Carriage Parade Day Events at Warren County History Center and Glendower

Warren County History Center
 

It's December 7, Lebanon's Horse Drawn Carriage Parade Day and we have some special things going on at the History Center and the Old Post Office.

"Zachariah Johnson" our 1898 story teller will be on the museum's "Village Green" for FREE story hours 11:30am, 2:30pm and 3:30pm.

Our gift shop is open but the main museum exhibits are closed with the exception of the Village Green.

Little kids love our free train exhibit featuring a collection of Walt Disney trains donated to the museum.

Little kids love our free train exhibit. All the trains are Disney.

Civil War Cane

Lebanon has one of the oldest Masonic Lodges in the State of Ohio.  Anyone who was anyone in this part of the state during the 19th century was a Mason. That statement still holds true today.

Our own Steve Kaiser (he's the museum's accountant)  is just completing his first term as Grand Master of the Lebanon Masons and stopped by on Tuesday to show us one of the artifacts on display at the Lebanon Masonic Lodge.

Durbin Wards Civil War Souvenir cane

After the Civil War veterans of the Union Army gathered together calling themselves the Grand Army of the Republic. They met for reunions at least once a year, marched in numerous parades and celebrated their service. We often see carved wooden canes commemorating  various Civil War battles.

General Durbin Ward, the first man from Warren County to volunteer for the Civil War, was also a Mason.  A man named Perce Reese presented him with this cane carved with Masonic symbols to commemorate Ward's service in the Civil War. Ward's widow donated the cane to the Masonic lodge in Lebanon.  General Durbin Ward was the second owner of our Glendower Historic Mansion. He and his wife Elizabeth Probasco Ward moved into the house in 1868. He died there in 1886.

From the condition of the tip, the cane appears to have been well used.
 

The Warren County History Center has several other Civil War commemorative canes including one for the Little Round Top offensive in the battle of Gettysburg.


Steve Kaiser shows the head of the cane carved like an animal paw.

 

 



Fall Happenings at WCHS | Antique Show, Flea Market, Civil War Soldier's Wake at Glendower

Fall is always a busy season for WCHS and this year is no exception.  With several annual events that draw large crowds, we are always thankful for the selfless help that our dedicated volunteers offer to help plan and staff our venues.

Thank you, volunteers!  Our successes at WCHS depend on you!

Here's a photo sampling of what WCHS has been up to thus far this fall:

Antique Show & Sale, October 5 & 6, 2013 

 

 A few lovely offerings from our loyal vendors:

 

 

 

Flea Market, September 27 & 28, 2013

 

Located at the Lebanon Conference and Banquet Center (Old Post Office)

 

 

 

 

Civil War Encampment and Soldier's Wake at Glendower, September 28 & 29, 2013

 

Many thanks to our Gendower volunteers for presenting this first ever Civil War Soldier's Wake at Glendower!

 

 

 

 

 

Civil War Encampment at Glendower Featured Soldier's Wake

 

The White Mountain Grass blue grass band, gathered round the cannon on Sunday.

The annual Civil War Encampment at Glendower Historic Mansion this past weekend was once again a fantastic success. It is always a pleasure to work with the Ohio Valley Civil War Association, whose authentic encampment on the lawn at Glendower allows visitors to experience a slice of Civil War life from the viewpoint of the soldiers and their entourage.  The weather was beautiful and the booming cannon could be heard throughout downtown Lebanon whose streets were filled with visitors to the annual Country Applefest street fair.

This year, our dedicated Glendower costumed interpreters added to the Civil War ambiance by staging a Civil War Soldier's Wake inside Glendower.  Visitors to Glendower were welcomed by the sorrowful sight of black mourning swags tied around the columns that flank the back door.  Inside the sitting room, the grieving relatives of the young soldier gathered round to tell the tale of his life and his death. 

The front door at Glendower draped in mourning.

 

 

Mourners paying tribute.

 

 

 



The housemaid, Kitty, overcome with grief.

Flea Market Returns Friday and Saturday September 27 & 28

Lovely items for sale at the Flea Market

The quarterly Flea Market hosted by WCHS will take place this Friday and Saturday, September 27-28, at the Lebanon Conference and Banquet Center, formerly the old post office.

 

Hours for the Flea Market are 10:00 am to 4:00 pm on Friday and 10:00 am to 5:00 pm on Saturday. Admission is free. 

 

In addition, the Lebanon Garden Club will sell raffle tickets for their entirely handmade quilt on Saturday.   A group of Lebanon City School parents will also sell specialty coffee in the bean and home baked goods for on Saturday during the Flea Market. They are working to raise money to send their children to Space Camp.

Come browse our wares of furnishings, objets d'art, decor, books, and more.  This is a great opportunity to do some early Christmas shopping. 





