began, with the 1765 Stamp Act. A decade later the number of loyalists was far smaller but still significant. The British were also able to gain support from two groups entirely outside the political sphere of colonial America: Native Americans and African slaves.

In 1754, the French and Indian War had been ignited by Virginia militia entering the Ohio Valley in pursuit of territorial expansion. After the war, Britain replaced France as trading partner and protector to Native Americans. To maintain the peace, the royal proclamation of 1763 put lands west of the Appalachians off limits to settlers, at least temporarily. Pressure from squatters and land speculators continued. In the 1770’s Benjamin Franklin and his son William were still seeking ministry approval of their land company’s claim to a huge parcel near the Ohio. When Native Americans chose sides in the Revolution, the majority sided with the British.

The American War created opportunities for enslaved Africans to gain liberty, mostly as loyalists. About 50,000 slaves responded to British emancipation proclamations and fought as loyalists in what became the largest slave uprising in American history. After the war, tens of thousands of former slaves were resettled as free people. Since the patriots claimed them as confiscated property, a list was kept of black loyalists evacuated from New York City in 1783. This “Book of Negroes” recorded separately by British and American officers carries the names and descriptions of 3,000 former slaves, including Harry Washington “43-years-old, a fine fellow and formerly a slave belonging to General Washington.” Black loyalists who survived the war gained freedom if not equality in new lands throughout the empire, such as Nova Scotia.

Among colonials, many loyalists were Tories but not everyone who remained loyal to Britain shared Tory ideals such as an established church supporting the Christian monarch. Conflicts ranged far beyond questions of religion, to mercantilist trade policies and political representation. People with diverse interests and ideas were pushed to take either one side or the other when war erupted in 1775 at Lexington and Concord. Some who became loyalists feared mob rule, anarchy, or economic loss, some simply disliked local rebels. Many people remained neutral and some switched their allegiance based on expediency. The Society of Friends, or Quakers, were pacifists and therefore often viewed as supporting the existing order.

The Voughts were early, daring leaders of Hunterdon County loyalists. In 1759, Christopher Vought, the son of German Lutheran immigrants, bought 285 acres of limestone-rich land near the Union Iron Works on the Raritan River. The house Christopher Vought built stands on Grayrock Road, at the entrance to the Clinton Township Middle School. This impressive stone house displays this family’s status within colonial Lebanon Township and their assimilation into British American culture. This is a Germanic ‘bank house’, built into the side of a small embankment to save energy. The rare surviving ‘wattle and daub’ decorative plaster ceilings with geometric patterns also drew on the Vought family’s heritage, Germanic folk-art. Yet the gable-end chimneys and center hall are more typical of 18th Century British American homes.

An important aspect of social identity in 18th Century Jersey was religious affiliation. Christopher and Cornelia Vought’s daughter Christiana married a Lutheran minister. Their son John married Mary Grandin in an Anglican church the next year. John and Mary baptized their eight children as Anglicans. It would probably be accurate to characterize the Vought family as sharing Tory beliefs. But they might also have acted from a gratitude for the British Queen’s relocation of Protestants, including Christopher’s parents, from the war-ravaged Palatine region of Germany to these colonies. And they may have identified with the German-descended King George III and his German mercenaries. In addition to their beliefs and social identity, the family’s material interests would also have inclined them to loyalty.

The Vought family had little to gain from a political upheaval and a lot to lose: their large stone house, an excellent barn, the crops and livestock they’d worked so hard to attain and their recently expanded, now almost 500-acre plantation. But when attributing economic motives, we should remember that partisans on each side came from all levels of the social hierarchy, from urban artisans and rural farmers to the wealthy upper class. The Vought family was prosperous but many loyalists were simple farmers and others were far wealthier, like loyalists William Allen and Joseph Turner of the Union Iron Works. On the other side, almost all Revolutionary leaders were landed gentry who derived their wealth from enslaved workers or tenants on their vast estates, and a few patriot leaders were self-made men like Benjamin Franklin and John Adams.

Colonists had good reason to be alarmed, especially after 1775. The colonies were at war with the mother country, the most powerful military force in the world. Legitimate colonial governments had been displaced by extra-legal provincial congresses and committees of safety. And some patriots wanted nothing short of a social revolution, a leveling based on the liberal notion of equality. In the spring of 1776, New Jersey’s Governor Franklin, recently estranged from his patriot father, made his last attempt to squash the revolt in the Jerseys. With a peace commission and thousands of British troops on the way, he ordered the General Assembly into session. The rebel’s Provincial Congress called for the Governor’s summons to be disobeyed, calling Franklin an “enemy of the liberties of this country.” Governor Franklin appeared before the Congress, challenged their authority and said he would not cooperate “with those who presum’d to usurp the Government of the Province.” The Provincial Congress ordered the governor’s arrest, sent him to Connecticut and continued to mobilize militia units for the patriot cause.

As tensions mounted, conflicts among neighbors flared across New Jersey. The Vought family and militia captain Thomas Jones had been good neighbors. Christopher and John regularly signed license applications for Jones’ tavern, even as tensions mounted after 1773. But as New Jersey’s Congress raised militia to defend New York City, their differing views on the colony’s future erupted into violence. At first, John Vought didn’t dare voice disapproval at the turn of events in the colony. But when the militia company drawn from the nearby Union Iron Works refused to turn out for drills, he and Joseph Lee, a manager at the iron works, were blamed for the company’s refusal and were “ill-used.”

