KEYPORT – Kicking off the Christmas season with its annual Candlelight House Tour, the Keyport Historical Society will allow residents to visit its new museum.
“Our mission is unwavering [and] to preserve the history of Keyport by collecting, restoring, archiving, displaying artifacts and documents pertaining to its rich history of farming, shipping, oystering and other industrial endeavors, as well as Keyport’s continuing evolution. We will also continue to develop and present educational, entertaining and social programs that highlight significant aspects of Keyport’s history,” said Nancy Smalling, Keyport Historical Society president.
The organization celebrated the opening of its new museum on Oct. 28, however the museum will resume regular weekend hours in the spring, according to Smalling.
Guests can visit the museum on the day of the organization’s annual Candlelight House Tour at 2-7 p.m., on Dec. 9, according to Smalling.
The Keyport Historical Society is a non-profit organization that was formed in 1972 after a group of residents saved artifacts from the Kearny Mansion before it was demolished. The borough began as an 800-acre plantation settled by the Kearny family in 1714, so the salvaged artifacts were an important link to Keyport’s rich history, according to Smalling.
The group opened the Steamboat Dock Museum in 1976 and it became an integral part of the community, housing more than 4,000 Keyport artifacts, according to Smalling.
“In October of 2012, Superstorm Sandy literally tore the museum apart. Although many items had been moved to safer locations, no one could have imagined the destruction of our beloved museum and the loss of so many of our valued items,” Smalling said.
After Sandy, the historical society was determined to share in the resiliency shown by the borough’s citizens and businesses by finding a way to regroup and re-establish itself as a cultural and historical asset to the community. So in 2013, the historical society started to search for a new home and apply for grants to help the organization achieve its dream, according to Smalling.
“In 2015, KHS was awarded a Sandy Resiliency Grant from the New Jersey Economic Development Agency to assist us in buying the property at 34 Main Street in Keyport, an 1836 Victorian. With a great deal of work from dedicated volunteers, the new Keyport Historical Society Museum officially opened with much fanfare on Saturday, Oct. 28, exactly five years since the last time we had a museum,” Smalling said.
Once the organization was awarded the grant, it needed to make the building ADA compliant by adding a ramp system and a ADA-accessible rest room. The historical society utilized a substantial portion of its own treasury to accomplish those tasks, along with turning the house into a public space by adding emergency exit lighting, according to Smalling.
“In addition, we had to turn what was a home into exhibit space by adding lighting, UV protective window coverings, an air conditioning system and other upgrades. Since we are not an entity owned by the Borough of Keyport, but a separate organization, we raised money, utilized the talents of a volunteers, and relied on local businesses to donate labor for much of this work,” Smalling said.
During the Candlelight House Tour, vintage-style trolleys will take visitors around town where they can wander through a wide variety of homes of all styles and ages, according to Smalling.
Tickets for the house tour can be purchased in advance for $20 at Espresso Joe’s, located at 50 W Front St., the Keyport Public Library, located at 109 Broad St., or at the society’s website. Tickets can also be purchased on the day of the tour for $25 at the museum beginning at noon on Dec. 9, according to Smalling.
“While we’re proud to have our new museum up and running, there is still much to do. We have additional rooms to turn into exhibit space, a bathroom that we will be turning into a small service kitchen to allow us to host meetings and events, and upgrades to our storage building to make it more suitable to our needs,” Smalling said. “All of this takes dedicated volunteers and a creative approach to financing through grants and fundraising. I encourage anyone who loves Keyport to get involved.”
For more information about the Keyport Historical Society’s new museum visit www.keyporthistoricalsociety.com.
Contact Vashti Harris at [email protected].