By: Jake Uitti
MONTGOMERY The Van Harlingen Historical Society will hold its annual May in Montgomery benefit from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday.
This year’s event honors Montgomery’s history and will include a celebration of the reprinting of Montgomery author and historian Ursula Brecknell’s book, "Montgomery Township: An Historic Community 1702-1972."
Also, a tour of historic homes will be offered.
This year’s selection of historic homes is scattered through the villages of Harlingen and Blawenburg to the countryside of Belle Mead and Skillman and into the Sourland Mountains.
Homes featured are a Greek Revival 1830s parsonage on the National Register of Historic Places; two 19th-century houses joined into one large home with a blend of formal and country feel; a grand Victorian with expansive porches, unique staircase and a recently added state-of-the-art kitchen; a pastoral 1848 stone farmhouse with fanciful interior and pond and barn; an early 20th-century barn with silo converted into a stylish residence; and a compact house, the first built in Harlingen, recently recognized by the Somerset County Cultural and Heritage Commission for the owner’s meticulous restoration.
Van Harlingen Historical Society volunteers will be serving refreshments at each home.
In addition to the tour, Ms. Brecknell will be signing copies of her book, which is for sale for $10 at the historic parsonage house on the tour.
The book has been acclaimed as the best account of the township’s origins, as well as its evolution over two centuries.
With no copies available of the original, the Van Harlingen Historical Society has financially supported the book’s reprinting, which has a new outer wrap, new introduction, index, notes, corrections and map of the township.
After May in Montgomery, copies will be sold at the Historical Society headquarters on Route 601 during library hours, the second Saturday of each month from 10 a.m. to noon, and at the Mary Jacobs Library in Rocky Hill.
Saturday’s tour starts from the Blawenburg Reformed Church, located on Route 518. Tickets are $25 and are available at the church from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. For more information, call (609) 466-8009.