Downton Abbey Comes to America: Special Exhibit at WCHS

Image courtesy of PBS

Inspired by Lady Grantham

Fans of the international  hit series on PBS, Downton Abbey, love the show for many reasons: the class issues that arise between the cast of characters from post-Edwardian England, including the Crawley family and their servants; the spotlight on post-World War I history and interwar history from a British viewpoint; and, not surprisingly, the beautiful period fashions worn by the women on the show.

Inspired by the fashions on Downton Abbey, the Warren County History Center has a new special Exhibit, Downton Abbey Comes to America.  Mallory Hellenthal, an intern from Miami University, was in charge of mounting the exhibit this spring with the help of Jenny Gauche, one of our dedicated volunteers.

Featuring dresses and fashions generously donated by ladies from the King family, founders of the King Powder Company, this exhibit showcases clothing and accessories purchased by the King sisters during their travels throughout Europe and America from 1912-1928.

This special exhibit spans both the first floor and the second floor of the Warren County History Center.  Admission to the Warren County History Center is $5.00 for adults, $4.50 for seniors 65+, and $3.50 for students ages 5-18.  Our hours of operation are Tuesday-Friday, 10 am - 4 pm and Saturday, 10 am - 5 pm.  We are closed Sundays, Mondays, and holidays.

For more information about admission to the Warren County History Center, please click here.

Glendower Gardens Well Tended by Local Master Gardeners

Volunteers from the Warren Couny Master Gardener Association

The large gardens and picturesque trees at our very own Glendower Mansion have been under the devoted care of several local volunteers from the Warren County Master Gardener Association in recent weeks.  Several garden beds have been weeded and the day lilies on both sides of the allee have been raked and tidied up for the fall.

One of the biggest jobs that this group has tackled has been cleaning out the existing drain tiles that lie on the east and west side of the lily-lined allee.  This time-consuming job has several steps: uncovering the stone tiles by shoveling the dirt that lies over the tiles into a wheel barrow; taking the weeds and grass out of the just-shoveled dirt; pulling out the stone tiles themselves and shoveling the just weeded dirt into where the tiles were; and lastly putting the stone tiles back in place back on top of the weeded dirt.  

This method was the brainchild of Janet Maney who uncovered the west side of the drain tile; Dan Pawlowski is using this same method to uncover the east side of the drain tile.

All of the large trees in the front of Glendower were trimmed by Jim and Rae Lynn Beck. 

We at WCHS are thankful to all of the dedicated volunteers from the Warren County Master Gardener Association who have given their time this season to the hard work of upkeeping and beautifying the gardens at Glendower.  We are so grateful for their green thumbs!

Lebanon Cemetery Tour Sept 13 and 14

Our annual Lantern Light Cemetery Tour of Lebanon Cemetery will take place Friday evening, September 13 from 7 to 9 pm and repeats on Saturday evening at the same time. The Glendower Historic Characters will be on hand to portray our dear departed citizens of the past.

Liz Grauwelman as Lucy Boake and Nate Grauwelman as Rigdon Williams
 

Our Historian,  John Zimkus will be leading the tour which begins at the grave of the famous opera star, Laura Bellini and continues into the Civil War section where you meet civil war nurse Amanda Stokes and civil war soldiers Rigdon Williams and Durbin Ward. The tour travels on through what we call the Gilded Age section where you meet famed educator Alfred Holbrook and Golden Lamb ghost Sarah Stubbs. We finish the tour with a visit from a Shaker sister. In all, guests will meet 20 of Lebanon's most famous citizens of the past.

 We limit the number of guests to 40 and there are still plenty of spaces left for each night. The cost is just $20 per person. You can purchase on line or by calling 513-932-1817 or visit the museum at 105 S. Broadway, Lebanon, OH 45036.

Questers Visit the Museum

Historian John Zimkus, with Sally, Brenda and Cathy of The Questers

We are always on the look out for groups interested in historic preservation and were thrilled to run across an organization called The Questers.  The Questers are an International organization with over 900 chapters and 13,000 members living in the United States and Canada. Their mission is two fold. Locally the individual chapters support their members in their search for all kinds of antiques and collectibles.  At the same time the organization supports historic preservation with local grants to worthy causes. 

WCHS is interested in starting our own chapter of The Questers and invite any of you who are interested to contact us at the museum at 513-932-1817 or wchs@wchsmuseum.org.


Vicky, Sally, Brenda and Cathy on the steps of Harmon Hall.

The Questers Web Site





 

Of Tea and Herbs and Cucumber Water

Saturday afternoon, August 17, was just a perfect day for a garden tea. The house and the garden were lovely against the backdrop of a perfect summer day filled with sunshine and pleasantly warm dry air.  Twenty-eight guests and six staff members enjoyed a variety of delicious homemade  cookies and tea sandwiches, deviled eggs and scones all set out on the big dining room table at Glendower Historic Mansion.  Tea was served from the house's silver tea service and included traditional black tea and a special spiced peach tea. The peach tea was the most popular.