The Provincial Congress called John Vought to appear before them and account for the company’s refusal to turn out. On June 24, 1776, the day he was to appear, John Vought and about two dozen loyalists attacked Jones’s tavern. As these men beat John Shurts with clubs at the back door, Jones heard shouts and ran up the stairs with his gun. He set it aside while he tried to pull men off Shurts, “upon which John Voaght Swindle & others Struck this Deponent with Clubs.” Captain Jones then grabbed his gun and said if they did not leave he’d “blow their Brains out. They answered Gd Dam him he presents his Gun at us, & twisted it out of his hands & beat him on the head & sundry parts of his body w’ their Clubs & said Dam by whig kill him out of the way.” Jones ran into the house and hid upstairs. The mob threatened to kick his wife if she didn’t tell them where he was. They pursued his wife and children outdoors “the Children Screaming & Crying you have killed my dady (sic) don’t kill me.” After the raid, John and Christopher were arrested by the militia, held in the county jail, and fined.

In early December, as Washington’s retreating troops slipped across the Delaware in boats collected by Captain Thomas Jones, John and Christopher Vought and several dozen Hunterdon loyalists rode off to serve in the loyalist New Jersey Volunteers. In 1779, the Vought homestead was confiscated. After the war, the Vought family lived in exile for eight years before returning to land they still owned near Albany, New York. John Vought’s son, named Christopher Vought, fought for the United States in the War of 1812. The Vought family has lived in America since the 18th Century. In March 2010, Christopher Vought, another direct descendant and namesake, made his first visit to the stone house his ancestor built here some 250 years ago. He said he’d seen pictures on 1759House.org “but being here, it felt like I’m home.”

• We’ve been approved for a $30,000 grant to stabilize and plan
  the restoration, future use of the Vought House.  We need
  $10,000 in matching funds to accept the grant and get started.
• Funds are also urgently needed to keep the roof intact and to
  stabilize the rare historic ceilings and protect the home’s interior.
• We’re obligated to share the costs (up to $9,000) of a new 450-foot
  sidewalk from parking spaces in the school lot to the Vought House.

Become a part of history!
The Vought House, A Revolutionary War Loyalist Homestead
is a 501 C3 non-profit.

Send your tax-deductible donation to:
The 1759 Vought House, Inc.
PO Box 369, Annandale, NJ 08801

Your Name & Address: ______________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________

(          ) ______________
__________________@__________________________

Published: Thursday, June 02, 2011,  4:31 PM     Updated: Thursday, June 02, 2011,  5:00 PM
By Frank Mustac / Hunterdon County Democrat

FUNDS NEEDED — Michael Margulies, an architect working with “The 1759 Vought House Inc” nonprofit to help restore the Christoffel Vought House, installs a sign on a fence near the house announcing a fundraising campaign called “Save the Serpent.” The historic house, which contains a rare wattle-and-daub style decorative plaster ceiling with a figure of a serpent, stands on the grounds of Clinton Township Middle School.

CLINTON TWP. — The old house with its peeling white exterior paint that stands on the grounds of the recently-built Middle School may seem rather ordinary at first glance, but the history of the structure, especially during the American Revolution, is nothing if not extraordinary.

The Vought (pronounced like “vote”) House was built in 1759 by a man named Christoffel (Christopher) Vought, who later became a prominent leader among Hunterdon County loyalists — those who sided with the British during the Revolutionary War. At the time of its completion, the German bank house-style structure stood as an impressive and well-furnished mid-18th Century residence.

The house was placed on the New Jersey Historic Register of Historic Places in 2007. It earned that status because of its architecture and the rare wattle-and-daub decorative plaster ceilings; the significance of the people who lived here; its role in events during the Revolution; and the ability of this homestead to shed light on ways of life in late colonial New Jersey.

“This is the most significant Revolutionary-War site in Hunterdon County,” said Don Sherblom, president of an organization called “The 1759 Vought House Inc.”

The non-profit’s goal is to eventually take ownership of the Vought House and manage development of a museum promoting the study of New Jersey society during the Revolutionary era.

Sherblom said the Clinton Township school board, which owns the house and the property on which it stands, is taking major steps that will make transferring ownership to another party possible, most likely to his organization.

He credits board members and Superintendent Kevin Carroll for embracing the Vought House non-profit’s proposal to relieve the school district of funding upkeep of the edifice.

“This is a very rich resource that should be available and open to the public, and that’s why we’ve been working on acquiring it,” Sherblom said.

In the meantime, the organization has begun a fundraising campaign called “Save the Serpent,” to restore the home.

The serpent refers to a figure of a snake in one of four wattle-and-daub decorative plaster ceilings.

The organization’s request for a $30,000 planning grant from the Garden State Historic Preservation Trust Fund has been recommended for approval, Sherblom said, but about $10,000 in initial matching private contributions are needed to receive the funding.

A total of about $50,000 is needed to complete the first stage of stabilizing and restoring the house along with planning a  museum and educational center. To donate or for more information, visit 1759House.org or 1759House.net.

Also this week – Tuesday morning at 8 am I gave a presentation to the 7th graders in the auditorium at the Clinton Township Middle School.  It went really well, they seemed engaged, volunteered answers to my questions and asked some of their own at the end.

After the talk, each student got a free Ticket to the Past (as seen below).

The social studies teachers followed up with an assignment: First they brainstormed in the auditorium then returned to their classrooms where each student was to write an essay based on the notion of “If These Walls Could Talk” and written from the perspecive of the house itself.  Cool.