When in the Visitor’s Center at Allaire State Park, you may notice in the Row House exhibit’s downstairs kitchen what looks something like a set of circular pliers with a spring geared handle sitting on the table. What you see is a pair of sugar nippers, which were a common household tool until roughly the…
Representations of the gift-giver from Church history and folklore, notably St Nicholas (known in Dutch as Sinterklaas), merged with the English character Father Christmas to create the character known to Americans and the rest of the English-speaking world as “Santa Claus” (a phonetic derivation of “Sinterklaas”). In the English and later British colonies of North…
When people converse, magic happens: they learn about each other. When you are impersonating someone else, the other is learning about that other person. This is what historic interpreters do; teach people about another time by being someone else. It is like acting, but more – the first person interpreter actually does the things as…
Last month we learned about the Tilt Top Table/Bench in the Foreman’s Cottage, The Tape Loom and the Stitching Pony and the sausage stuffer – check last month’s blog if you missed it! Some new developments in the Village are well worth a mention. The Foreman’s Cottage is receiving a face lift courtesy, in part,…