Out in the garden Mark Howard offered a very refreshing and delicious Cucumber Water to drink with jam sandwiches made with a sandwich press from Pampered Chef. Mark has promised to share the cucumber water recipe in the next post.

Herbal Bouquet

Everyone seemed to enjoy the herb garden talk. Guests learned about the various medicinal properties of herbs easily grown here in southern Ohio while they munched on Shaker Rosewater Cookies. Rosewater is an old fashioned flavoring which was often used in place of vanilla. The remaining Shaker community at Sabbathday Lake, Maine makes rose water which we sell in our museum gift shop.

 Several of the flowering herbs were used as garnish on the deviled eggs and the tea sandwiches. The tiny purple flowers of the anise hyssop graced the deviled eggs and open faced carrot tea sandwiches. Dill was the garnish for the open faced cucumber sandwiches.

Unfortunately none of the staff remembered to bring a camera, so I snapped this picture of a vase of herbs that were displayed at the herb talk.  Included are the bright blue flowers of borage, the purple blooms of anise hyssop, a common marigold, some late blooming hydrangeas and a sprig of butterfly bush. These medicinal herbs may not have a place in our medicine cabinets today but their lovely flowers are very attractive to both bees and butterflies making them well worth growing in any sunny garden.

Garden Tea at Glendower

Glendower has been very fortunate over the last several years to have the Warren County Master Gardeners working two days a week to beautify its once neglected garden.  To show them our appreciation and to give guests a chance to learn more about Glendower and its garden, we are hosting a proper British Garden Tea, next Saturday, August 17 from 3:00 pm to 5:00pm


The front portico and garden allee

in the garden (inside if it rains). The cost is $20 per person and includes the tour of the house, an herb lecture and tea. Glendower will not be open for regular tours during that time.

Guests will have the opportunity to meet the gardeners and learn about their work and their future plans for Glendower as they tour the grounds sipping tea and munching on scones, cucumber sandwiches and other tea tidbits. We promise to give your afternoon a nice lift without spoiling your supper.

Glendower tour guide and volunteer Mark Howard will be on hand to demonstrate how to make herbal tea and some ideas for setting an attractive tea table. Samples will be available to try.  Mark is a Pampered Chef rep and has graciously agreed to sponsor this part of the event.

One of the Master Gardeners' first projects was establishing an herb garden at Glendower. Here in August many of the plants are ready to harvest. The garden was originally planted as a Civil War era medicinal herb garden meant to care for the women and children left at home during that time. A few of the herbs also double as culinary herbs.

Executive Director Vicky Van Harlingen will give short 10 minute lectures on the herb garden every half hour beginning at 3:15.

Atlatl

The Warren County History Center has one of the finest collections of prehistoric Native American spear heads in any museum in the country. In the past we've referred to these as arrow heads when in fact our pre-historic peoples didn't have bows and arrows. Our "arrow heads" were actually spear points.  This week we took delivery on a reproduction of an atlatl - a device used to help throw a spear.

Museum Intern Nicolette Dahdah demonstrates the atlatl, a device used to help throw the spear.

Ohio's pre-historic native people lived a primitive existence compared to their European cousins living at the same time.  Most of the six simple machines such as the wheel, the pulley and the screw were unknown to the Native Americans.  They did however have the wedge and the lever, both of which are represented in the spear point (wedge) and atlatl (lever) which was used to help throw the spear farther and with more force. 



 

The end of the spear rests against a piece of bone in the atlatl.

Hold the spear in place against the atlatl with your fingers.
 

The atlatl helped the prehistoric hunters throw the spear farther and with more force, making it possible for them to take down dangerous animals from a distance.  The museum recently purchased a reproduction spear and atlatl from R.W. Stewart, Neo-lithic technician and owner of Archaic Arts.  The spear shaft is hollow on one end so that a shorter spear shaft with the spear attached can be inserted in the hollow end. That way, one long spear shaft and atlatl could throw multiple points - like having multiple bullets shot from one gun. See more information at www.arachicartifacts.com.

Bone Family Desks Arrives

A descendant of the Bone family of Warren County has sent us a desk that was used by her great grandfather when he worked here as an engineer.

The Bone family has a history of great inventions. One of their family members invented reinforced concrete making it possible for Lebanon to build the concrete bridge on South Broadway.


This desk was built around 1850 and has four drawers, two cubbies on either side and a hidden compartment.

 
 


In the picture above the desk shows a pretty cornice board across the top. The cornice is actually hinged and lifts up to show cubby holes.

The desk is on display in the Mote Gallery for now but will be moving into the surveyors office as its permanent home.

We thank Mrs. Betty Bone Schiess for her generosity. Mrs. Schiess is 90 years old and had the desk shipped to us from her home in New York.