A photo of the French-Hollinshead House from the book “Genealogy of the Descendants of Thomas French, Vol. 1,” by Howard B. French. The house will be featured on a Sept. 25 tour of historic Moorestown homes.
The Historical Society of Moorestown and Saving Historic Moorestown are partnering to present the House Tour of Historic Moorestown, an event that will serve to further the two organizations’ shared missions to promote history and preserve landmarks by highlighting architectural treasures in town.
The event will be held rain or shine from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 25, and all ticket sales are considered a donation. No refunds will be issued. The tour of houses that were standing during the Revolutionary War and are called Witness Houses will be an opportunity to see inside eight homes and the grounds of three.
“This is going to be a Revolutionary Witness House Tour,” said Julie Maravich, president of Saving Historic Moorestown. “We call them Witness Houses because these are houses that were standing during the American Revolution, so they were standing from 1775 to 1783, essentially, the era of the Revolutionary War.
“They witnessed the events that happened during the war.”
Tickets are $25 each and can be purchased through Eventbrite; the event is free for children 12 and under. A QR code will link to Eventbrite and can be located on both www.savinghistoricmoorestown.org and www.moorestownhistory.org. Exact tour locations will be available the night before the event. Participants should wear walking shoes and have fully charged phones to access the full interactive experience.
Visitors will present their Eventbrite confirmation at the original location of the recreated Moore’s Tavern, on the front porch of Princeton Bank on Main and Union Streets. Attendees will report there to receive a map and guide of designated tour sites and the site will be a home base where phones can be charged and refreshments will be available for a $5 donation.
Upon arriving at each tour site, attendees will scan a unique QR code that will bring up a home’s story, photos and history. The first entry will be at 10 a.m. and the last at 6:45 p.m.
The sites are located on Main Street (originally King’s Highway), laid out in the 1680s, from Lenola Road to the beginning of the Marne Highway, with the addition of Smith-Cadbury Mansion on High Street. The mansion will have cases of Revolutionary War artifacts discovered by local detectorist Kevin Kramarski, including coins, buttons and buckles.
Main Street restaurants will participate with lunch specials; details have yet to be decided. The Friends Meeting House will be open from 5 to 7 p.m. only and will provide desserts crafted from authentic Colonial recipes and music.
“We’re very excited to be able to do this,” Maravich said, “and we really feel it’s a once-in-a-generation type of a thing.”
