Delve into Monmouth County's Past at Archives and History Day

The Monmouth County Archives is celebrating their 25th anniversary at Monmouth County Library Headquarters in Manalapan on Saturday, Oct. 13 for Archives and History Day.

From 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the library, the Archives staff will present an exhibit that gleans a look into days gone by. "Windows to the Past: Forty Documents from the Collection" includes 40 items: 38 facsimiles and two newly printed photographs. All items are a sample of what the Archives has to offer and will be on display until Oct. 31.

“Each document is a frame or a window in a special kind of a museum”  Gary Saretzky, Monmouth County Archivist, said. “As we look through the window, we may imagine another day, perhaps just an ordinary day, in another era. Although some items are rather atypical, as the exceptional tends to command our attention more than the mundane, the collection includes samples from a number of the our most frequently referenced record series.”

Items of the collection include:

• 1752 pledge of servitude by Mary Jeffery of Squan [now Manasquan], who pledged her son’s allegiance to Cristoffil Longstreet, a shoemaker and tanner, for seven years
• 1842 legal action between Richard S. Hartshorne vs. James P. Allaire
• 1870 deed record of Ulysses S. Grant’s purchase of a seaside cottage in Elberon
• 1924 indictment of a bootlegger

A New Jersey History Forum will also be taking place on Archives and History Day. The forum will include a discussion of the Revolutionary War, a seminar on National History Day, a history game, and over 60 exhibitors will showcase and promote local history. For a full schedule of events, visit the Visit Monmouth website .

Historian Michael Adelberg will be the featured speaker of the day. At 1 p.m., Adelberg will speak about the razing of Tinton Falls during the American Revolution.

Wayne T. "Ted" Bell of Ocean Grove will be awarded the Jane Clayton Award in recognition of his lectures and demonstrations on various subjects including: American patern glass of 1830 - 1910, stained-glass windows, Victorian architecture, the history of camp meetings, and wildflowers of New Jersey.

“Mr. Bell has done an excellent job chronicling the local history of Ocean Grove with a special emphasis on the Great Auditorium,” County Clerk M. Claire French said. “It is largely because of his work in the 1970s that the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting is a National Historic Site.”

French is in charge of keeping Monmouth County records and it was French's predecessor County Clerk Jane G. Clayton who founded the Monmouth County Archives in 1987. The award is named after Clayton.

If you would like to tour the Monmouth County Archives you may do so if you register in advance. A tour will take place at 2 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 13. Please contact Shelagh Reilly at sreilly@co.monmouth.nj.us if you are interseted in taking the tour.

The Monmouth County Library Headquarters is located at 125 Symmes Road in Manalapan Township.